"It's one thing to take off your shirt, but it's another to pre-rip the seams": How Soundgarden's dig at rock star excess helped turn them into rock stars themselves

Soundgarden in 1991.

In 1991, two bands from Seattle were about to have their big breakthrough (Nirvana with Nevermind, Pearl Jam with Ten) and join Alice In Chains, the first so-called ‘grunge’ band to receive the first taste of success (with Man In The Box, from Facelift, that summer) in making Seattle best-known for something other than Boeing and Starbucks.

But many expected Soundgarden to be the first Seattle band to ‘bust through the door’, especially when their third full-length album, Badmotorfinger, was released on October 8 that year, along with the album’s lead-off single, Jesus Christ Pose.