Kim Thayil Guitars & Gear: The Complete Guide to Soundgarden’s Dark Sonic Architect

Never call Kim Thayil a lead guitarist.

He said it himself, to Premier Guitar: “Why you should never call him a ‘lead guitarist.'” He is Soundgarden’s guitarist — the person whose tone, techniques, feedback experiments, and massive range of alternate tunings built the specific sonic environment that Chris Cornell’s voice inhabited. But lead guitarist? Not in the way the term usually applies. The solos are there, and they are memorable, but Thayil’s identity is in the riff, the drone, the detuned chord, the controlled feedback, the behind-the-bridge harmonic, the off-time signature. He makes architecture. Cornell flew through it.

He found his main guitar when he was nineteen years old. He has been using the Guild S-100 ever since — “I’ve pretty much been using that for seventeen years,” he told Guitar One in 1996. Decades later, it’s still the main guitar. “I’ve never looked back,” he told Premier Guitar.

A particular attribute that keeps him loyal: “the low strings are very resonant behind the bridge. That helps create weird harmonics when the signal is feeding back. I pick below the bridge, and slide my left hand up and down the string around the 12th fret to create a pulsating, harmonic effect.” The space between the bridge and the tailpiece — the section of string behind the bridge that most guitarists ignore — is where Thayil finds some of his most distinctive sounds.

The Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere produced the rotating speaker effect on “Black Hole Sun.” He alternates between the fast setting for verses and the slow setting for choruses. The Mesa/Boogie Electradyne provides 90 watts of headroom for the riffs. The Tremoverb combo provides the midrange punch. The Guild S-100 provides the harmonic behind the bridge.

The result is Soundgarden. The result is “Outshined,” “Jesus Christ Pose,” “Spoonman,” “Black Hole Sun,” “Like Suicide.”

Don’t call him the lead guitarist. Call him the architect.

Background: Park Ridge Illinois, Seattle, and the Sound That Started Grunge

Kim Thayil was born September 4, 1960, in Park Ridge, Illinois — the same Chicago suburb that Hillary Clinton grew up in — to parents who had immigrated from India. He moved to Seattle as a young adult and co-founded Soundgarden in 1984 with vocalist Chris Cornell, bassist Hiro Yamamoto, and eventually drummer Matt Cameron. Soundgarden is one of the founding bands of the Seattle grunge movement — releasing their first EP on Sub Pop Records in 1987, before Sub Pop became the definitional label of the movement.

His musical influences run in an unusual direction for a rock guitarist: not just Sabbath and Hendrix but also Indian classical music. His parents’ Indian heritage meant that the raga tradition — modal, drone-based, repetitive, without the Western tonal movement of chord progressions — was part of his musical environment. The Indian music influence is audible in Thayil’s approach to the guitar: his drones, his modal riffs, his comfort with extended repetition over a single tonal center, and his use of microtonal inflections all reflect the raga tradition as much as the heavy metal one.

He described the Indian influence to various interviewers: the raga approach to scale and repetition informed his sense of what a guitar could do — not as a chord-progression instrument but as a drone-and-melody instrument, the way the sitar operates in Indian classical music. The combination of this Indian modal sensibility with Black Sabbath’s heavy, doom-laden riff approach and the psychedelic experimentation of late-1960s rock produced the specific Soundgarden guitar identity.

He told Guitar World: “My friends who were more into soulful and blues playing definitely wanted me to slow down. I think what I do is soulful… it’s just not blues!” His playing is soulful in the Indian classical tradition — where the soul of the music is in the note’s relationship to the drone, the bend’s relationship to the intended pitch, the riff’s relationship to the rhythmic cycle — not in the American blues tradition where soul is expressed through the specific vocabulary of the blues scale and the call-and-response structure.

Soundgarden disbanded in 1997 after the Down on the Upside album. They reunited in 2010 and recorded King Animal (2012). Chris Cornell died by suicide in May 2017. Soundgarden has not performed since.

Tone note: His parents were from India. The raga tradition is in the DNA of his playing — the drone, the modal approach, the comfort with repetition, the microtonal inflection. When “Black Hole Sun” builds its hypnotic, slightly queasy harmonic world, it is drawing on a musical tradition that has nothing to do with American blues or heavy metal. Thayil synthesized the specific combination: Indian modal sensibility + Black Sabbath’s doom + psychedelic feedback experimentation. That synthesis is the Soundgarden sound.

