BY RON EVANS

Somewhere around the summer of 1989 I was handed a duped cassette by my buddy Cho. Cho was one of my most reliable sources for the new shit. The GOOD shit. So this was always exciting. “It’s called Soundgarden. They’re from Seattle.”

It would be another few years before the world was truly aware of the Seattle music explosion, so hearing it was “local” was a new kind of experience for a teenage Central Washington punk.

We skated a while, raided his fridge for Vietnamese sodi-pops, and I headed home. After getting yelled at for bringing my skateboard into the house (as if it was gonna pee on the rug), I retreated to my room, grabbed a Thrasher magazine and popped the tape in. There was no album title on the poorly scribbled label, but I later learned it was called Louder Than Love.

The first sound I ever heard from Soundgarden was the drums-only intro to track 1, “Ugly Truth.” That drummer was Matt Cameron. The song kicked into a sludgy (we were not using that word like we do now—I credit Soundgarden for popularizing the term) sort of Sabbathy riff, followed by the voice of the almost supernaturally gifted Chris Cornell. I’d never heard anything like it. There wasn’t really anything like it. Yeah, you could pick up on the influences, styles and tropes they were pulling from, but it sounded…new.

I’m obsessive about music, so this cassette was all I heard for months. About the time I was wearing it so thin it was becoming see-through in spots, Alice in Chains’ Facelift had come out. Suddenly Seattle was on everyone’s radar. Then 1991 happened. Nirvana’s Nevermind came out and blew up bigger than the galldurn sun. Pearl Jam’s debut LP Ten was also released in 1991, along with Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger.

I was into all of these records, but Badmotorfinger cemented my love for Soundgarden. The album is brilliant, start to finish. The raw power of Louder Than Love (which was their second LP after Ultramega OK) was still there, but the hooks and production were hitting me on a slightly higher level. It’s still my favorite Soundgarden album. Largely because of the solid, satisfying and deceptively complex drumming of Matt Cameron. It’s impossible to imagine the Soundgarden sound without him, and listening to their earliest recordings with earlier drummer Scott Sundquist, you can see how much the sound evolved with Cameron on board.

For a few years it seemed that everything Soundgarden touched turned to gold records. They were beginning to dominate MTV with videos for hits like “Outshined,” “Jesus Christ Pose,” “Pretty Noose,” and of course “Black Hole Sun.”

At what seemed like the top of their game, Soundgarden broke up in 1997. If drummer Matt Cameron was worried about staying busy, he wouldn’t have to worry long. In early 1998, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder called him up and asked him to join the band as the current drummer Jack Irons was on hiatus. Cameron agreed and would continue to be the band’s backbone until 2025, when he announced he’d be leaving, on good terms.

Along that path, Soundgarden would reunite in 2010 and continued to record and tour up until Cornell’s death (which still somehow doesn’t quite feel real) in 2017. Cameron somehow managed to keep both gigs going at the same time during this period.

Lately, Soundgarden is once again trending in media and streams thanks to its recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction (Cameron is in the HoF with Pearl Jam as well). Also, in 2025 the surviving members of the band announced they were working on a final Soundgarden album featuring some of the last recordings Cornell made.

Cameron is bringing his new band, Is This Real?—a tribute to NW punk legends the Wipers—to Numerica Performing Arts Center on Saturday, April 11. He has traded the drummer’s throne for the guitar and mic for this project. There’s so much to talk to Matt about. Enough of my yammering, already!

So, are you all adjusted to life post-Pearl Jam?

Oh yeah, you know I’ve always had a pretty secure home life. So no issues whatsoever.

It must be a strange thing to come home after long tours, both of the bands you were in did some incredibly long tours.

Absolutely. You know, back in the early days, in the 80s, when I started touring with Soundgarden—we’d be gone for 6 to 12 weeks at a time. They were essentially camping excursions. We’d bring our own sleeping bags and sleep on people’s floors and stuff. I’m glad I did all those types of tours when I was younger, but after a while, you learn to adjust to the pace of life at home. And I’ve always been a little bit of a homebody, so I always enjoyed coming home and just getting back to my normal routine. But I think any touring musician eventually figures out how to balance the two aspects of your life.

I knew you were in Pearl Jam a long time, but I didn’t realize you joined in the 90s, which fucks with my head honestly.

Yeah, Soundgarden broke up in ’97 and at that time, Jack Irons was in the group, and he quit right before a tour was going to start, so I essentially was filling in for Jack. Then it just turned into a permanent role for me after a couple tours. They wanted me to continue. But yeah, it was a long run for sure.

