Soundgarden's Kim Thayil says the word 'grunge' was nothing but a marketing ploy

A picture of Soundgarden taken in Japan in 1994

(Image credit: Photo by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images)

Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil says the bands who made up the Seattle grunge scene never used the word to describe themselves.

Instead, says Thayil, the word 'grunge' was used as a marketing mechanism by people in the industry rather than the artists.

Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees and a host of others were classed as grunge bands when Seattle's hard rock scene started to make waves around the world in the 1990s.

But the band never bought into the term, preferring to concentrate on the music itself.

Thayil tells Pete Thorn: "We knew that this was something that was not necessarily going on in other scenes or other cities.

"People were being very true and allegiant to the punk rock ethos, and Seattle was doing something different. We were very aware of that. We didn’t think it was grunge. That became some marketing thing later."

Thayil points to the fact that many of the bands labelled as grunge acts sounded very different to each other.

He adds: "The bands became more distinctly different with time. But I think that we came from a similar place initially. We were all at the same shows watching the same bands."

Grunge is often credited with being the final nail in the coffin of hair metal. But Thayil says the main reason nobody is Seattle wasn't listening to hair metal bands is because they didn't have televisions.

He says: "None of us were listening to hair metal. It’s not because we didn’t like it. I didn’t get MTV. I don’t even think I had a TV. And when we did have a TV, it was just broadcast.

"You know how I got to see Soundgarden videos on TV? Going on tour. If you were lucky you’d have a hotel that had ESPN and MTV. So you’d catch up on all the Mariners scores and then maybe if you were lucky you’d catch one of your friend’s videos. But I didn’t have a TV at home until like 1995."

The full interview can be viewed below.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.