The Rig: Kim Thayil’s Guitars, Amps & Gear

Guitars: Guild Forever, with Strategic Additions

Guild S-100 (Black, 1990s Reissue) — The Primary Guitar for Life

Kim Thayil’s main guitar is a black 1990s reissue Guild S-100 that he has had since the early 1990s. Premier Guitar documented: “Kim’s main guitar is a black ’90s reissue Guild S-100 (left) that he’s had since the early ’90s. He prefers this model because of the distance between the tailpiece and bridge, as he plays and bends strings behind the bridge.”

The Guild S-100 is an SG-shaped guitar — similar in body shape to the Gibson SG but with Guild’s own construction and electronics. Mahogany body and neck, twin humbuckers (hot stock pickups that Thayil has valued highly: “I noticed as a teenager that my guitar was louder than my friends’ SGs and Les Pauls”), and the specific S-100 characteristic that defines Thayil’s playing: the distance between the bridge and the tailpiece provides sufficient string length behind the bridge for playing and bending.

The behind-the-bridge technique is Thayil’s most distinctive and unusual approach:

• He picks the strings in the space between the bridge and the tailpiece — the section of string that most guitarists never touch
• With his fretting hand, he slides up and down the string at approximately the 12th fret position
• The result: “a pulsating, harmonic effect” as the behind-bridge vibration creates harmonics that the pickup captures
• Combined with feedback and distortion, this produces the specific weird, pulsating harmonic texture that appears throughout Soundgarden’s catalog

The guitar is completely stock: “everything is stock on the guitar.” No pickup swaps, no modifications, no custom work. The factory pickups are slightly microphonic, which suits the feedback and harmonic applications: “I noticed as a teenager that my guitar was louder than my friends’ SGs and Les Pauls. The S-100’s pickups are also slightly microphonic, so they are great for distortion and feedback.”

He uses GHS .009-.046 strings with low action on this guitar for standard-tuned and lighter material.

Tone note: He has been playing the same Guild S-100 for decades. Everything is stock. He has never looked back. The reason is specific: the distance between bridge and tailpiece allows the behind-bridge technique. The behind-bridge technique produces the harmonics that define Soundgarden’s most experimental moments. The guitar is primary because the guitar has the right architecture. Not the most famous guitar. Not the most expensive guitar. The one with the right amount of space behind the bridge.

Guild S-300 (1979, with DiMarzio Super Distortion) — The Heavy Guitar

The 1979 Guild S-300 is Thayil’s second primary guitar — used for heavier songs where the DiMarzio Super Distortion pickups’ higher output is required. Premier Guitar documented: “The ’79 Guild S-300 (middle) has hotter stock DiMarzio pickups and is used for heavier songs and songs where he is the only guitar player and doesn’t need the space behind the bridge.”

The specific S-300 difference from the S-100: hotter pickups (DiMarzio Super Distortion rather than the S-100’s stock units), and a different structural relationship between bridge and tailpiece that makes the behind-bridge technique less central to its use. When Thayil doesn’t need the behind-bridge space — on songs where the guitar’s role is driving the riff rather than creating harmonic effects — the S-300 provides the additional output level and aggression of the Super Distortion.

Gibson Firebird — The Doubled-String Guitar

Thayil’s Gibson Firebird is used specifically for songs requiring doubled strings in the EEBBBE tuning — “My Wave” and “Been Away Too Long” among them. Premier Guitar confirmed: “Kim’s Gibson Firebird is a current production model and has doubled strings in EEBBBE tuning (‘My Wave,’ ‘Been Away Too Long’).”

The doubled strings — like a 12-string guitar, where pairs of strings are tuned in unison or octaves — produce the specific thickening and chorus-like effect when the two strings in each pair are slightly out of tune with each other. The EEBBBE tuning (E-E-B-B-B-E) is not standard guitar tuning — it is a specific alternate configuration that Thayil developed for specific songs. Three strings at B, two at E, one at E (with the second E completing the pair). The specific sonic result is the driving, doubled-string riff texture of “My Wave.”

He also travels with the same red Firebird he used in the 1990s as a backup.