Stepping into a band that was already so well established and they had already written and recorded songs with multiple drummers… was that as hard as it sounds to me?

It was incumbent on me, or anyone coming into that kind of situation, to make sure the music doesn’t stray too far from the way fans are used to hearing it. And it definitely took me a few years to sort of adjust to all the different parameters of how the band worked and what works live. But it’s always a little challenging to come into an established thing like that, but it was an amazing opportunity as well. So you just have to approach it with a positive mindset and just do your best.

Yeah, well, I suppose it helped that you were already established as being a touring musician on similar levels.

Oh, for sure, and I had known those guys for years, going way back. I knew Jeff (Ament) and Stone (Gossard) from back in the early Sub Pop days. I met Eddie in 1990 or something like that. So we had a long history and that always helps when you’re coming into a situation like that.

How long did they give you to learn the set list before you were out on the road?

[LAUGHS] God, looking back, I think I had… two to three weeks or something.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. It was a bit of a panic situation. And I was only really familiar with the first couple albums, I guess. So, yeah, it was a big learning curve for me.

Well, I first heard Soundgarden right after Louder Than Love came out, and I have to apologize, Matt… it was on a duplicated cassette copy, so I think I owe you 10 bucks.

Oh hey, we were all doing it back then.

Before the internet, that’s what you had to have. There had to be a tape.

Yeah, and your buddies would make you mix tapes, and you’d hear some song on the mix tape that you dug and then, you know, hopefully go buy that album.

It could change your life. Like, it sounds like hyperbole to say it that way. But I don’t think there’s anything more important in terms of a pop culture or artistic part of life than turning somebody on to something that they get super jazzed about, it can change their life.

Oh, absolutely, and back in the day—when I was dating my girl, my now wife, I would give her a mixtape and hope that she would like my music tastes. There were many aspects to the mixtape back then.

When the Seattle stuff started blowing up, we of course felt some sort of a home team pride, but in many ways Wenatchee may as well have been in a different country, especially going back to pre-internet. So those tapes were important. And I remember when we were first getting into Soundgarden everyone just kept saying, this just sounds new. Were the label or the promoters, in the early days, trying to figure out where to put Soundgarden?

Soundgarden captured by Charles Peterson for Sub Pop in the late 80s. Kim Thayil, Hiro Yamamoto, Chris Cornell, Matt Cameron

I think we fit into the sort of rock underground that was happening in the US in the 80s. That was the scene that we felt most attached to. We were really into bands like the Meat Puppets—bands like that that were on the SST label. When we had released our Sub Pop EP we were playing around the country. And our first New York City show was at CBGB, we opened for this band, Das Damen who were also on SST. Back in those days, there were independent promoters. It’s not like it is today, where there’s Live Nation that promotes essentially 98% of all concerts. So promoters were able to find national touring acts that fit with some of the local groups. I think the band sort of had quasi-metal leanings back in there. I guess it was sort of punk at first as well.

We would get offers for tours with all sorts of bands and say yes or no. We rarely put our own shows together, other than when we first started in the 80s in Seattle. If we were playing at the Central Tavern, or the Ditto or the Vogue, we would play with our local friends like the Melvins or Green River or the U-Men. The U-Men were kind of the biggest band in town. One of our most important gigs early on was one we played in Ellensburg with Faith No More and the Screaming Trees. Screaming Trees had just signed with SST and they recorded that concert that we played together. They gave the recording to Greg (Ginn) and Chuck (Dukowski), and that’s how we got our SST deal.

So, yeah, it was really fun to be a part of that sort of underground movement. And, you know, in some of those early shows we’d be on the road for 8 to 10 months out of the year, and it was just fun to see the audience grow from the club days to bigger venues and eventually theaters and stuff like that.

On the topic of Ellensburg, did Soundgarden ever record anything at Velvetone (legendary Ellensburg studio that recorded the Screaming Trees, Moral Crux, Beat Happening, among others)?

No, but we worked with Steve (Fisk) here in Seattle. He recorded an EP that we did for Sub Pop, and he also did some remixes of some of our earlier stuff, like the song “Fopp”—the Ohio Players song. But we never did record at his Ellensburg place.

When did the Deep Six compilation (a C/Z Records showcase of Seattle bands Soundgarden, U-Men, Green River, Skin Yard, The Melvins and Malfunkshun) come out?

Oh, what year was that— must be ‘85.

