Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [52]
BRUCE PAVITT I had known Kim since he was probably 11. He used to hang out at my house quite a bit in Park Forest. We went to the same alternative high school together. He was a longtime friend of the family. Soundgarden were probably at the time a little too metal for my taste, but I still thought they were pretty interesting and I think they ultimately became a great band.
KIM THAYIL Bruce had an established brand, with a cool little logo, and contacts throughout the country within the indie network. But Bruce is in debt to his dad at this point. Jonathan did have money, and was ready to put out the record then.
JONATHAN PONEMAN Kim Thayil said, “Look, we wanna work with both of you. I’ve known Bruce since I was a kid back in Park Forest, Illinois. Have you guys ever considered doing something together?” And for some reason I hadn’t ever thought of approaching Bruce. But then it just made all the sense in the world.
KIM THAYIL I called Jon a couple of times and said, “You need to talk to Bruce,” and he said, “I don’t need Bruce.” I called Bruce and said, “You need to talk to Jon.” “I don’t really need Jon.” It was something that I pushed very aggressively, because there wouldn’t have been a Soundgarden record otherwise. Eventually they called each other.
JONATHAN PONEMAN So I was just gonna be an investor in the Soundgarden record. We did a limited-edition single, which was “Hunted Down” backed with “Nothing to Say,” and then the Screaming Life EP. And while working on that project, we both kinda had the same idea at the same time, which is: Let’s make Sub Pop an ongoing concern and let’s document the happening scene that’s going on in Seattle.
GRANT ALDEN You can reduce this to a handful of people who made Seattle happen. Bruce and Jon are clearly on that list. Susan Silver is on that list. Art Chantry is on that list. And without Charles Peterson’s camera and his visuals, I don’t think it would have happened. I don’t think it would have been a cohesive, coherent movement in the way that it was perceived by the outside world.
BRUCE PAVITT The moment that I began envisioning a record label that focused on Seattle bands was when I stepped into a house in the U District called the Room Nine House. The band Room Nine lived there. Charles Peterson lived there, too, and he had printed up photos that he had done of local bands that were literally life-size. Instantly, I was like, Oh, my God, these photos so perfectly capture the energy of the shows.
RON RUDZITIS (a.k.a. Ron Nine; Room Nine/Love Battery singer/guitarist) We lived behind the Rainbow Tavern, which was pretty convenient. My girlfriend at the time knew Charles Peterson, so that’s how I met him. He became my roommate, and all of the sudden, Charles’s friends started coming to hang out. Mark Arm was Charles’s best friend, so Mark was over there all the time. People like Ed Fotheringham, who did everybody’s album covers and was the lead singer for the Thrown Ups. Right around the time Charles moved in, we got to be known as quite the party house.
LILLY MILIC (Top Hat Records store owner; Garrett Shavlik’s wife) The parties were always the same group of people, the same soundtrack. Scratch Acid, Butthole Surfers, the Kinks, Bad Brains—and you would hear that for a whole year. Same party, different place. One thing we would always laugh about is everybody at these parties would immediately stash their beer somewhere—you would have hiding places at each house. When the junkie scene started taking over in Seattle by ’88, ’89, I noticed people weren’t trying to steal my beer as often ’cause they were nodding out.
RON RUDZITIS When Charles first moved in, he goes, “Hey, I want to throw a party!” It turned into one of those out-of-hand things where our next-door neighbor had a water hose and was spraying all the people on the front lawn. I was worried about the house getting burned down