Other Key Guitars

• Fender 1959 Telecaster — Used for “Applebite” from Down on the Upside; “I’m playing my ’59 Tele on that one, and it’s pretty clean.” Also used for open C-G-C-G-G-E tuning in “A Thousand Days Before” from King Animal. Thayil described the appeal: “I was using a single-coil guitar, either a Strat or G&L, that was tuned down to whatever Matt had written it in.”
• Thin-bodied Gibson Les Paul Custom — In touring rig; confirmed in Premier Guitar Rig Rundown
• Gibson Les Paul Custom Lite — Used in some studio sessions
• Gibson SG — Used in various recording contexts
• Gibson Firebird V (red, 1990s) — Backup to current Firebird
• Fender Jaguar — Documented in guitar collection; occasional use
• Red Fender Stratocaster — Visible in 1986 Seattle concert footage
• Gibson Trini Lopez signature — Producer’s guitar used on King Animal recording; “great for the clear, hollow, bell-like tones used for layering”
• Guild Kim Thayil Polara Signature — Current production signature model; mahogany body, dual humbuckers, S-100-based design

The Multiple Alternate Tunings

Thayil uses a range of alternate tunings across Soundgarden’s catalog, with a dedicated guitar for each tuning configuration:

• Drop D (D-A-D-G-B-E) — Primary for many Soundgarden songs including “Outshined,” “Spoonman,” “Jesus Christ Pose”; the S-100s are dedicated to dropped-D material
• EEBBBE — Doubled strings; Gibson Firebird; “My Wave,” “Been Away Too Long,” “Down on the Upside”
• Open C-G-C-G-G-E — Fender Telecaster; “A Thousand Days Before” from King Animal
• Various other dropped and open tunings — Thayil described his tuning approach to Guitar World: “When you’re learning, you start orienting toward what you are told is correct, but then you go on and liberate yourself from those constraints. You loosen a string and get a different sort of sound… you can bend more, thanks to the extra floppiness!”

Complete Guitar List (Key Instruments)

• Guild S-100 (black, 1990s reissue) — Primary for life; stock pickups and hardware; behind-the-bridge technique; GHS .009-.046; main guitar from early 1990s onward
• Guild S-300 (1979, DiMarzio Super Distortion) — Heavy material; no behind-bridge technique needed
• Gibson Firebird (current production) — EEBBBE doubled strings; “My Wave,” “Been Away Too Long”
• Gibson Firebird V (red, 1990s) — Backup
• Fender 1959 Telecaster — “Applebite,” “A Thousand Days Before,” single-coil lighter material
• Gibson Les Paul Custom (thin-body) — Touring guitar
• Gibson SG — Various recording
• Red Fender Stratocaster — 1986 early period
• Guild Kim Thayil Polara Signature — Current production signature

Amps: Mesa/Boogie Primary — Two Different Characters

Mesa/Boogie Electradyne — The High Headroom Head

Thayil’s primary amplifier from the reunion era (2010 onward) is the Mesa/Boogie Electradyne — a 90-watt head that he runs through two Mesa/Boogie Stiletto 4×12 slant cabinets. Mesa/Boogie documented his specific settings: he uses the Electradyne’s Low Gain mode on the second channel with moderately low gain settings — “Note the use of the LOW Gain mode of the Electradyne 2nd Channel with moderately low gain (volume) settings. It doesn’t necessarily take high gain settings to deliver amazing high gain sounds.”

This is a counterintuitive amp setting observation: the Electradyne produces its best high-gain sounds not at the gain control’s maximum position but at moderate gain with the volume (master) compensating. The specific compression and harmonic content of a tube amp at moderate gain with higher volume differs from the same amp at maximum gain — and Thayil has found that the lower gain setting of the Electradyne produces the specific character he needs for Soundgarden’s riffs.

The Electradyne is set with more lows and more sparkle on the top end — providing the frequency extremes that the Tremoverb’s midrange punch doesn’t cover.

Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb Combo — The Midrange Punch

Running alongside the Electradyne is the Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb 2×12 combo — a lower-volume combo set with “a lot of gain and compression for the midrange and drive.” The Tremoverb handles the midrange frequency range that the Electradyne’s more scooped character doesn’t emphasize.

Premier Guitar confirmed both amps: “Kim combines a Mesa/Boogie Trem-o-Verb combo and a Mesa/Boogie Electradyne head dialed in to complement each other. The Trem-o-Verb is set quiet with a lot of gain and compression for the midrange and drive. The Electradyne is also set with a lot of gain but has more lows and more sparkle on the top end.”

