Guitarist Kim Thayil says he and his surviving Soundgarden band mates are hopeful that they can complete songs Chris Cornell made demos of before his death in 2017.
Cornell and his band mates had done some work on a seventh studio album, but the project never advanced to preproduction, as the band mourned the loss of its front man.
Thayil says there is a possibility that the surviving band members could finish what they started, but he suggested they will need to strike a deal with Cornell's family.
"We tried to get this going two years ago, but we're not in possession of any of the demos that Chris was working on..." the guitarist told Music Radar. "We have copies of them, but what we need are the files, so that we'd be able to overdub and finish the record. We are not in possession of those."
While over the last two years Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron have expressed differing viewpoints about doing anything as Soundgarden in the future, Thayil indicates the band has come around on the idea of completing the studio album.
But there are more hoops to jump through, he says.
"We've asked nicely, we've suggested that this will benefit all parties, if the band could just have these files, and we could finish the songs we were working on," he continued. "But there seems to be some confusion amongst various parties as to what that would entail and how that works, and who that would benefit."
Thayil described the material they were working on as "psychedelic" and "quirky," adding that there were some "sad songs and a couple of heavy songs." Some of the mixes reminded of the band's 2012 album King Animal.
Soundgarden went completely silent following Cornell's death, with Thayil taking more than a year away from music before returning to the stage to celebrate the MC5's 50th anniversary last summer.
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