By the time you read this, Soundgarden’s 4th official LP, Superunknown and its first single, "Spoonman", will be all over the place, and deservingly so. Not many hard rock discs have been so anxiously awaited, and very few have actually surpassed all expectation, as this album has. Vocalist Chris Cornell, drummer Matt Cameron, bassist Ben Shepherd and guitarist Kim Thayil have managed to fulfill the ultimate bandwish with Superunknown. It sounds exactly like Soundgarden, yet branches out adventurously in several directions. Plus there’s a lot of it! At just over 70 minutes (15 songs) long, it won’t leave anyone feeling deprived.

Songs run the mood gamut from the heavy, churning "Let Me Drown" to the beautiful, despairing "Fell On Black Days", wonderfully spacey "Head Down", and dirge-like "Fourth of July;" the ominous "Mailman" and "Limo Wreck" are more reminiscent of earlier albums. It’s a total something- for- everyone situation, leaving the impression that the band was particularly inspired this time. Not necessarily, says Chris, phoning from rehearsals in Seattle. "There were moments when I was [inspired], when I was writing alone or I would hear something that someone else was doing that they’d bring in. But when we play it all as a band, it takes a while to make songs work, and we definitely went through a period where there weren’t too many of them that were sounding very good, just because there was so much material." Unlike other bands whose songs come together in a jam situation, the four highly individual members of Soundgarden write things separately, then "everyone has to learn other people’s songs and other people’s parts and other people’s sounds, and then try to make it work with their style."

Although creating the music for Superunknown was obviously a complicated process, in the end the band generally got the desired effect. "It seemed easier to predict and get what we wanted this time," says Chris. "Not easier, it was actually a lot of work, so we got it, which is proof that if you do really try, you can sort of pin down what you want. Because many bands’ difficulty in the studio is exacting what your vision is," Michael Beinhorn, who co- produced Superunknown with the band, helped them get results. Says Chris of their initial hookup, "I like the way a lot of his records sounded, the Chili Peppers record (Uplift Mofo Party Plan) he did sounded really good and the Soul Asylum record (Grave Dancers Union) sounded really good and he did a record with Raging Slab that was never released and I think it was their best record. It’s like he did everybody’s best records of bands that I liked as far as the way they sounded and some of the performances, so that’s why we wanted to meet him, we got along with him pretty well. We don’t always do that with people."

Mid- way through recording the album, Soundgarden escaped the studio for a short tour with Neil Young. In retrospect, "It was crazy," says Chris, "It was kind of stupid, but good just because it gave us a little bit of road experience on some of the new songs, gave us a little bit of road time period, because it had been a long time since we played live and if we had not done that then the Australian tour probably would have been kind of scary."

He’s referring to the recently completed (at press time) tour of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, Soundgarden’s first visit to those countries. The audiences must have been happy to have them. "I guess they were," mused Chris. "It’s hard to tell in Japan, if anyone’s happy or not because they’re kind of reserved… It seemed kind of intense," he says of the four Japanese shows. "There were a couple of shows that were normal, but there was really intense security; it didn’t seem like anyone was really allowed to do anything other than stand in front of the seat that they had a ticket for." As for the fanatical fan followings we often hear about, "Yes, there’s a small group of people that follow bands around and make stuff for them," Chris confirms. "I don’t think they follow all the bands around. They’re only allowed to like one genre of music over there, it seems like. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of crossover; if you like one band or one kind of music, that’s pretty much it for you; I know that’s generalization!"

Generally, "The Australian part was probably more fun that the Japan part." Aside from headlining Sydney’s Big Day Out, described by Chris as a "big, long day out," the sightseeing was more relaxing. "Pretty much everywhere you go in Australia there’s a beach nearby and it was summer over there; the weather was great. For those reasons it was way cooler to be there and hang out."

With the current musical climate being what it is (open to more adventurous bands) and Soundgarden’s LP being as diverse as it is, there’s a good chance it could sell millions. Chris and the band are pretty private people. Does he ever worry about the attention that kind of success would bring? "Not really. It’s kind of a waste of time to think about it. It’s nothing you can really prepare for," he states. "We do have a lot more experience than most bands that I’ve been involved with or know that have been in that position recently. I mean, we’ve been a band for ten years. Jeff and Stone from Pearl Jam, they’ve been around for quite awhile, so I think they were kind of ready for whatever happened. I think that experience is probably the best thing you can have going for you, going into a situation like that, but that doesn’t mean I’m saying we can handle it because I don’t know if we could or not."

Then of course, there’s the small matter of Soundgarden’s hometown, the recent subject of exhausting media hype. Have things calmed down at all? "We’re confronted by the idea and the hype more when we’re not even here than when we are here. I mean it’s more interviews and being elsewhere and it’s more in print that it is a matter of hanging out at home and getting bothered by people." It must get awfully tiring after a while, having to talk about "the scene." "Oh, we’ve been doing it for probably about five years," sighs Chris, "Starting with the underground magazines, all the way up through Rolling Stone, everyone has done a Seattle story. It started small and got bigger and bigger and bigger, and people are still doing it." Hard to believe they’re still pushing that angle. "Yeah, it’s been going on forever," he laughs. "Now it’s kind of switched to the ‘Grunge is dead’ thing, meaning that grunge is this ‘people’s music’, hip sort of underground, nobody knows about it, your parents don’t know about it thing. That was dead as soon as Nirvana hit! But it’s not supposed to matter to us; we’re supposed to be a metal band, right?," he chuckles.

Somehow it’d hard to believe that Soundgarden cares about what they’re supposed to be. That disregard for convention of any kind is what’s kept them going and growing. They’re not the easiest band to pin down, musically or personally. Suddenly the LP title makes perfect sense.

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