When he returned to Soundgarden for the 2010 reunion, he arrived at a rehearsal to find Matt Cameron and Neil Finn (at the time substituting for Cornell) already playing through Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb combos: “I just really liked how it sounded and it felt almost instantly like Soundgarden.”

Earlier Amplifiers

• Ampeg bass amp with 15″ speaker (early Soundgarden) — The most unusual amp choice in this series: a bass amp for guitar. Thayil ran it with “the high end cranked all the way up, the mids dropped out, and the low end there for feedback and the big woof.” The 15″ bass speaker’s frequency response produced specific harmonic and feedback characteristics different from any guitar amp
• Peavey VTM-120 — Used on Badmotorfinger (1991); heavy metal-voiced amp
• 65-watt Music Man HD130 — Also used on Badmotorfinger
• Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier (prototype) — Used on Badmotorfinger and Superunknown era; same era as Cantrell’s Dirt prototype
• Various recording session amps — King Animal: “Matt’s ’60s Vox AC30, Ben’s ’50s Fender Champ, and Adam’s Ampeg VT-22, Savage Audio Rohr 15 combo, Fender Vibroverb, and Fender Pro Jr.”

The signal path documented by Mesa/Boogie in 2011: Guild S-100 → Wireless → Boss TU-2 Tuner → EHX Micro POG → Lehle Little Looper → Dunlop/CAE wah → Dunlop Rotovibe → T-Rex Reptile Delay → Lehle P-Split passive splitter → Electradyne (90W, two Stiletto 4×12 cabs) and Tremoverb combo. The Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere is in the Electradyne’s effects loop, creating a wet/dry combination where one amp has the Leslie effect and the other is dry.

Pedals: The Rotosphere and the Behind-the-Bridge System

Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere — The Black Hole Sun Sound

The most identifiable single effect in Soundgarden’s catalog: the Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere produced the rotating speaker (Leslie) effect on “Black Hole Sun.” Thayil confirmed: “I still have that same Rotosphere on my pedalboard, and I alternate between the fast setting for the verses and the slow setting for the choruses. Other songs I use it on are ‘Hunted Down’ and ‘Let Me Drown.’ I use the high rotor speed to emulate the Leslie 147 used on the record.”

The Leslie 147 — the specific Hammond organ rotating speaker cabinet — was used on the original “Black Hole Sun” recording. The Rotosphere emulates it for live performance. Thayil runs the Rotosphere through the effects loop of the Electradyne, creating a wet/dry combination: one amp (Electradyne) has the Leslie-modulated signal; the other (Tremoverb) has the dry signal. The result is a stereo Leslie effect where the rotation affects only part of the combined sound.

Complete Pedalboard (2011 Rig Rundown)

The documented signal chain from Mesa/Boogie’s 2011 tour documentation:

• Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner — First in chain; essential for alternate tuning accuracy
• EHX Micro POG (Polyphonic Octave Generator) — “Used for songs like ‘Halfway There'”; octave generator adding sub-octave and/or octave-up content
• Lehle Little Looper — Signal routing
• Dunlop MC404 CAE Wah — The wah pedal; used for expressive solos and effect passes
• Dunlop Rotovibe — Used on “Applebite” (Down on the Upside); Rotovibe setting (not chorus setting); “the subtle, pretty pitch-modulation effect”
• T-Rex Reptile Delay / T-Rex Tap Tone — Delay for solos; “spice up solos and change things up”
• Boss DD-5 Digital Delay — Set to backward delay
• MXR Doubleshot Distortion (via Lehle switch) — Additional gain; “too much gain with the MXR causing the guitar to squeal” — so the Lehle switches the Doubleshot and Boss NS-2 gate together with one footswitch
• Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor — Used when MXR Doubleshot is engaged; gate prevents the excessive gain from squealing
• CAE Boost/Line Driver (always on) — Buffer and boost; “almost always on”
• CAE Boost/Overdrive — “Kicked in for a little extra dirt”
• Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere (in Electradyne effects loop) — “Black Hole Sun,” “Hunted Down,” “Let Me Drown”; Leslie emulation; fast setting for verses, slow for choruses
• Ibanez CS9 Chorus — “Darker chorus sounds for arpeggios and harmonics like in ‘Nothing to Say,’ ‘Beyond the Wheel,’ and other early songs in dropped tunings as well as in conjunction with his behind-the-bridge playing”
• Providence PEC-2 Routing System — Controls which effects are engaged or bypassed
• Radial Big Shot pedals — Channel switching on the Tremoverb; control Rotosphere on/off and speed

