SOUNDGARDEN: Collection Of Rare Tracks Still In The Works

Reunited grunge legends SOUNDGARDEN reissue their first two EPs, 1987's "Screaming Life" and 1988's "FOPP", on Tuesday (November 26) in a remastered edition that also includes a bonus track. The set, which is coming out as a single CD, double vinyl LP and download, brings these early releases back into print after several years of being unavailable.

SOUNDGARDEN guitarist Kim Thayil told The Pulse Of Radio that a long-awaited collection of B-sides and non-album tracks only previously available on singles, soundtracks and other such releases is also on the band's agenda. "I see that as another album, you know, as a stand-on-its-own album," he said. "I don't see it as a compilation, like a greatest hits or anything, because it's an album where a lot of these songs that are previously uncompiled will be available. That always used to be a problem for me, like, hearing a song that was a B-side for a single and it wasn't on the album and it's like, 'Oh man, where can I get this, you know.'"

Thayil told Rolling Stone that the set of B-sides and non-album tracks will consist of "original material that has never been compiled on a SOUNDGARDEN album. Things from compilation records, like 'Sub Pop Rock City', for instance, might have been on the B-sides album."

Although the group has also recorded a number of hard-to-find covers from bands like DEVO and BUDGIE, Thayil said that there are also enough original songs "for another album-plus . . . this would be like another studio album."

Thayil plans to work on the B-sides collection in 2014, along with a remixed version of the group's first full-length album, 1988's "Ultramega OK".

As for a brand new album to follow up last year's "King Animal", Thayil said, "The band has talked about that. That's something that we'll look at in the next two years."

The bonus track on the new EP reissue, "Sub Pop Rock City", was originally on a compilation album called "Sub Pop 200". Thayil called it "a nice little box of a bunch of songs capturing just about every band that was on Sub Pop then, as well as other bands that never released records on Sub Pop but were affiliated with the community and scene."

"Screaming Life" was the second-ever band release by Sub Pop, the influential Seattle-based label that was home in the late '80s to SOUNDGARDEN, NIRVANA, THE MELVINS and GREEN RIVER, the band that eventually morphed into MOTHER LOVE BONE and then PEARL JAM.