Colors, Kick Drums + KISS - 5 Things We Learned from Kim Thayil's New Memoir

Here are five new things we learned after reading Kim Thayil's new memoir A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond.

Thayil was first approached to write the book prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-written with journalist Adem Tepedelen, A Screaming Life was initially announced in 2025 and is finally out today (June 9).

The biography covers an incredibly wide range of topics across a partly non-linear timeline. Throughout it, the guitarist jumped around from the formation of Soundgarden and the early days of the Seattle "grunge" scene to his experience growing up as an Indian-American in Park Forest, Ill. all the way to today.

A Screaming Life is an honest, vulnerable account of the pressures of success as a band grows in popularity, the quieter years between Soundgarden's breakup in 1997 and their 2010 reunion, the group's final set of songs and the complicated aftermath of losing bandmate and co-founder Chris Cornell in 2017.

The book is a must-read for any fan of Soundgarden and the Seattle music scene of the '80s and '90s. If that's not enough to convince you, then keep reading to see some really interesting things we learned while reading it.

1. Kim Thayil Has Synesthesia

Perhaps one of the reasons Soundgarden's music was so "colorful" is because Thayil has synesthesia — a condition where the brain channels sensory information through multiple unrelated senses [via Cleveland Clinic]. The guitarist explained that because of it, he's always been able to associate colors and shapes with different words, letters, numbers and so forth.

"Because of this perception, in Soundgarden I could often advocate on behalf of arrangements or songs or decision-making within songs based on the colors and shapes a certain passage evoked," he wrote.

"I might object to one part that someone was proposing, I might object because it was purple and clashed with other parts."

2. Soundgarden Recorded an Album Before 'Ultramega OK'

Although Ultramega OK was the first album Soundgarden ever released, it wasn't the first one they recorded. While Cornell's friend Scott Sundquist was still the band's drummer in the mid-'80s, they recorded around 10 or 12 songs at the Crow Recording Studio in the Seattle area — and this was before they even recorded the Screaming Life EP with Sub Pop.

They funded the project themselves and recorded all of the tracks in about a week, but unfortunately never released it. The album was essentially shelved due to technical issues, mainly involving Sundquist's kick drum (or lack thereof). Thayil claimed he tried to push his bandmates to release it anyway, but Cornell and Hiro Yamamoto were adamant about the drums sounding right.

READ MORE: The Metal Bands Soundgarden's Kim Thayil Listened to in the '80s

"We did our best to mix the recording, but we knew it was dead on arrival. It's stayed buried ever since — no one outside the band ever heard it, maybe a few friends at most. The hard part was realizing the engineer — who'll remain nameless — should've caught the issue while we were tracking," the guitarist remembered.

He didn't mention whether they reworked any of the tracks for a later release, but confirmed that one of them was titled "Beast."

3. Two Other Bands Tried to Recruit Cornell as Their Vocalist in the '80s

After Soundgarden released their debut EP Screaming Life through Sub Pop in 1987, two other groups expressed interest in having Cornell sing for them, according to Thayil: Corrosion of Conformity and Faith No More.

Corrison of Conformity allegedly reached out to Sub Pop directly to see if Cornell would be interested in joining their group, but the singer didn't want to relocate from Seattle to North Carolina and lose the relationships and band he'd formed. Faith No More sought after Cornell's pipes following the firing of original vocalist Chuck Mosley. They eventually hired Mike Patton in '88.

"I doubt that would've been the right fit for Chris," Thayil wrote. "Soundgarden matched his voice, both literally and figuratively. That multi-octave range — so out of step with the raw, often tuneless delivery of punk — wasn't always easy for people to place. But it was real. And it was ours."

4. Gene Simmons Personally Asked Soundgarden to Cover a KISS Song

To celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band, KISS organized a tribute album titled Kiss My Ass: Classic KISS Regrooved. Released in 1994, the record features covers of KISS songs by artists from Anthrax and Lenny Kravitz to country singer Garth Brooks.

But Gene Simmons apparently wanted Soundgarden to contribute a song too.

Thayil recalled receiving a phone call from Simmons in the early '90s asking if Soundgarden were interested in participating. As a longtime KISS fan, Thayil was ecstatic, but he didn't think Cornell or Ben Shepherd would go for it.

Nevertheless, he entertained the conversation anyway and told Simmons he felt that Soundgarden could do a great version of "Parasite" from Hotter Than Hell. Simmons allegedly countered Thayil's suggestion with "War Machine" from Creatures of the Night, to which Thayil replied, "'Shock Me' would be a fun one."

"'Parasite' and 'Shock Me' are all good, but maybe you should save them for an Ace Frehley tribute album," Simmons responded to the guitarist.

"Matt [Cameron] was of course interested, but Chris looked at me with this smile that said, Fuck no. Ben had the same sentiment: Fuck that shit," Thayil noted. "Chris and Ben not only never liked KISS, but Ben actively hated them. So I had to tell Gene we weren't gonna do it."

Thayil said Simmons phoned him a few more times about it to see if his bandmates had changed their minds. They hadn't.

5. A Riff on 'King Animal' Was Written in the '90s

While the seeds for a Soundgarden reunion had already been planted by the time 2010 rolled around, Thayil revealed that it was Cameron who actually convinced the band to go back into the studio together and check out some material he'd written over the years that he didn't think worked with Pearl Jam.

Cornell had mentally shelved a riff that Thayil showed him in the '90s and wrote lyrics for it, too — and it eventually became the King Animal track "A Thousand Days Before." Thayil came up with the original idea while they were working on Superunknown or Down on the Upside.

"I had demoed it then, but nothing came of it. I remember Ben being intimidated by the riff, though it was simpler than it sounded," he recalled in the book. "It was surprising when Chris dug it up years later during the making of King Animal. He had written lyrics for it, which amazed me."

Soundgarden, 'A Thousand Days Before'

Check out a condensed history of grunge told in 13 albums below.