Earlier Pedal Use

• Dunlop CryBaby Wah — Primary wah throughout most of Soundgarden’s career
• MXR Chorus — Used in various periods
• Mu-Tron phase shifter — “The whistling guitar sound, almost akin to a Moog synth” — used on “Applebite” and other Down on the Upside tracks
• Colorsound Wah — Used on some Down on the Upside tracks
• Boss CE-2 Chorus — Documented in early period photos
• Boss Metal Zone — Early period

Tone note: He doesn’t want the noise gate on his signal all the time because “he does a lot of low-level, subtle techniques that would get lost with a gate.” This is the behind-the-bridge technique’s specific problem: the harmonics produced by the behind-bridge technique are subtle, quiet, and fragile. A gate, set to clean up the noise from the MXR Doubleshot’s extreme gain, would also clean up those specific subtle harmonics. So the gate only activates when the Doubleshot is engaged, leaving the signal open and noisy at lower gain settings. The subtlety of the technique requires the subtlety of the noise management.

Strings, Picks & Setup

Strings: GHS .009-.046 with low action on the primary S-100 — confirmed in Premier Guitar documentation. The .009 gauge (super-light) provides more flexibility for bending, including the behind-bridge technique where string tension is already reduced. He has a second S-100 with heavier, doubled strings for lower tunings — confirming different string gauges for different tuning configurations.

Picks: Not specifically documented in primary sources with the consistency of some other artists in this series — Thayil’s playing style and the behind-bridge technique focus more on the specific technical approach than on pick selection.

Low action: The “low action on the S-100” noted in the Rig Rundown suits both the lighter string gauge (.009) and the behind-bridge technique. Lower action reduces the effort required for fretting but can reduce sustain slightly — the trade-off Thayil accepts for the playability advantage.

Playing Style & Tone Philosophy: Architecture, Feedback, and the Raga Underneath

Kim Thayil’s guitar philosophy is the most architecturally complex in the Seattle grunge tradition. While McCready improvises over the structures, Gossard builds the rhythmic foundation, and Cantrell constructs doom-riff systems, Thayil builds sonic environments — textures of feedback, harmonics, detuned drones, and odd-time riffs that create a specific atmospheric gravity. Cornell’s voice needed that gravity to fly through.

The Behind-the-Bridge Technique

This is Thayil’s most distinctive physical approach — the one that no one else in this series uses. Playing the string in the space between the bridge and the tailpiece (the “dead zone” that most guitarists ignore), combined with the fretting hand sliding up and down the string near the 12th fret to vary the harmonic content, produces a specific pulsating, wavering harmonic effect that is uniquely his.

Guitar Player Magazine quoted him on the technical requirements: “A particular attribute of the Guild S-100 — which is still my main guitar — is that the low strings are very resonant behind the bridge… The other prerequisite is hot pickups.” The S-100’s specific bridge-to-tailpiece distance provides enough behind-bridge string length for the technique; the hot, slightly microphonic pickups capture the subtle harmonics that the technique generates.

The Alternate Tunings Liberation

Thayil described his relationship with alternate tunings to Guitar World: “When you’re learning, you start orienting toward what you are told is correct, but then you go on and liberate yourself from those constraints. Yes, there’s a common rule of thumb for tuning guitars, but there are other ways to approach it to facilitate playing or writing, or even just to change the tone. You loosen a string and get a different sort of sound… you can bend more, thanks to the extra floppiness!”

The range of tunings across Soundgarden’s catalog is among the most diverse in this series: standard, drop D, EEBBBE (doubled strings), open C-G-C-G-G-E, and various other configurations. Each tuning generates different harmonic possibilities — the open strings drone differently, the power chord shapes sit differently, the scale patterns produce different interval relationships. Thayil explores these differences systematically.

The Indian Classical Influence

The raga tradition’s presence in Thayil’s playing: sustained tones over a drone, modal scale movement rather than chord-progression movement, comfort with repetition and subtle variation, microtonal inflections at the edge of equal-tempered intonation. These are not techniques he learned from rock guitar; they are the musical environment he grew up in, filtered through the rock instrument.

