Soundgarden was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984 by singer and rhythm guitarist Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto. Matt Cameron became the band's full-time drummer in 1986, while bassist Ben Shepherd became a permanent replacement for Yamamoto in 1990. The band dissolved in 1997 and re-formed in 2010. Following Cornell's suicide in 2017 and a year of uncertainty of the band's future, Thayil declared in an October 2018 interview with Seattle Times that they would not continue as Soundgarden; they did, however, reunite in January 2019 for a one-off concert in tribute to Cornell.Soundgarden was one of the seminal creators of grunge, a style of alternative rock that developed in Seattle, and was the first of a number of grunge bands to sign to the record label Sub Pop. Soundgarden was one the first grunge bands to sign to a major label, though they did not achieve commercial success until they popularized the genre in the early 1990s with Seattle contemporaries Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana.