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Soundgarden’s 1994 track “Spoonman” is one of the band’s biggest and most recognizable songs. In addition to being a top 10 hit, it won the band a Grammy for Best Metal Performance. Over the years, rumors have swirled that the song was about drugs, specifically heroin, due to the whole “spoon” thing.
Turns out, as Loudwire pointed out, we’ve been wrong the whole time. The song “Spoonman” was actually inspired by a real guy named Artis. He was a Seattle street performer most well-known for playing the spoons. Thus, he was dubbed “Artis the Spoonman.”
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Speaking to Request in ’94, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell shared some insight into how Artis inspired the hit song. “It’s more about the paradox of who he is and what people perceive him as,” he said. “He’s a street musician. But when he’s playing on the street, he is given a value and judged completely wrong by someone else.”
Artis the Spoonman plays the spoons on the song ‘Spoonman’
“They think he’s a street person, or he’s doing this because he can’t hold down a regular job,” Cornell continued. “They put him a few pegs down on the social ladder because of how they perceive someone who dresses differently. The lyrics express the sentiment that I much more easily identify with someone like Artis than I would watch him play.”
At one point, Soundgarden invited Artis to open a show in Seattle. This eventually led to him playing spoons on the official “Spoonman” recording, as well as starring in the music video.
In a throwback MTV special, Cornell explained what it was like to bring a spoons player on a grunge track. “We didn’t know what a spoon solo was gonna sound like on a Soundgarden song since it’s never happened before,” he said. “You don’t hear a lot of rock songs with spoons in them. So, it was sort of an experiment, and it turned out really great.”
Artis is featured in the same clip, and when asked, he clarified that Soundgarden was aware of him before he even knew who they were. “I never really met ’em until they invited me to open a show for them two years ago here in Seattle,” he said. “When I’m in Seattle, or wherever I’m anywhere, my only aspiration and involvement vocationally for 20 years is playing spoons and entertaining.”
In its 2023 article, Loudwire noted that Artis later moved to a small Washington town, where he resided at the time.
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