Get pumped, ’90s grunge fans: a new Soundgarden record will be coming (at some point). In addition to his fourth solo record Higher Truth (coming September 18), frontman Chris Cornell recently told Rolling Stone that the band is working on new material for an upcoming Soundgarden record. The band previously released their sixth studio record King Animal in 2012 after reuniting two years earlier.
“We’re already working on new material for an album,” said Cornell. “And then I’ve got several other irons in the fire and things going that I won’t mention now. There’s a lot of things coming in addition to Higher Truth, as well as a new Soundgarden album.”
But first, the 51 year-old musician will be touring alongside the sorrow-filled, Brendan O’Brien-produced Higher Truth. “Often times, especially in the context of an acoustic song, I’m motivated to write by some amount of melancholy,” explained Cornell to Rolling Stone. “I listened to a lot of other acoustic albums going into this. There’s a sort of chipper, uptempo nature to a lot of records, like with Jack Johnson, where it sounds great and there’s an intimacy to it. But I don’t have that in me.”
In case you listened to Scream, the rocker’s much-criticized first solo effort in collaboration with hip hop producer Timbaland, Cornell stands by his choice to put it out six years later. “I don’t think there was an reference for [Scream] at the time,” he said. “And obviously the world of recorded and released music is a world that required reference 99 times out of 100 … When I hear a band I’m gonna say something like, ‘It’s a cross between Abba and the band Swans.’ So I get it. The response to the album didn’t surprise me. But I do think there is more context for it now.”
It’s unclear when this new release will come, but Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayii previously said the band would begin recording this year. The new release will come on the heels of the band’s co-headlining 2014 world tour with Nine Inch Nails and their 3 CD compilation box set Tracks Across the Path, released in November 2014.
