The Darkness That Saved Me

A Brief Reflection on Soundgarden's Induction Into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Tomorrow night, Soundgarden, one of the preeminent grunge bands from Seattle, will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This one is personal.

Soundgarden’s seminal record, Superunknown, exploded at the precise moment I needed it. Having just lost my father to a stunningly brief battle with cancer that cut him down at age 48, I found perfect succor in the searing raw emotion of that record; it was astonishing, in large part due to lead singer Chris Cornell’s nearly inhuman vocals which at the top of his almost four-octave range could send passing dogs into a frenzy. That record, the darkness of it, the nihilism of it (“The lives we make never seem to ever get us anywhere but dead”), became a conduit for my internal rage and sorrow after my father’s death, with Cornell’s vocals serving as my surrogate scream.

I have a lot to say about Superunknown in my forthcoming memoir, Restrung: Fatherhood in a Different Key. About how I needed the music of Soundgarden like a plant needs sunlight, only in reverse—it was the darkness that sustained me, offering a human voice to my own eternally repressed pathos. How immersing myself in that music made life bearable, even exhilarating. How I’d come to it empty, depleted, defeated, then, note by note, word by word, be revived.

But you can read all about that when you buy Restrung in February!

For now, as I contemplate the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I realize yet again what a gift that album is to me. Decades later, it still allows me to access that darkness, to honor it, granting me entry to that deepest, truest part of myself, the part that will forever define who I am, the part where a son never got to experience his father as a person, and where a father never got to know his little boy.

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In honor of Soundgarden’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this weekend and the three-month ‘til publication date of Restrung (mark your calendars for February 3, 2026!), I thought I’d give a little teaser from the audiobook. In this clip, I describe my reaction to learning that Chris Cornell had committed suicide.

And for those who missed my exegesis on Superunknown with my son during our Tune Talk on songs of internal retreat, here’s an encore presentation!