“Mailman” from Superunknown has the slow, hypnotic quality of a raga — the guitar circling around a tonal center, the drone creating a specific gravity. “Black Hole Sun” ‘s harmonic language is queasy and chromatic in a way that reflects the raga tradition’s comfort with intervals that Western tonal music avoids. The specific heaviness of Soundgarden is partly the Indian classical drone made heavy.

Feedback as a Musical Element

Thayil uses feedback as a compositional element — not as an accident to be controlled but as a sound to be cultivated. The early Soundgarden amp setup (bass amp with 15″ speaker, cranked to produce feedback) was specifically designed to make feedback easy to access and control. The behind-bridge technique functions specifically in the context of feedback — the harmonics behind the bridge, amplified and distorted, produce the specific wavering, pulsating tones that feedback-based playing can achieve.

“I Am a Cream Fan”

He told Guitar World: “I am a Cream fan, and on Soundgarden’s early European tours we’d play ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ at the end, mainly because we’d been drinking through the show.” The Cream connection is audible — Cream’s combination of heavy power trio rock, psychedelic experimentation, and Clapton’s blues-plus-rock synthesis is one of the lineages that Soundgarden inhabits. “Sunshine of Your Love” was one of the songs that showed American rock bands the possibilities of a single heavy riff as a complete musical statement. Thayil absorbed this and extended it with the Indian modal sensibility and the feedback exploration.

How to Sound Like Kim Thayil: The Soundgarden Guitar Tone

Thayil’s core tone is achievable: Guild S-100 or SG-style guitar, Mesa/Boogie amplification, Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere for “Black Hole Sun.” The behind-the-bridge technique requires a guitar with sufficient bridge-to-tailpiece distance and is physically learnable but unusual.

The Guitar

Guild S-100 or SG-style guitar (the SG is the closest widely available equivalent for the Guild’s body shape and pickup configuration).

• Guild Kim Thayil Polara Signature — The official production equivalent
• Guild S-100 Polara (current production) — The closest to his actual instrument
• Gibson SG Standard — Similar shape, humbucker configuration, comparable scale length
• Any dual-humbucker, stop-tailpiece guitar with sufficient string space behind the bridge — The behind-bridge technique requires this distance

The Amp

Mesa/Boogie for the most authentic approach. Two amps — one with more lows and sparkle (Electradyne or equivalent), one with more midrange compression (Tremoverb or equivalent).

Control	Electradyne (lows/highs)	Tremoverb (mids)
Gain	Moderate (Low Gain mode)	High (compressed midrange)
Bass	6–7	4–5
Middle	4–5 (scooped)	7–8 (forward)
Treble	6–7 (sparkle)	5
Volume	High	Quieter

The Essential Effects

• Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere (or quality Leslie emulator: Source Audio Ventris, Strymon Lex) — Essential for “Black Hole Sun”; fast for verses, slow for choruses
• Dunlop Wah — CryBaby or MC404 CAE; for expressive solos
• EHX Micro POG — Octave content for specific songs
• Ibanez CS9 Chorus — “Darker chorus” for arpeggios and behind-bridge playing

The Behind-the-Bridge Technique

On any stop-tailpiece guitar: pick the strings in the space between the bridge and the tailpiece. Simultaneously, place the fretting hand on the same string at approximately the 12th fret position, and slide up and down slightly. With high gain and feedback, the harmonic content will vary as the hand slides — producing the pulsating effect Thayil describes. This requires: sufficient string length behind the bridge (stop-tailpiece or similar), hot pickups, and high gain.

Budget vs Authentic

Budget:

• Guitar: Gibson SG Standard; standard stock pickups
• Amp: Mesa/Boogie Nomad or any high-gain Mesa combo
• Effects: EHX Rotary Organ Sound or TC Electronic Vibraclone for Leslie emulation; Dunlop CryBaby wah
• Strings: GHS Boomers .009-.046

Authentic:

• Guitar: Guild S-100 Polara or Guild Kim Thayil Signature
• Amps: Mesa/Boogie Electradyne (90W) + Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb combo; Mesa Stiletto 4×12 cabs
• Effects: Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere (in effects loop); EHX Micro POG; Dunlop MC404 CAE Wah; Ibanez CS9 Chorus; T-Rex Reptile Delay

Influence & Legacy: The Sonic Environment That Grunge Needed

Kim Thayil’s influence on rock guitar is the influence of the architect — the person who built the specific sonic environment that made the Seattle sound possible. Without Thayil’s combination of drone, feedback, behind-the-bridge harmonics, and the Indian modal sensibility applied to heavy rock, Soundgarden would have been a different band. And without Soundgarden, the Seattle scene would have been a different movement.

