Rowing

Album: King Animal (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • This track closes Soundgarden's sixth album, King Animal. It originated with some jamming by bassist Ben Shepherd, leading to an entirely new approach for the reformed grunge legends. Frontman Chris Cornell explained to Artist Direct: "On this album, we recorded the rehearsals, which we've never done before. By rehearsals, I mean songwriting sessions where we were messing around. The song is based on this litter interlude on the bass Ben played when the rest of us were talking. We weren't even paying attention, and he was just messing around. I heard it. I thought it was one of those things I'd try to tune into since the beginning of Soundgarden. Everybody in the band is capable of throwing out something brilliant without necessarily knowing it or paying attention to it. Sometimes, I chase that down. Having the ability to check the recording and seek it down, I found the spot that I liked and looped the part of it I thought worked in the context of a loop. Then, we created the song around it. We'd never really done anything like that before."

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