Soundgarden is among the 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, and guitarist Kim Thayil tells Rolling Stone what a possible performance would look like during the November ceremony without late frontman Chris Cornell.
“It’s up to the Hall to how they develop their program, but we would love to play there,” Thayil says. “Our discussions haven’t gone that deep yet, but you could probably look at the people that [drummer] Matt [Cameron], [bassist] Ben [Shepherd], and I have played with over the past handful of years, going back to the Chris Cornell Tribute Concert in 2019, there’s a few people we’ve performed with who on top of our head would be the first ones for the call.”
The Cornell tribute concert featured performances by artists including Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless, Brandi Carlile, Miley Cyrus, Foo Fighters, Metallica and Queens of the Stone Age‘s Josh Homme.
Most recently, Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd played together alongside local Seattle artist Shaina Shepherd.
“I think the best I can say is look at the people we’ve worked with over the past five years,” Thayil says of the potential Rock Hall performance. “Then I take a note from what Nirvana did when they went in and they had three or four different singers [who] performed with them. I think it’s going to be something like that.”
Nirvana’s induction performance in 2014 featured guest vocalists Joan Jett, Lorde, St. Vincent and Kim Gordon in place of the late Kurt Cobain.
Elsewhere in the interview, Thayil comments on the possible release of a new Soundgarden record, which they’d been working on before Cornell’s 2017 death. The material has remained in limbo due to legal issues with Cornell’s estate.
“I have pride for what I did and I want to see that come out,” Thayil says.
