Shaina Shepherd Says She Could “Never Front Soundgarden”

Last month saw a partial reunion of grunge legends Soundgarden for a one-off charity concert. Since frontman Chris Cornell tragically died by suicide in 2017, the reunion show featured local singer Shaina Shepherd of soulful grunge act Bearaxe on vocals and billed the show as Nudedragons, an anagram of Soundgarden. While it may not have exactly been the original Soundgarden lineup, it was the next best thing, and Shepherd did an outstanding job on vocals. But if anyone was thinking that Shepherd might be stepping into the vocalist position in Soundgarden permanently, then think again.

Hot Metal Magazine ran a story a few days ago asking if Soundgarden should permanently reform with Shepherd as the new vocalist, which led to a lot of disparaging remarks about Shepherd in the comments section of the magazine’s Facebook page. It must really suck to have your Facebook page inundated with negative comments all the time. Can’t imagine what that’s like. But Shepherd herself showed up in the comments section and had some choice words for her haters.

First, Shepherd made sarcastic responses to all the comments trashing her, writing things like “cool,” “nice,” and “ok.” Then she made the comment:

“Haters gonna hate while I live my dream.”

When someone tried to make some weird point about the difference between hating her and disliking her that really didn’t make sense, Shepherd fired back:

“bro….Soundgarden is a revolutionary band that changed my life, your life, the world. I could never front Soundgarden. But I love making music with those guys. I did it for me, for them like any other music endeavor. I don’t care what any of you think – never did. I care what they think – always will. This whole article is meaningless. Just like your timeline.”

So there seems little chance of Shepherd fronting Soundgarden anytime soon, but we definitely learned that Shepherd is not going to take the hate sitting down. And, frankly, good for her.