Although it had been released more than a year earlier, A&M Records realized that they had in their catalog what was essentially a collaboration between Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, who had both risen to mainstream attention in the months since the album's release with their respective albums, Badmotorfinger and Ten. In the summer of 1992, the album received new attention. Does this make us a commercial rock band? Does it change our motivation when we’re writing a song and making a record? “Hunger Strike” is a statement that I’m staying true to what I’m doing regardless of what comes of it, but I will never change what I’m doing for the purposes of success or money.” We were living our dream, but there was also this mistrust over what that meant. There was a bidding war, which was unusual for any band from Seattle. We were sort of the first band that had attention from labels in a meaningful way. “But ‘Hunger Strike’ came about because of an existential crisis that Soundgarden faced at that moment. This is one of many amazing songs written by Chris. Then I kicked it to the front pickup for the heavier part of the song. I had a '62 reissue Strat and I wanted to use the fourth-position tone setting-between the bridge and middle pickups-for the beginning of the song because I like that softer sound. Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) showed me the riff. I remember thinking that this was a really beautiful song when I heard it. History wrote itself after that, that became the single. We got through a couple choruses of him doing that and suddenly the light bulb came on in my head, this guy's voice is amazing for these low parts. Eddie was sitting there kind of waiting for a rehearsal and I was singing parts, and he kind of humbly-but with some balls-walked up to the mic and started singing the low parts for me because he saw it was kind of hard. When we started rehearsing the songs, I had pulled out "Hunger Strike" and I had this feeling it was just kind of gonna be filler, it didn't feel like a real song. Cornell later said "he sang half of that song not even knowing that I'd wanted the part to be there and he sang it exactly the way I was thinking about doing it, just instinctively." Cornell was having trouble with the vocals at practice, when Vedder stepped in. It features a duet between Cornell and vocalist Eddie Vedder. "Hunger Strike" was written by vocalist Chris Cornell.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |