The fans own the records and listen to them and love them. It becomes the soundtrack to some part of their lives, and we don't control that. To me, that's what's exciting about what we do.
Seattle very much benefited from this geography where it was a town nobody had really heard of in terms of a music scene. So we had that factor of being a new discovery.
They're a great audience, kids. They actually respond. They don't have the references that adults have, so everything is immediate. It's always interesting to see what they react to in whatever I'm working on at the moment. And they don't even want to discuss why. That's a lesson to remember: My son doesn't care about why.
Soundgarden signing to a major, then Mother Love Bone, and seeing the same happen to Alice in Chains. We were all suddenly making music and recording at the same time, and we had money to do it. It wasn't like a $2,000 recording that you do over a weekend. It's like, 'Wow, maybe this will be our job.'
You sometimes get the feeling that people think getting back together after a hiatus to write and record a record is work, you know, arduous and unpleasant. Being able to write and record - that's a privilege. I don't forget the long days I spent working in a restaurant, when I wanted to be done so I could go home and work on a song.
I would look at older blues musicians who just keep going into their seventies. They keep doing it until they drop dead. And I've always felt like that's what I want to do. I've felt that since the day I was able to start playing music for a living. I don't see the point of thinking about retiring because it's not work to begin with.
I've always felt like there's a certain amount of doing what I do, and performing and making records and doing interviews and photo shoots and that, that are kind of a necessary evil of getting my music to people's ears to hear. Over the years, I've just become more tolerant of that.
Criticism pretty much follows anything anyone ever does. So, anytime anyone ever writes a song, plays a show, or does whatever they do, there's going to be a certain amount of criticism because that's kind of what happens.
It just doesn't get any more stripped down than going out totally alone and doing songs.
There are a handful of Soundgarden songs that work acoustically, but only a couple. It's not who we were.
There was a period in my life where most of my musical career was spent in a band that was very aggressive, and there was sort of a wall of volume all the time.
When you become a parent, you leave a lot of things behind and refocus, maybe on how simple life really is and what few things there really are to worry about. And everything else can go by the wayside.
When I met my wife Vicky's family, I had to go out of my way to convince them, to show them, that I wasn't anything like their idea of a musician.
It's about trying to step out of being patterned and closed off and reclusive, which I've always had a problem with. It's about attempting to be normal and just go out and be around other people and hang out. I have a tendency to sometimes be pretty closed off and not see people for long periods of time and not call anyone.
I really had to come to the conclusion, the sort of humbling conclusion that, guess what, I'm no different than anybody else: I've got to sort of ask for help - not something I ever did, ever. And then part two of that is, like, accept it when it comes, and, you know, believe what people tell me.
I think my children are definitely musically inclined, and they show it, and they're exposed to a lot of it. And they're their own people, and I think easily they could do something musical, or they could do something in acting or film or other types of the arts, and I would fully support it.
I came from a childhood where I spent a lot of time alone and a lot of time just living with my imagination, and a certain amount of the adult world was kind of alienating.
Obviously, I want my kids to be happy, and I believe that they can be super successful at whatever they want to do, but don't make the successful part more important than the process of doing it. Especially if it's an artistic endeavor.
I have a hard time narrowing things down to ten or 12 songs. If I walk off stage in anything less than two hours, it just feels strange. It feels early.
I think back to my childhood, and I remember running around as a kid. We were all running around then. It wasn't about getting into shape. It's just what we did.
