Ben Shepherd

Ben Shepherd Live at McCallum Park

Hunter Benedict "Ben" Shepherd (born September 20, 1968 in Okinawa , Japan ) is an American bassist. He became known as a member of the band Soundgarden .

Early life

Ben Shepherd was born in a military base near Okinawa, Japan because his father was in the military. However, he grew up in Bainbridge Island . As early as the 80s he played rock music in garage bands. He formed bands called 600 School , March of Crimes , Tic Dolly Row , Mind Circus, and Episode . He used to work as a roadie at Nirvana and was talked about as their rhythm guitarist.

Soundgarden

After Hiro Yamamoto Soundgarden and Jason Everman (ex-Nirvana) could no longer fill the position, Ben Shepherd joined the band. He played for the first time on the 1991 album Badmotorfinger , was involved in two songs in the writing process and wrote two more songs alone. In 1994 the band had their final breakthrough with the album Superunknown . In 1996 the album Down on the Upside was released before the band broke up a year later.

Hater & Wellwater Conspiracy

In addition, his first solo project Hater appeared in 1993 with a self-titled debut album. In Hater have included Matt Cameron and John McBain involved. With exactly these two he founded the band Wellwater Conspiracy in the same year , which he left in 1998 after a studio album ( Declaration of Conformity , 1997). Hater appeared until 1997, released a long-recorded second studio album ( The 2nd ) in 2005 and gave brief live reunions in 2005 and 2008.

other projects

Ben Shepherd was also involved in the Desert Sessions in 1997 and 1998 , which were initiated by ex- Kyuss members Josh Homme and Brant Bjork . In 2000 he played on a song from Tony Iommi's solo album Iommi . It's called Into The Night and it's sung by Billy Idol . The drummer for this song was his former bandmate Matt Cameron. In 2001 he played bass, guitar and piano on Mark Lanegan's album Field Songs. In 2005 he founded the band Unkmongoni, which however did not release any material.

Soundgarden reunion

On January 1, 2010, Soundgarden announced their reunion. Shepherd was also there. They performed live for the first time again on April 16, 2010 in Seattle under the anagram Nudedragons . In 2012 the reunification album King Animal was released .

Solo album

In 2013 Shepherd released the solo album "In Deep Owl" under his initials HBS, on which he has been working since 2009.

Private life

In August 2010, Shepherd said in interviews that he was homeless and currently had to sleep in the studio on sofas or with friends. His girlfriend, with whom he has a daughter, had previously left him and he would be “totally broke”. He would have spent all the money on his solo album (which was released in 2013). He also admitted to having become addicted to alcohol and pain medication after the end of Soundgarden, Hater and Wellwater Conspiracy in 1997 and 1998.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ben Shepherd at Allmusic (English). Retrieved August 11, 2016.
2. ↑ AlternativeNation.net Interview With Ben Shepherd, Soundgarden Bassist by Brett Buchanan - Aug 13, 2013. Retrieved April 20, 2017 from web.archive.org.
3. ↑ Alex Hudson: Soundgarden bassist Ben Shepherd Homeless and "Totally Broke". In: exclaim.ca. August 18, 2010, accessed August 11, 2016 .