Ben Shepherd
Eight years on from the unexpected passing of Chris Cornell, Soundgarden‘s Ben Shepherd has teased the release of an unreleased album of new material in a tribute post to his late bandmate.
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In the post shared on Saturday (May 17), Shepherd reflected on the legacy of Cornell, noting he had been reflecting on an unheard song written by the late musician alongside drummer Matt Cameron. “Its a song Chris and Matt wrote ‘The Road Less Traveled’ for our album that has yet to be named,” he explained.
“Just hearing Chris’ voice helps, I know he did that for everyone he knew… help them, he did for me, filled with self doubt and indebtedness and in just his tone knew what I was going through and forgave me like he always did even when he was older,” Shepherd continued. “It’s at this point of recording all of our previous albums I’d get this overwhelming hit of awe, camaraderie, power of creativity, majesty even, and love, from the music, and my bandmates… and I guess just pure life force.”
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Soundgarden disbanded following Cornell’s passing on May 17, 2017, though they have since performed on a handful of occasions with guest vocalists. Most recently, they performed as Nudedragons in December 2024, with Shaina Shepherd on vocal duties.
In 2023, the surviving members of Soundgarden reached an “amicable out of court” agreement with Cornell’s widow Vicky to end a four-year legal battle centered around seven unreleased audio recordings made by the singer before his death.
Upon the conclusion of the legal dispute, the band noted that their newfound “reconciliation marks a new partnership between the two parties, which will allow Soundgarden fans around the world to hear the final songs that the band and Chris were working on.” To date, no further update has been given in regard to when this unheard music may arrive.
In April, Soundgarden were one of the many acts announced as the 2025 inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Speaking to Billboard, guitarist Kim Thayil said he feels confident Cornell would “definitely be stoked” about the induction.
“He’s the one who convinced me how appreciative the fans and our peers and the Soundgarden community — that includes the people that we work with and work for us — would be about it,” Thayil explained. “He realized how important that was, and he understood that would be important to us because it’s important to people who cared about us and helped us and supported us all along.
“That’s how I believe Chris would respond to this. I think he’d be very appreciative and thankful to all the people who have believed in him and believed in the work he did and the work that we all did, collectively.”
The 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction will be live on Saturday, Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. The 2025 ceremony will once again stream live on Disney+, with a special airing on ABC at a later date and available on Hulu the next day. It currently remains to be seen whether the surviving members of Soundgarden will perform at the ceremony.
Members of Soundgarden are set to take to the stage next week as part of a benefit concert in their Seattle hometown.
The performance, which takes place at Seattle’s Showbox on December 14th, will see guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron, and bassist Ben Shepherd adopting the name Nudedragons for the affair. That moniker – an anagram of the band’s more famous name – is the same used by Soundgarden in 2010 when they performed at the same venue for their first live date since 1997.
Shaina Shepherd will take on vocal duties with the band in what is being described as a “brief encore performance”.
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The upcoming live show takes place as part of SMooCH, an annual campaign to raise funds for the Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Uncompensated Care Fund. Previous SMooCH events have featured acts such as Modest Mouse, The Afghan Whigs, Jason, Isbell, Angel Olsen, and more.
Alongside Nudedragons, this year’s SMooCH lineup will also include Sebadoh, Doug Martsch of Built To Spill, and Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses.
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Originally forming in 1984, Soundgarden intially remained active until 1997, becoming icons of the Seattle grunge scene in the process thanks to albums such as Superunknown, which topped the Billboard 200 upon its release in 1994.
Following various side projects for its members during the interim, Soundgarden reconvened in 2010, and remained active until the passing of frontman Chris Cornell in 2017. The following year, Thayil noted an uncertainty of what Soundgarden’s future could look like, before announcing the retirement of the band name.
Since then, members of the group have reunited for a handful of performances, including a 2019 tribute performance for Cornell dubbed I Am The Highway, which featured guest vocalists such as The Pretty Reckless’ Taylor Momsen and the Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins.
Upon Hawkins’ passing in 2022, Thayil and Cameron were joined by Momsen and members of Nirvana the Foo Fighters for another tribute performance.
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