Billboard has performance & interview clips from the band’s 2013 “Artists Den” performance at LA’s The Wiltern.
Last year, Artists Den, Soundgarden, and the Cornell Estate released the live album and concert film Soundgarden: Live From the Artists Den, which featured the band’s full 29-song set from their 2013 show at LA’s The Wiltern. Now you can watch some clips from the event on Billboard.
The show, which took place Feb. 17, 2013, was the final date on the band’s sold-out winter tour in support of King Animal, which was their first studio album since their 1996 release Down on the Upside and served as the final record the band released before frontman Chris Cornell’s death in 2017.
During the concert, Soundgarden played a mix of new songs, classic hits, such as their iconic 1994 track “Black Hole Sun” (which you can watch above), and rarities like “Blind Dogs,” which you can check out below.
In addition to featuring live footage, Artists Den also captured interviews with Cornell and guitarist Kim Thayil. In Cornell’s interview clip, he discussed what “rock” means to him and how the genre has evolved.
“I think rock is something that you fight for,” he said. “It's like a right and a privilege and it's rocking because it's not like everything else. It's not what the Everly Brothers was when it was coming out of the TV. So the more obscure it gets, the more likely people are going to find really good music to listen to.”
In Thayil’s interview clip, which you can watch below, he spoke about how the band’s sound has evolved and changed over the years, and how they choose songs for setlists.
Thayil explained that as songs aged, the band had the opportunity to take them apart and reassemble them, and that their songs were always changing, while still keeping the “recognizable pull.”
“But the new material is fresh,” he added, “So it holds our attention and we anticipate our ability to go ahead and perform a song that doesn't have a history…We have short attention spans, like anybody else, so an older song will change. A newer song is fresh and we're attracted to it for that reason.”
In another clip, which you can watch below, Artists Den takes you inside the show to learn more about The Wiltern’s history, and Cornell and Thayil discuss why they enjoy getting to perform in smaller venues.
