Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil has rejected the idea that Seattle’s 1990s rock scene had a collective drug culture, saying drug use was an individual issue rather than something bands or the wider scene encouraged. His comments matter because deaths linked to addiction, including those of Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Mike Starr and Andrew Wood, have long shaped public perceptions of grunge.

Thayil made the remarks during a June 2026 event in Seattle to launch his memoir, *A Screaming Life*, published on 9 June by William Morrow. He said fellow musicians were distressed by those losses and that the scene was unfairly treated with suspicion; Soundgarden is also preparing an album of unreleased recordings made with Chris Cornell before his 2017 death.