Soundgarden Working On Heavy New Album

"We're recording. We're kind of doing it in stages," guitarist Kim Thayil tells Stereogum. "We have about 14 songs in various stages of completion. Previously, we'd just block out a bunch of time and go and track everything at once, but we can't really do that right now. Matt [Cameron] has commitments to Pearl Jam, Chris [Cornell] has a solo tour happening and Soundgarden is touring in July. So we do the studio thing around those other engagements, which actually is turning out to be a lot better for us. It takes the pressure off in some ways. It's not like, OK you've got three weeks and everything needs to get done in those three weeks. We can work at our own pace right night and take things one step at a time. We're really enjoying it. We don't have a record company or management pressuring us to hurry up, so we can really savor the process this time."