Early in my life I was inspired by the creative process. Music was definitely an important part of that. I did lots of volunteer work with large orga… - Susan Silver

When the bands and the Seattle scene started taking off, I had been at it for so long that it felt very natural - it was just 'this is another day in the life'. Not having been through it before, there wasn't the perspective to say,' Oh my God, we're in the eye of the hurricane.' It was just, 'This is what we do today. Okay, just one more thing. One more thing to accomplish today'. I guess the part that felt...the only thing that started to feel strange, this could be strange or this could be detrimental to people, was when the press started taking pot shots at people personally. Digging for dirt in the artists' private lives, being exploitative of the artist. That was the hardest part. Suddenly this private world that we had was public. Which was okay, that was exciting, except when the press got...when they looked for sensational avenues to report on. Which there wasn't for a long time. There really wasn't [any]. They had to keep coming back and saying, 'I guess all they know how to do up there is make amazing music'. Which is what continues to happen. The Seattle backlash and highly circulated reports that there was nothing new in Seattle after '93 just keep getting proved wrong again and again. I love that.

I met Chris [Cornell] at the end of '85 at a Halloween party, at an artist studio in Belltown, and I was out on the town that night with my dear frien Chuck, a.k.a. Upchuck from the Fags. And Chuck dresses me up as him in drag – he was in drag most of the time – so I had a long blond fright wig and a kimono and pancake makeup. Soundgarden was playing the party, as a three-piece, with Chris on drums and vocals. They were amazing. I'd worked with Ben McMillan in a vintage clothing store in town called Tootsie's. And Chris came in to talk to him, and the story that Chris told me is that I caught his eye. So he kept coming in and trying to get my attention, but I paid him no mind. Partly because I had just broken up with Gordon earlier that year, so I was in a pretty dark space. After the band played, Chris came up to me and recognized me, which he got huge points for because I was in full drag-queen regalia. He said the band were trying to get a show in Vancouver, so I told him that I was going up there to a show in the next week, and if he wanted to meet, I would take a tape for them. So we met, and he gave me that tape, and we saw each other a week later at the Vogue. After that, we went to a 24-hour dinner. We tried to go back to my house, but I'd lost my keys. We made out for a while, and then he took me to my mom's in West Seattle, and it was just on from there. At the time, it was healing for me.

Layne's death was such a deep, deep loss. And there's that question of, what do you do with a tragedy in life? Do we stop living? Or do we go on? Looking at the story that that record [Black Gives Way to Blue] tells, and then the beautiful love letter that Jerry [Cantrell] wrote to Layne to close the record [the title track], tells a very complete story. And it has been a really cathartic experience, and extremely healing. Extremely healing.