The man who built one of grunge’s heaviest sounds is finally telling his side. Kim Thayil, co-founder and lead guitarist of Soundgarden, releases his memoir ‘A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond’ on June 9, 2026, co-written with veteran music journalist Adem Tepedelen and published by William Morrow.
Thayil traces the whole arc, from Soundgarden’s scrappy origins in Seattle’s beer-soaked punk clubs to their place as Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees in 2025. He pulls back the curtain on the band he founded alongside Chris Cornell, Hiro Yamamoto, Ben Shepherd, and Matt Cameron, charting the triumphs and the creative friction that came with inventing a sound nobody had heard before.
The book digs into identity too. Thayil’s Indian heritage and Yamamoto’s Japanese background shaped Soundgarden’s character, their music, and their experience navigating the industry, dimensions rarely explored in grunge’s well-worn history. His account of grieving Cornell, who died in 2017, has already drawn praise from early reviewers for its honesty.
The writing earns its acclaim. Booklist calls it a clear-eyed account that resists easy nostalgia, while Publishers Weekly describes an entertaining and intriguing history balanced by frank talk about the conflicts that led to the band’s 1997 breakup. For Soundgarden fans and anyone who lived through ’90s alternative rock, this one goes deep.