His specific contributions to guitar language:

• The behind-the-bridge technique — Not widely practiced before Thayil; now a recognized extended technique
• The Indian modal approach to heavy rock — The specific combination of raga sensibility with heavy metal riffing was his synthesis; its influence on drone-based heavy music (drone metal, stoner rock) runs through Soundgarden
• Odd time signatures in radio-accessible rock — “Spoonman” in 7/4, “Black Hole Sun” in 4/4 with specific metric displacement, numerous other non-standard signature songs; Soundgarden popularised odd-time signatures in commercial rock
• Feedback as texture — The systematic use of feedback as a compositional element rather than an accident to be controlled; his early Ampeg bass amp setup was specifically designed to maximize feedback accessibility

Rolling Stone ranked him 100th on their 100 Greatest Guitarists list. He has said he doesn’t consider himself a lead guitarist. Both things are true: by the lead-guitarist metrics of speed and showmanship, he ranks low. By the architect’s metric of distinctive sonic environment construction, he is irreplaceable.

Chris Cornell died in 2017. Soundgarden has not played since. The Guild S-100 — still stock, still the same guitar from the early 1990s — still has the right amount of space behind the bridge.

Tone note: He used a bass amp in the early days. He cranked the high end, dropped the mids, kept the low end for “feedback and the big woof.” A bass amp with a 15″ speaker, treated as a guitar amp, run for feedback. That’s where Soundgarden’s guitar sound started — not from a guitar amp optimized for guitar but from a bass amp optimized for the specific feedback characteristics Thayil needed. The initial compromise produced the initial sound.

At nineteen, Kim Thayil found a Guild S-100. He has been using it ever since. Everything is stock. The distance between the bridge and the tailpiece is right for behind-the-bridge playing. The pickups are slightly microphonic and great for feedback. The neck is a little thicker than an SG. He never looked back.

In the early days he ran a bass amp with a 15″ speaker — cranked the high end, dropped the mids, kept the low end for the big woof and the feedback. Later he found Mesa/Boogie. The Electradyne for lows and sparkle. The Tremoverb for midrange compression. The Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere in the Electradyne’s effects loop for “Black Hole Sun” — fast for the verses, slow for the choruses.

His parents were from India. The raga tradition is in his playing — the drone, the modal approach, the comfort with repetition. He combined it with Black Sabbath’s doom and psychedelic feedback. The result was Soundgarden. The result was “Outshined” and “Spoonman” and “Black Hole Sun” and “Like Suicide.”

Never call him a lead guitarist. He made the sonic environment. Chris Cornell flew through it. That’s enough.

---

---

If Kim Thayil’s sonic architecture — the Guild S-100, behind-the-bridge harmonics, Mesa/Boogie two-amp rig, the Rotosphere for Black Hole Sun — has you exploring the Soundgarden tradition, check out our complete guide to Jerry Cantrell’s guitars and gear — whose parallel development of a heavy, detuned Seattle guitar identity at Alice in Chains produced a very different but equally distinctive approach to the same era’s heavy music.

And for the guitarist whose behind-the-bridge feedback experiments and alternate tuning explorations run in a different direction but from the same Seattle soil — check our coverage of Stone Gossard’s complete gear guide, Soundgarden’s Pearl Jam neighbor and fellow rhythmic architect.

---

---

FAQ: Kim Thayil Guitars & Gear

What guitar does Kim Thayil play?

His primary guitar is a black 1990s reissue Guild S-100 that he has played since the early 1990s. He described finding it: “I’ve pretty much been using that for seventeen years” (Guitar One, 1996) — and has continued using it since. Everything on the guitar is completely stock; no modifications to pickups or hardware. He chose the Guild S-100 primarily because of “the distance between the tailpiece and bridge” — sufficient space to perform his behind-the-bridge playing technique. His S-100 is strung with GHS .009-.046 with low action. He also uses a 1979 Guild S-300 (with DiMarzio Super Distortion pickups) for heavier songs, a Gibson Firebird for EEBBBE tuning songs, and a 1959 Fender Telecaster for lighter, single-coil material.

