Soundgarden is an American
rock band formed in
Seattle,
Washington, in 1984 by lead singer and drummer
Chris Cornell, lead guitarist
Kim Thayil, and bassist
Hiro Yamamoto.
Matt Cameron became the band's permanent drummer in 1986 while bassist
Ben Shepherd became a permanent replacement for Yamamoto in 1990. Soundgarden was one of the seminal bands in the creation of
grunge, a style of
alternative rock that developed in Seattle, and was one of a number of grunge bands signed to the record label
Sub Pop. Soundgarden was the first grunge band to sign to a major label (
A&M Records, in 1988), though the band did not achieve commercial success until Seattle contemporaries
Nirvana and
Pearl Jam popularized "grunge" in the early 1990s. Soundgarden achieved its biggest success with the 1994 album
Superunknown, which debuted at number one on the
Billboard charts and yielded the
Grammy Award-winning singles "
Black Hole Sun" and "
Spoonman." In 1997, the band broke up due to internal strife over its creative direction. However, Cornell announced on January 1, 2010, that there would be a Soundgarden reunion, though no details have yet been released. Soundgarden has sold over eight million records in the United States,
[1] and an estimated twenty million worldwide.