Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil will celebrate his upcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a memoir, A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown With Soundgarden and Beyond. The book was co-written with Adam Tepedelen and will be released May 19, 2026, by Harper Collins.
“It tells my story as an American son of immigrants growing up in Chicago,” Thayil wrote on Instagram. “Then, along with another immigrant’s American son, Hiro Yamamoto, we travel to Seattle as idealistic youths, involve ourselves with underground and independent subcultures and connect with Chris Cornell to form Soundgarden. It follows my experiences, journeys and growth with the band and the building of the Seattle music scene, ultimately, to partner with Matt Cameron and later Ben Shepherd as we worked and played towards our worldwide successes. I explore the heights, depths and insights gained from my experiences within the unique and special brotherhood we built.”
“My folks came here [from India] in the late ‘50s, and I was born in Seattle in 1960 and then raised in Chicago. It complicates one’s identity, being the son of an immigrant and then growing up very American,” Thayil told SPIN in 2020. “I mean, I look at my loves and they’re so distinctly American, from baseball to comic books to rock‘n’roll. But at the same time, there’s an important allegiance to an immigrant identity that I see with uncles, aunts, cousins, my grandparents. There’s the kind of values that are instilled in you in terms of education and things like that that add to the greater culture as a whole.”
Soundgarden will perform with Yamomoto, who left the band in 1989, during the Nov. 8 ceremony, and Cameron recently posted photos on Instagram of the group rehearsing with the Pretty Reckless singer Taylor Momsen and Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready. The Rock Hall has yet to officially confirm who will induct Soundgarden and sing in place of Cornell, who died by suicide in 2017.
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