What is the behind-the-bridge technique?

Kim Thayil picks the strings in the space between the bridge and the tailpiece — the section of string behind the bridge that most guitarists ignore. He simultaneously slides his fretting hand up and down the same string near the 12th fret position to vary the harmonic content. He described it: “The low strings are very resonant behind the bridge. That helps create weird harmonics when the signal is feeding back. I pick below the bridge, and slide my left hand up and down the string around the 12th fret to create a pulsating, harmonic effect.” The technique requires sufficient string length behind the bridge (hence his loyalty to the Guild S-100’s specific bridge-tailpiece distance) and hot, slightly microphonic pickups that capture the subtle harmonics the technique generates.

What amplifiers does Kim Thayil use?

His reunion-era primary rig combines a Mesa/Boogie Electradyne head (90W, through two Mesa Stiletto 4×12 slant cabs) with a Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb 2×12 combo. The Electradyne is set with more lows and sparkle on the top end; the Tremoverb is set with “a lot of gain and compression for the midrange.” He uses the Electradyne’s Low Gain mode at moderate gain settings — “It doesn’t necessarily take high gain settings to deliver amazing high gain sounds.” Earlier amps include: Ampeg bass amp with 15″ speaker (early Soundgarden, “cranked the high end, dropped the mids, kept the low end for feedback”), Peavey VTM-120, Music Man HD130, Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier (prototype, Badmotorfinger/Superunknown era).

What created the “Black Hole Sun” guitar sound?

The rotating speaker (Leslie) effect. On the original recording, a Leslie 147 rotating speaker cabinet (normally used with Hammond organs) was used. Live, Kim Thayil emulates it with a Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere — run through the effects loop of his Mesa/Boogie Electradyne, creating a wet/dry combination where the Electradyne has the Leslie effect and the Tremoverb stays dry. He alternates between the fast speed setting for the verses and the slow speed setting for the choruses. He confirmed: “I still have that same Rotosphere on my pedalboard.”

What alternate tunings does Soundgarden use?

Soundgarden uses an extensive range of alternate tunings. Primary ones: Drop D (D-A-D-G-B-E) for most of the heavy catalog including “Outshined,” “Spoonman,” “Jesus Christ Pose” — the S-100 is dedicated to drop D material. EEBBBE (with doubled strings on the Gibson Firebird) for “My Wave” and “Been Away Too Long.” Open C-G-C-G-G-E on Fender Telecaster for “A Thousand Days Before.” Various other open and drop tunings across the catalog. Thayil described his tuning philosophy: “When you’re learning, you start orienting toward what you are told is correct, but then you go on and liberate yourself from those constraints.”

What influenced Kim Thayil’s guitar style?

A diverse combination: Black Sabbath and heavy metal riffing as the foundational heavy influence; Cream and Jimi Hendrix for the psychedelic experimentation and feedback use (he mentioned playing “Sunshine of Your Love” to close shows on early European tours); and specifically Indian classical music — his parents were from India, and the raga tradition’s drone-based, modal, repetitive approach influenced his sense of what the guitar could do. He told Guitar World: “I think what I do is soulful… it’s just not blues!” He said it’s soulful in the Indian classical tradition rather than the American blues tradition. The combination of these three influences — heavy metal, psychedelic rock, and Indian classical — produced the specific Soundgarden guitar identity.

How do I get Kim Thayil’s guitar tone?

Guild S-100 or SG-style dual-humbucker guitar (Guild Kim Thayil Polara Signature for the most direct equivalent). GHS .009-.046 strings, low action. Mesa/Boogie two-amp setup: Electradyne (or similar high-headroom head) set for more bass and treble, running into 4×12 cabs; Tremoverb combo (or similar) set for midrange compression and drive. Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere (or quality Leslie emulator) in the effects loop for “Black Hole Sun.” Dunlop Wah; EHX Micro POG; Ibanez CS9 chorus for behind-bridge playing. Drop D tuning for most heavy material. The behind-the-bridge technique: on any stop-tailpiece guitar, pick the strings behind the bridge and slide the fretting hand on the same string to vary harmonics. Hot, slightly microphonic pickups help.