Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [79]
ERIC JOHNSON I met the Soundgarden guys when I booked them for a show in Ellensburg, in ’86 or ’87. I remember I took this class on George Orwell in college, and his world is all about the proletarian, the worker guy, and he just describes dirt and grime and these heavy working situations. Then these guys showed up and they’re kind of these strange Orwellian creatures. Matt had a red Volkswagen van and they were all working on the clutch or something, so all of them were under this car working. They all had work pants on and boots rolled up, and Chris looked like he just got done workin’ in a steel yard. I thought they looked so cool.
The first tour I ever did with them was on the West Coast. Gunny Junk came about on a trip to L.A. It was when Guns N’ Roses was huge and we all made up our own little names as we were going to do a show at the Club Lingerie, I think it was. We were all laughing and making up names and the next thing I knew, I was answering to Gunny Junk.
STUART HALLERMAN Kim would say, “We’re all about sex and drugs and rock and roll! Except minus the sex and drugs.” They were saints on the road. They each had their girlfriends at home, so there was no road head or bitches or anything like that.
And they weren’t big partiers. Especially in those early years. I brought a little bag of weed on the road with me once, and nobody would smoke it. It should’ve been gone three days out, but I still had this little bud weeks later. And then I got busted for it in Louisiana. Got searched for hours on the side of the road, but didn’t get arrested. That’s why the Louisiana DEA appears in the credits of Louder Than Love.
ART CHANTRY When Soundgarden were doing their first major-label record, we were all in my design studio. Susan and Chris were kind of mumbling among themselves ’cause they were like a unit that worked independently of the rest of the band. Whenever Chris spoke, he’d mumble into Susan’s ear, and then Susan would turn and talk to the band, and if the band ever wanted to talk to Chris, they’d talk to Susan and Susan would mumble in Chris’s ear.
I said, “What’s the title of the record?” They said, “Well, we don’t even have one yet.” And I said, “Why don’t you call it Louder Than Shit?” I always wanted to see a band call its album that. Someone, maybe Kim, goes, “No, no, we’ll call it Louder Than Fuck!” The band thought that was great. And then Susan stepped up and said something to the effect of, “No band I’m involved with is gonna have fuck in the title of their record.” And so when the record came out it was Louder Than Love. It was such a huge-sounding band that when I saw that, I kinda groaned.
MARK PICKEREL When I was in the Screaming Trees, it was really just Van and I that were experimenting with anything at all, and I kept it strictly to booze and pot. Lanegan was totally clean during that period, because after an accident with some farm equipment in ’86 or ’87—he almost lost his leg—the doctor was like, “With this injury, if you keep drinking, you’re not gonna make it.” So he had to go cold turkey when he was only about 22.
MARK LANEGAN [The tractor] was coming right for my balls. The thing about the wheels is they’re so big, by the time one foot would get loose and I would roll over trying to get away, the other one would already be caught under the tire. Man, to this day it seems like it took a million years to get all the way over me, but it really must have just took a couple of seconds. It crushed my legs, fucked them up pretty good.
MARK PICKEREL Van liked to tease and terrorize Lee, even though Lee was his older brother. Van would make up all these little songs that ended with Lee being sexually molested by a trucker or something like that. Lanegan would join in on the chorus and come up with his own lyrics to support this story, and next thing you know the whole band would be singing along and making up a verse. That would be the kind of thing that would continue on for