Soundgarden's Kim Thayil Speaks Of Rarities Record, Next Album & Reissue Plans

Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil offered up some details for the groups ever elusive b-side record and a potential new album as part of a recent chat with Rollingstone.com. An excerpt from that Q&A can be found below:

“There’s also the possibility of a collection of unreleased material. Will this upcoming set be just strictly B-sides, or also include some unreleased songs?
This is almost exclusively – there might be one or two exceptions – released material, focusing on original Soundgarden released and published material that has never been compiled on a Soundgarden album. Things from compilation records, like “Sub Pop Rock City,” for instance, might have been on the B-sides album.

I recall around the time of Badmotorfinger, a lot of non-album cover songs were issued overseas, like Devo’s “Girl U Want” and Budgie’s “Homicidal Suicidal.”
Those are covers, but if we focus on originals, there’s certainly enough for another album-plus. Around Badmotorfinger, we did the song “Cold Bitch,” which was an original. We did “Birth Ritual,” which was in the movie soundtrack for Singles. “Birth Ritual” we put out on the Telephantasm album, but that’s a compilation of already released songs. But as far as compiling an album’s worth of original material that hadn’t been compiled on other Soundgarden albums, this would be like another studio album.

So originals such as “Heretic” and “Toy Box” will be included?
Yeah, “Heretic,” maybe “Toy Box.” “Toy Box” was recorded during the Screaming Life period, eight-track with Jack Endino. There might be some interest in putting that together with other material from that period of time.

What’s next for Soundgarden?
– Chris is doing a solo acoustic tour and Matt [Cameron] is out on the road with Pearl Jamsides record, which I first announced back in 1995 . . . it’s been almost 20 years of backburner neglect.

The past four years, I’ve taken some action toward getting the ball rolling. Now it’s just a matter of working with Jeff Fura at A&M Records and getting this thing going. And of course, the reissue of Screaming Life, and the eventual remixing and re-release of Ultramega OK.

Would you like to see a follow-up to King Animal?
Yeah, the band has talked about that. That’s something that we’ll look at in the next two years.”