Jerry Cantrell recently shared his thoughts on Soundgarden’s extensive catalog, discussing the band’s most defining songs in an interview featured on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
When asked to name the three Soundgarden songs that best define the band, Cantrell expressed his difficulty in narrowing down the group’s prolific output. He emphasized that Soundgarden’s body of work spans multiple albums. Each album contains exceptional material that resists easy categorization.
“I hate this because I hate having to pare it down to three songs that define Soundgarden, because I think Soundgarden’s kind of undefinable,” Cantrell said. “It’s always hard for me to do favorites. I’m really bad at this, because I like it all. I really do. I mean, if it was a band that was like a one- or two-hit wonder, it’d be a lot easier. But Soundgarden wrote so many great f*cking songs.”
Cantrell highlighted the consistent quality across Soundgarden’s discography. He noted that the band never released subpar material.
“The records that they made — what? Six records? — they were fucking brilliant. So to pick like one of those out and say one is better than the other, or even that one means more to me than another is pretty tough because I think it’s all really superb. It’s all pretty stellar,” he continued.
When reflecting on specific tracks, Cantrell mentioned songs ranging from deep cuts to well-known hits, including “Hunted Down,” “Flower,” “Limo Wreck,” “Gun,” “Burden In My Hand,” “Superunknown,” “Rusty Cage,” and “Black Hole Sun.” He singled out “The Day I Tried To Live” as a particularly moving track.
“I don’t think they ever did anything bad. I don’t think they ever put a bad record out, and I don’t think they ever wrote a bad song,” Cantrell said. “And as far as the lyrical approach, it’s all poetry, man. It’s all super-high-quality stuff. And so to pick something out — ‘The Day I Tried To Live’, I think maybe that song, it’s pretty… I mean, the hair just went up on the back of my neck just mentioning that song. There’s one that gets me in the short and curlies.”
Cantrell’s admiration for Soundgarden reflects a broader respect within the grunge community for the Seattle legends’ artistic contributions. As a guitarist and vocalist for Alice in Chains, Cantrell has long been positioned alongside Soundgarden as a pillar of the grunge movement. His comments underscore the deep influence these bands had on one another during the genre’s formative years.
Britannica reports that Soundgarden was one of the first grunge bands to sign with a major label. This achievement helped launch the Seattle sound into the mainstream during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The band’s pioneering status gave them a unique position in rock history. They helped define what grunge would become on a global scale. Their success paved the way for countless other Seattle-based acts and established the city as the epicenter of a musical revolution.
Louder Sound documents that Jerry Cantrell has often cited Soundgarden as a major influence on his own songwriting and approach to heavy rock. This influence is evident in Alice in Chains’ layered guitar work and introspective lyrics. These elements share thematic and sonic similarities with Soundgarden’s catalog. The mutual respect between these bands helped solidify the grunge movement as more than a commercial phenomenon. It became a genuine artistic movement rooted in authenticity and musical excellence.
Soundgarden’s legacy extends beyond their commercial success. The band’s commitment to complex arrangements, poetic lyricism, and uncompromising artistic vision set them apart from many of their contemporaries. Their influence continues to resonate with musicians and fans alike, as evidenced by Cantrell’s passionate defense of their entire body of work. In an era where bands are often defined by their biggest hits, Cantrell’s insistence that Soundgarden never produced a bad song speaks to the depth and consistency of their artistic output.
