Soundgarden’s final songs featuring the late Chris Cornell have reached the mixing stage, according to the band’s drummer Matt Cameron.
The band’s surviving members have been working on fleshing out songs that they’d been working on at the time of Chris’ death in May 2017 alongside producer Terry Date, who produced albums such as Deftones’ Around The Fur. There are eight songs in total featuring his vocals, which are now being mixed by Joe Barresi (Tool, Avenged Sevenfold).
It’s been quite a battle for the band to get to this stage, as they were involved in an extensive legal dispute with Chris’ widow Vicky which delayed the release of new music. The dispute was eventually resolved in 2023.
During that period, seven song titles were revealed – Road Less Traveled, Orphans, , At Ophians Door, Cancer, Ahead Of The Dog, Merrmas and Stone Age Mind,
Drummer and vocalist Matt Cameron offers an update on how it’s all been going during an appearance on the Let There Be Talk podcast.
“Well, I’d been listening to those demos since we recorded them together. And I always thought there’s three or four really, really strong songs,” he says. “So, I’m really looking forward to getting it done and putting it out there. And I’m hoping the reaction won’t be too intense for people, but I know that it will be because it has been for us.
“But I think at this stage of the game, we’ve been listening to it so much that I think we’ve built a little bit of a callus up to the emotional side of it, and we’re just trying to get all the tracks. And it sounds like Soundgarden. It’s just like we’re working on a Soundgarden album. We are.”
As for release plans, he says: “Well, we don’t really have a [release] date yet. We’re just gonna try to get this thing mixed, get it over the finish line, and then hopefully we’ll have a better idea what’s gonna come next. We’re just taking it one step at a time ’cause it’s been kind of a long process just to get to here.”