Soundgarden

In 1985, Soundgarden was a recently formed three-piece band with Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell is an American rock musician best known as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Soundgarden and as the former lead vocalist for Audioslave. He is also known for his numerous solo works and soundtrack contributions since 1998...

 on vocals and drums, Kim Thayil

Kim Thayil

Kim Thayil is an American guitarist best known as the lead guitarist of the Seattle-based grunge band Soundgarden, which he cofounded with singer Chris Cornell and bassist Hiro Yamamoto in 1984...

 on guitar, and Hiro Yamamoto

Hiro Yamamoto

Hiro Yamamoto is an American bassist who was a founding member of grunge band Soundgarden, along with Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell in 1984...

 on bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

. The band enlisted Sundquist as their drummer so Cornell could focus on the vocals. They traveled around playing various gigs with this lineup for about a year. They then recorded three songs for a C/Z Records

C/Z Records

C/Z Records is a Seattle-based record label that was established in early 1985 by Chris Hanzsek and Tina Casale with the release of the now-legendary, Deep Six LP, which collected the earliest recordings of the real pro-genitors of what later came to be known as grunge...

 compilation album of grunge music by Soundgarden and five other bands, which was called Deep Six

Deep Six (album)

The Deep Six compilation was released March 1986 . It was the very first release by C/Z Records, a few months before the release of Sub Pop 100 from Sub Pop Records. It was also arguably the second record to influence the later "Seattle sound" that would be known worldwide as grunge...

and was released in March 1986. This album contains the only recorded Soundgarden material with Sundquist.

Also in 1986, Sundquist, who by that point had a wife and a child, decided to back out of the band and pursue a normal family life. They were briefly left without a drummer until they were able to lure Skin Yard

Skin Yard

Skin Yard was an American rock band from Seattle, Washington, who were active from 1985 to 1992. The group never gained a mainstream audience, but were an influence on their contemporaries – most notably Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, The Melvins, and Green River – alongside whom they are considered...

 drummer Matt Cameron

Matt Cameron

Matthew David "Matt" Cameron is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the American rock bands Pearl Jam and Soundgarden...

away from his band. Cameron stayed with Soundgarden until the entire band broke up in 1997.