Soundgarden will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on November 8, alongside The White Stripes, Bad Company, Joe Cocker, OutKast, Cyndi Lauper and Chubby Checker. And in a new interview with Rolling Stone, guitarist Kim Thayil reveals that rock and metal artists he believes should be granted the same acknowledgement from the music industry.
Thayil freely admits to writer Andy Greene that seeing the Seattle band inducted into the Rock Hall "just wasn’t something that was on my radar as a goal".
Last week, speaking to Billboard, he said, “I kinda came from a subculture of rock that didn’t quite get what all the fuss is about. Back in the ’80s, ’90s, when the Hall started, I probably was not alone in being part of a punk rock or indie metal scene that had an aversion to the idea. It was kind of hard to wrap my head around both a qualitative appraisal and a quantitative assessment.”
"I’m still trying to process it," the guitarist admits to Andy Greene. "But the people who worked alongside us all those years responded with ear-to-ear grins. And that gave me this context to appraise this induction in ways that I had only understood intellectually from people telling me, 'Well, this is why this is important'."
When Greene suggests that the induction will see Soundgarden entering the same club as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Buddy Holly, Thayil says, "Wow. No, I don’t think realistically I would see myself in the same club as the Beatles or the Stones or Zeppelin because… Jeez, they were already somewhere up here when I was like 5 years old."
The writer goes on ask Thayil about artists he believes should also in the Hall of Fame.
"I did an interview last week ,and the first thing I said was Alice in Chains, and next thing I said was Iron Maiden," the guitarist states. "The third thing I said was Sonic Youth. And... the next thing I said was the New York Dolls."
When Greene mentions Pixies and Motörhead also, Thayil responds, "Pixies, I 100 percent agree. And Motörhead, I, what, 200 percent agree?"
The writer then states that King Crimson being overlooked for membership of this elite club "drives me Insane", and Thayil can't quite believe it either.
"Oh my God. King Crimson isn’t in?" he replies. "What? Robert Fripp? And then later, Adrian Belew? What?"
Read the full Rolling Stone interview with Kim Thayil here.
