Why did Hiro Yamamoto “excommunicate” himself from Soundgarden?
Even before Soundgarden became the final of the ‘Big Four’ to usher grunge into the mainstream, following Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam into unfathomable levels of stardom, they were one of the earliest Seattle bands to hone the genre’s angst-laden sound.
Properly formed in 1984, Soundgarden spawned from a band called the Shemps, one that steadily gigged around Seattle earlier in the decade, and it is in this band that singer Chris Cornell would meet bassist Hiro Yamamoto and his friend, guitarist Kim Thayil. Yamamoto and Thayil had moved from Park Forest, Illinois, with indie record label Sub Pop’s co-founder Bruce Pavitt, to Seattle, and once they met Cornell, the three would form the basis of Soundgarden’s songwriting team.
Cornell initially played drums while on vocals, but in order for him to concentrate on singing, they recruited Scott Sundquist behind the kit, naming themselves after a wind-channelling pipe sculpture, A Sound Garden, Soundgarden emerged and began touring extensively.
Their debut recordings would appear on the 1986 compilation album Deep Six for C/Z Records: ‘Heretic’, ‘Tears to Forget’ and ‘All Your Lies’. Yamamoto contributed lyrics and music writing to all three, both their initial versions and later re-releases. Situated alongside Green River, the Melvins, Skin Yard, Malfunkshun and the U-Men, Deep Six became an imperative capsule of the earliest grunge music, its intent being to capture Seattle’s rock scene. That year, Sundquist would leave the band to dedicate time to his family, and Matt Cameron assumed his place, rounding out Soundgarden’s lineup for their signing to the newly established Sub Pop.
Their first single on the label, 1987’s ‘Hunted Down’ / ‘Nothing to Say’, set the tone for the wave of rock that was to come, solidified in their double-EP, Screaming Life/Fopp in 1990: a force of downtuned guitars and emphatic wails unique to Cornell’s range that represented a stark contrast from the polished glam metal of the decade.
Soundgarden’s first two albums, 1998’s Ultramega OK and their major-label debut, 1989’s Louder Than Love, featured select contributions, writing-wise, from Yamamoto. Notably, the song ‘I Awake’, which appears on the latter, features lyrics written on a note to Yamamoto from his then-girlfriend, Kate McDonald: “Woke up depressed / I left for work / You have a good day… It’s not your fault / I know it hurts / Remember I love you”, but, just before Soundgarden were set to begin touring for Louder Than Love, he departed from the band.
Reportedly frustrated with his contributions to Soundgarden’s discography, Yamamoto’s quitting the band was still met with surprise. “At the time Hiro [Yamamoto] excommunicated himself from the band,” Cornell explained to Raw magazine in 1991, “and there wasn’t a free-flowing system as far as music went, so I ended up writing a lot of it,” referring to Louder Than Love, noting to Sounds in 1989 that “it seems an odd time to quit” on account of the band doing well, financially and touring-wise. But Yamamoto’s dissatisfaction, coupled with his lack of interest in playing into the music industry’s methods of promotion, prompted his departure.
“They call it the music industry because it is an industry and the music you play is a product,” Yamamoto explained to King 5 News in 2022, “If you play grunge, or whatever, that’s kind of like having gasoline versus jet fuel, and they market that. You’re really a genre instead of an individual, in a way. This isn’t just about music, this is about an industry that sells things, and I guess I wasn’t comfortable with that at the time.”
Yamamoto went on to found Truly, an indie band, in 1991, alongside vocalist Robert Roth and drummer Mark Pickerel of the Screaming Trees, and as recently as 2016, also founded a surf-music trio, Stereo Donkey, with drummer Mike Bajuk and guitarist Pat Wickline. But above all, once he departed from Soundgarden, he finished his requirements for his master’s degree in physical chemistry at Western Washington University, and as of 2023, he is the chief of organic chemistry at Edge Analytical, a company that tests drinking water, in Washington.
Recently, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025 alongside Soundgarden, speaking of his remembrance of Cornell, with dedications to his family and acknowledgement of his parents, Japanese immigrants who, during World War II, were placed in American prison camps, encouraging, “Let’s not add another story like this to our history”.
