The band Kim Thayil wants inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
While its impact on the modern music industry is a hotly debated topic, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame still undeniably represents the pinnacle in an artist’s career, in which their achievements are forever enshrined in illustrious history. Among the latest class of inductees, Soundgarden are proudly flying the flag of grunge and heavy metal, some four decades on from when they first started electrifying the airwaves. For guitarist Kim Thayil, it’s a momentous moment.
This is not to say, of course, that the band’s path to glory has always been straightforward. Since the untimely death of frontman Chris Cornell in 2017, the future of Soundgarden had for a time remained uncertain – but if anything proves how they are putting their best foot forward, it is this current honour, which Thayil said in interviews that Cornell would be “happy and proud” over.
But as preparations get underway for the big night, the guitarist has also been thinking about what company he would like to keep in the walls of the Hall of Fame over the coming years, and has already drawn up a pretty sizeable list. He waxed lyrical to Rolling Stone in a recent interview about his preferred contenders, ranging from Alice in Chains, Iron Maiden, Sonic Youth, MC5, Pixies, to Motorhead – but there’s one band above the rest who he thinks should get an immediate straight pass into the golden leagues.
Speaking of his affiliation to the genre of music that these outfits all exist in, Thayil said: “They’re all basically proto-metal [or] proto-punk bands. Both of them informed metal and punk. And the attitude and look of the New York Dolls attitude informed LA glam a decade and a half later, which is ironic, probably more ironic than the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to LA.”
A cut above the rest, the New York Dolls represented a shining new era of punk when they first burst onto the underground scene of the 1970s. They were the sonic contemporaries of many of Thayil’s other top bands – including MC5 – so, in many ways, it’s only natural that he believes they should rightfully gain their place among rock’s upper echelons, the way so many of their predecessors have already done.
Thayil’s worship of the New York Dolls is indicative of the rock and roll lineage that the Hall of Fame itself represents. With the guitarist’s band harnessing an entirely different version of grunge a decade after David Johansen and Co. first started making waves, the fact remains that influences in rock remain everywhere, even if they aren’t overtly channelled from one artist to the next.
Whether Thayil and the rest of Soundgarden will possess a strong voice in dictating the future direction of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees is another matter, but nevertheless, his case is clear. It’s evident that Thayil wants to use the band’s induction as a force for good in recognising other artists – and, in many ways, that is a much bigger testament to Soundgarden’s seismic impact on the scene than purely just sonics alone.
