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BOB PFEIFER (Epic Records senior vice president A&R; Hollywood Records president) A bidding war ensued. It was very emotional and intense. At one point I felt like throwing my stereo out of the window! I was nuts about that band. I thought I saw God. That was very early in my career. I didn’t have a lot of hits, so I didn’t have a lot of power.

KIM THAYIL Geffen already had a stable of what they considered hard-rock bands, many of which they weren’t working or promoting. We had no interest in being lost in that. Epic had a few hard-rock acts. We liked Bob Pfeifer, but they were also a very large label. A&M wasn’t quite as big and didn’t really have any bands at all that were comparable to us, so we figured we could get their undivided attention.

MATT CAMERON We met Herb Alpert—he was the A in A&M—and he was painting oils in his office and drinking wine and there was a hint of pot smell around. It was kind of a cool boho vibe, and we decided to try to plug in with that.

AARON JACOVES Between the Sub Pop record and the A&M record, there was the SST record, Ultramega OK. We had them signed by that time to A&M, and we licensed them to SST for that record. It was all part of the process. A fanbase is helpful, and I was tryin’ to build it. We don’t wanna fuck this up.

STUART HALLERMAN Every summer, Slim Moon—who later had the Kill Rock Stars label going on—worked with the Olympia parks department and police department to put on a punk-rock show on an August afternoon in Capitol Park. The state capitol is above, the water’s right behind you, and they’d play on a flatbed truck. He’d hire me because I had my own P.A. system. My Name, Nirvana, and Soundgarden were the three bands in ’88. Soundgarden had just done the Fopp EP, so they played all the stuff that was on that.

BEN SHEPHERD Soundgarden played a show in downtown Olympia, a signing party. I remember it was outside. I met Chris for the first time that day, right before they played. Kim introduced me to him. That was the first time I got to see Matt with them. It was like, Oh, now they have a real drummer, and it’s over the top. It was all golden, the sun was going down behind Matt’s blond hair, and all the hardcore kids, like our generation of musicians and fans of music, were there. And the cops were there, and they were allowing it to happen. Olympia cops used to be total fucking pricks. They were definitely scared of punk rockers. They tried to arrest March of Crimes a couple of times for playing there, just for being around: “What are you guys doing? Punker!” At this show, it was like, Wow, even the adults are all right with this. But they’re scared of us still.

STUART HALLERMAN I stepped back from the mixing board to see what it sounded like there. And on the sides of me are these parks department and police sponsors, these uniformed cops. I said to ’em, “How do you like the show?” And one of the cops goes, “You know, I just thought this was gonna be awful music, but this band in particular”—and he’d liked Nirvana—“but this band in particular I thought it was all gonna be dirty lyrics, but it’s really clean, and they’re talented guys!” And we look back at the stage with smiles on our faces, and at the end of “Fopp,” Chris—instead of singing “Fopp and rock!”—is going, “SUCK MY COCK! SUCK MY COCK!” So much for being clean.

After that show, Chris is like, “You know, we’re going on our second tour in about a month. You wanna be our soundman on the road with us?” I’m thinking, Drive all over the country with these beer-soaked punk rockers? “Yeah, sure, I’ll go!”

We get in a van, and in the first hour on the road I realize, These guys get along so great. They’re friends, they’re having fun! They’re not arguing, they’re not talking behind each other’s backs trying to get a new bass player or something like that. That’s part of their success. It made being on tour with them really fun. It was the second tour for their tour manager, this guy Eric Johnson. Gunny Junk. He had this whole L.A. rock-and-roll