(Credits: Far Out / Joe Mabel)
Fri 22 August 2025 4:00, UK
If you ever had a phase of teenage angst, however brief, you are likely all too familiar with grunge heroes Soundgarden and their anthemic 1994 triumph ‘Spoonman’, but even the most obsessive of grunge aficionados might not know the story behind the track’s mysterious titular character.
Although Soundgarden were among the early pioneers of Seattle grunge, becoming stalwarts of the Sub Pop scene and laying the foundations that would eventually see the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana dominate mainstream rock, they struggled to achieve the same degree of widespread acclaim afforded to their comrades. In fact, it wasn’t until the infectiously abrasive tones of ‘Spoonman’ hit the airwaves in 1994 that audiences began to take note of Chris Cornell’s outfit.
An irrefutable stand-out track from the band’s legendary record Superunknown, arriving just after the darkly psychedelic grunge metal masterpiece ‘Black Hole Sun’ in the tracklisting, ‘Spoonman’ helped to capture the incredible diversity within Cornell’s songwriting during that golden age. Audiences on both sides of the Atlantic immediately responded to the track, too, sending it to number three on the US rock charts, and number 20 in the UK singles chart. That is not to say, however, that everybody understood who or what Cornell was writing about.
As it turns out, the titular ‘Spoonman’ was not some grunge boogeyman dreamed up by Cornell, nor was he a low-budget superhero cut from the Marvel universe. In fact, the real Spoonman is a legendary street performer at Pike Place Market back in Seattle, known as Artis Spoonman. Although Cornell didn’t know the performer on a personal level at the time he wrote the song, the image of this bizarre cult figure standing on the street playing the spoons was enough to provide some artistic inspiration.
“I had known there was this guy Spoonman,” Cornell once told Entertainment Weekly. “But [the song] was an ode to an imaginary person in my head, because I didn’t know him yet.”
He added, “The song was based entirely on the title, so what’s happening musically is the attitude of supporting this guy who stands on a street corner and plays the shit out of some spoons.” An unlikely origin story for one of the greatest grunge anthems of all time, but one which makes the track all the more enchanting.
So, what is the story of Artis Spoonman? As the man himself shared with Classic Rock in 2014, “I have felt a strong urge to be a musician/performer since I was a young boy. Spoons became an inadvertent vehicle.”
He explained, “I started making tips in 1974, and lived on it ever since.”
Along the way, the Spoonman crossed paths with a plethora of iconic artists, long predating Soundgarden.
Most notably, he was once a collaborator of Frank Zappa back in the early 1980s. Seemingly, his impassioned, experimental approach to street performing suited Zappa’s sensibilities perfectly, and the pair appeared onstage together on multiple occasions in 1981, long before the grunge revolution had taken root on the Spoonman’s home patch.
In addition to providing songwriting inspiration for Soundgarden’s mainstream breakthrough, the Spoonman also appeared in the music video for the song, as well as – expectedly – playing the spoons on the track. The street performer didn’t let the grunge fame get to his head, though, and still appears at his old stomping ground of Pike Place Market to this day, spoons in hand.
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