You were in two bands on that compilation, because you were in Skin Yard at that time.

Well that was right before I joined Soundgarden. I was in Skin Yard when that came out, but Scott was still the drummer for Soundgarden. But, you know, that was a really important record for all of our local bands at the time. It’s a pretty cool intro to our local music scene at the time.

Yeah, it’s often considered the key LP release—it was before so many other things.

Oh yeah. The first time I ever heard myself on the radio was on KCMU, which is now KEXP. They were playing that Deep Six album front to back. I pulled my car over and I cranked it. It was a good moment for me.

College radio was a pretty huge way that we were promoting shows—it was all part of the underground movement at the time.

I saw a list in some horror magazine years ago of the top 10 most scary songs. Now, my vote was not on the list, and that vote is “Jesus Christ Pose.” I have probably heard that song 1000 times. It never fails to just give me chills. It almost makes me sick to my stomach. It’s a scary song. I don’t know if it’s guitar harmonics that make those opening little squealing notes, but then your doomy drums come in. I feel like something bad is about to happen every time. And I love it.

Kim (Thayil) has always been an absolute master at making distortion and feedback sound musical. So I think his influence on that song was always real apparent. That song sort of separated the fans of our band—if someone heard that song for the first time and hated it, they would probably not like our band. So yeah. I guess that does have a good, scary element to it.

I want to jump ahead in a minute. But before we do, I want to go back—how long after Andy Wood’s (Mother Love Bone, Malfunkshun) passing did Temple of the Dog all come together?

It was pretty much right after he passed away. We were on tour. I think we were in New Jersey when we heard the news, and gosh, if recollection serves me, Chris started writing songs and sent me a demo of “Say Hello 2 Heaven,” and we just started working on it. It happened pretty quickly because Jeff and Stone (who were also in Mother Love Bone) were starting the Pearl Jam thing, and I kind of helped them with some of the early demos on that as well. You know, Chris and Andy were roommates and super close, and I was a huge Malfunkshun fan. That was just one of my absolute favorites. And Andy was a born rock star. He’s just one of those guys, much like Chris. He was just born that way. There’s no school you go to to learn how to be like that. Either you got it or you don’t—Andy completely had it.

It’s such a unique album for so many reasons. Born out of tragedy and put together by bands that were suffering the loss, but also on their own trajectories moving forward. It had every reason to not be as good of a record as it is. Even just looking back, as a historical record it’s important. But it’s the songs that make that album hold up. It’s so fucking good.

And of course, that’s the first time we hear Eddie’s singing as well. So yeah, it’s just one of those moments where all the planets aligned. It really made an impact.

Well…I’m a huge Rush fan. And in the early 2000s I was at a local music shop and discovered Geddy Lee had released a solo record, which I bought post-haste. I was digging it at home, flipping through the liner notes, when I saw that it was you doing the drumming. How did this project come to be? Were you a Rush fan?

Oh man, you kiddin’? I was a huge Rush fan. My first Rush record I got was when I was in high school. I think it was All the World’s a Stage. And I remember these two stoner kids were in my English class always talking about Rush. “...dude, you got to hear Rush. You got to hear Rush.” And so they loaned me the record. And from there, I went back to 2112 and heard all that stuff. But yeah, that Geddy LP was a really fun project that I was just called up for out of the blue. The producer, Adam Kasper, had worked with Soundgarden on a couple albums, and he recommended to Geddy to try this Seattle guy out. And I think Geddy was familiar with Soundgarden. Geddy was so fun. And Ben Mink, his collaborator, was super fun.

It’s a good record. I don’t hear people talking about it nearly enough. Obviously it’s not Rush, but did you ever have a moment of “holy shit”? The dude that this guy is used to drumming for him was Neil fucking Peart?

[LAUGHS] You know, they were going through a little bit of a transition, and I was just focused on working with Geddy and making sure that he was happy with how everything was coming out. But I kind of heard through the grapevine that Neil liked my playing.

Wow.

Yeah, so I felt like it was a really nice thing to be a part of. And I did get to meet Neil on tour. I think it was like 2003 or ’04, something like that. They were playing at White River Amphitheatre. He was just a total sweetheart, and he signed a book for me, and we had a really, really nice chat. We also talked about motorcycles, because I’m a fellow rider. All those guys are really down-to-earth dudes. And I’m really happy to see them getting out there and continuing.

I am too. And yeah, seein’ them move on without Neil can be a little painful from the standpoint of being a fan—but it’s for no one else to decide what they do moving forward. And they’re having fun. They deserve it.

