Behind The Setlist: Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil takes us inside the band's final tour setlist

February 1, 2023 Jeff Ansari

Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil takes us inside the band's final tour setlist

Kim Thayil of Soundgarden Photo credit Paul R. Giunta/Getty Images

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"We liked to mix it up, and we'd mix it up, at least for the particular physical challenges that [drummer] Matt [Cameron] might have," Kim admits. "We might not want to do a two hour and fifteen-minute set and then finish with 'Jesus Christ Pose', I mean Matt could do it, but he's only human. Certainly, there were certain challenges for Chris' voice; some things are more difficult or demand more of his breathing and of his vocal cords, but we would tend to start off with a bang. Like, 'let's hit 'em with something energetic and fast and aggressive,' and we'll keep doing that and follow it up with something like that and then we'll do another one. Then we'll bring it down a bit, but we're not gonna do a ballad, we'll probably do something that's moody and dark, which is a lot of our set." "You start off with something perhaps visceral or trippy to get everyone's heads spinning -- and that includes ourselves because especially in the early days we'd have a couple of beers before we went on stage so we want to be into it too, it was sort of a communal shared experience, we believed," Thayil adds. "So we might not go to anything slow-tempo right away, we would certainly change the mood but not necessarily the tempo. Slow it down a little bit, but yeah, throw some hits in there and save something for the encore."

Kim Thayil