Chris Cornell was an outstanding talent. His musical work inspired a seemingly endless number of musicians. Among them, Mark Menghi. You may know him as bassist for Joe Satriani or part of the core of the band Metal Allegiance. Mark is also the man whose passion fueled this project, King Ultramega. We recently caught up with Mark and Lzzy Hale to discuss the project.
The discussion mostly revolved around the single “Loud Love.” I mentioned that when I listened to the Soundgarden version side by side with the King Ultramega version that I was thoroughly impressed. I found the cover track to be clear as a bell and I was happy to hear Lzzy’s vocals nicely out front in the mix. When I inquired about how it was recorded, Mark recounted being in a studio with Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick when he received former Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen’s tracks for the song. The studio they were in had a reel to reel, and the idea of recording analog was born. It also seemed that this was the first time Lzzy had heard this story because she commented “But when I got the track, it just sounds so great. And now that I know how you guys recorded it, that makes a lot of sense.”
When I asked Lzzy about her mindset in how she approached singing this song she responded that “For me, it’s not about, okay, how do I imitate Chris Cornell? You can’t do that. It’s not about, oh, how do I recreate this to make it my own either? It’s kind of a fine balance. For me, it’s more mental. It’s like you kind of have to go in there and almost... kind of time travel and put yourself in the place of like, okay, if I was hanging around with all these guys and we were recording this for the first time today, how would that feel?”
That really spoke volumes to how this entire project was approached. Respect was always at the forefront of everything. The first track was recorded in 2020. When they knew they were going to move forward was when Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil signed on and even re-recorded one of his own solos. In addition to Thayil, Menghi and Hale there is also Joe Satriani, Kenny Aronoff, Charlie Benante, and many others. And as much as they respected the music and Chris, they also were willing to be adventurous. All decisions were measured against the question “How would Chris like this?”
Very importantly this project benefits MusiCares, which helps the humans behind music because music gives so much to the world. Offering preventive, emergency, and recovery programs, MusiCares acts as a safety net supporting the health and welfare of the entire music community. The recording went on over years, and Mark talked about sitting on the tracks. And then “Gerardo from the record label, he knew about what was sitting there. He’s like, man, what if we donated all the music? The proceeds to, to charity. I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. You know? And, and then that kind of, that kind of grabbed me. I was like, it would have to, you know, definitely be mental health awareness.”
During our conversation it became apparent that there is still more coming from King Ultramega. I invited Mark and Lzzy to break news about what is on the horizon for the project. Mark said he would let Lzzy take that one, her response was “Spilling the secrets. There’s definitely a lot of other things in the works. I’m not going to be the one to spill the beans on everything, but I’ve heard lots of little... talks and rumors, and I know some of the people that are working on the next one.” I asked if that might include live shows. Although the general answer seemed to be no, Mark did express a desire to do something in Seattle. Whatever happens with King Ultramega next, I will let you know about it as soon as I know.