You must realize on some level, Matt…your career is insane.

I feel really lucky. I’ve always tried to follow my heart and my own instincts. But a lot of success requires a bit of luck for sure.

Well, as a lifelong drummer, grabbing the guitar and stepping into the frontman role for Is This Real?—is it kind of business as usual on some level or is it a whole different thing?

Well, it takes a lot more work to remember how to play the guitar parts. Remember lyrics. I’ve never been a big lyrics person, but yeah, this band is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. The Wipers were one of my first huge influences when I first moved to Seattle (in 1983).

And this is something I always had in the back of my mind. And now that I have more time on my hands, it’s been really fun to pursue it. It takes a little bit of a different skill set for me, but I’ve always played guitar, and I’ve always written music on guitar, and I’ve contributed to my bands on everything. So that part of it is not too much of a stretch. But, you know, being a front person and remembering lyrics is a new experience.

I, like many people, was late getting into the Wipers but when I finally discovered them…I was like, holy shit. This is why everyone I love talks about this band. They were kind of unbelievably good. Incredible songwriting.

Oh, amazing. Amazing band. Yeah, we are playing a lot of the first LP, Is This Real? But when you get into some of the later albums you really start to understand how prolific Greg (Sage) actually was. One of many Northwest bands that weren’t as well known as they should be. I feel really happy if I can turn people on to the amazing band.

You’ve recorded an EP with the band and obviously you are playing some shows. Will there be a bigger tour planned?

No, nothing too big.

Do you think the big tour days are behind you?

I don’t actually. There are some—here Matt seems hesitant to announce any details—you know, we are working on the final Soundgarden album. There may be something that comes from that. Right now we are trying to finish the music and we don’t want to force anything. But I’m also making myself available for other projects. I have slowed down just slightly, but still plan on staying busy.

So what can we expect for the show coming up in Wenatchee?

Loud, fast, hard rock music. Mostly Wipers songs but we have a few originals as well. And a few covers of some other bands too.

I have a few pals that swear, way back in the early days, Soundgarden played a show in Wenatchee. Any recollection of that?

Hmmmm. I don’t think so, no. Unless it was when Scott was in the band, but I’m pretty sure at that time they were just playing around Seattle and Tacoma.

Well it’s good to put that to bed.

Seattle has changed in just about every possible way since the 90s. If you could bring back one venue that’s no longer here, which would it be?

Oh, man, well, there was a club called the Metropolis that was one of our first all-ages venues in Seattle. It was in Pioneer Square, and that’s where I got to play one of my shows with Bam Bam (Matt’s first Seattle band). That was one of my first Seattle rock shows that I played there. And then I saw Hiro Yamamoto (original Soundgarden bassist) playing there. That’s also where I met Susan Silver (future Soundgarden manager). So that club was a really important gathering space for all of us young Seattle weirdos back in the day. At the time, there weren’t many all-ages shows happening around Seattle, other than house parties and things like that. So that was really our first established official clubhouse for all of us.

All-ages shows are so key for nurturing a scene. Joel Myrene, who helped to bring you to Wenatchee at the PAC, has been doing some all-ages shows here at the Odd Fellows building, and it has been incredible to see the kids coming out of the woodwork. Because we would always sit around saying, “Where are all the kids?” Back in 1992 you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting some garage band. Joel believed in it, and he started these shows, and immediately hundreds of people are showing up to this. And it’s causing bands to form in junior high and high school. And it’s super cool to see.

I love it. Yeah, absolutely, it’s important. I applaud anyone who brings young people together and inspires them to express themselves with music or art, and provides a place to do that. That’s what the Metropolis was for us.

Will there be any kind of meet and greet after the show in Wenatchee?

Yeah, I’ll be around. So come say hello.

After hanging up, I sat in silence for a bit. It’s a weird thing—trying to strike that balance between genuine curiosity and not sounding like a complete fanboy when you’re talking to someone who helped shape your life. He couldn’t have been easier to talk to. Just a nice guy who also happens to be a huge part of why I love music in the first place.

I poured an earlier-than-usual whiskey and thought… I never got to see Zeppelin. Or Sabbath. Or The Who. But I got to see Soundgarden in their prime.

Cheers to that.

Is This Real? - Featuring local opener Icarus

Live at Numerica PAC - Saturday April 11th

7:30 PM - Showtime 7:00 PM - Doors Open

Tickets available at numericapac.org