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Artist News
Soundgarden reunion result of Twitter misunderstanding
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 14 April 2011
Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil has told Kerrang! that their recent reunion was inspired by a tweety misunderstanding, and that the band only decided to reform after being overwhelmed by fan response after said fans incorrectly assumed they were reuniting.
The misunderstanding began when frontman Chris Cornell said early last year via Twitter: “The 12 year break is over and school is back in session. Knights of the Soundtable ride again!” Thayil claims that this was not a reference to the band reforming, but to the revival of their fan club, however, once it became clear how welcome a reunion would be, the group agreed to get together for some live dates.
Thayil said: “I spent a lot of time trying to explain to my friends that we weren’t back together then! My mother called and said, ‘We’ve heard the news, why didn’t you tell us?’ We had neglected our legacy and our fans, so we were just starting the fan club up again. Of course, that ‘tweet’ generated a lot of interest and my phone was ringing off the hook with people offering us shows. We turned most of them down, but thought it would be fun to play that show in Seattle [in April, 2010] and eventually Lollapalooza [in August]. It was only around then that there was talk about doing some new material.”
So, there you have it. The power of people getting the wrong end of the stick on Twitter. Though I doubt all Twitter misunderstandings end quite so positively.
