Original Seattle-bred grunge rockers surprised the audience at KROQ’s Weenie Roast y Fiesta when they came out as the special guest of the night. Playing a slew of old hits and their new song, “Live to Rise,” from the Avengers soundtrack, the band verified what their diehard fans were hoping for: Soundgarden is back.

They’ve already announced that they are releasing a classic boxset of their music, but in a recent interview frontman Cornell divulged that the band are basically finished with their first new material in fifteen years since 1996′s Down on the Upside. Apparently, the album will be mastered in about a week and Cornell is guessing the album will be out in October.

“I would say September but I’m just guessing October. We’re pretty much done with everything,” said Cornell, hinting that “Live to Rise” would “work just fine” on the album although the song wasn’t from their recording sessions for the new LP.

“The first thought was, ‘Let’s take one of our songs,’” he says. “That thought lasted about three minutes. I didn’t believe that we had anything that was gonna really work. But it did seem like it would be a cool challenge to try and write [a new song].”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Cornell described the process in writing a custom track.

“I went through a lot of different ideas that I scrapped – probably more than usual,” Cornell explained. “Soundgarden does a lot of time signature changes and shifts and things like that. It felt like this should be a little more straightforward ’cause it’s for a broad audience.”

“The idea of having it be intelligent lyrically and melodic and all these things – it’s a task to do all that stuff. Once I got started I wanted it to be right. But maybe that’s more of a ‘Chris being OCD’ thing.”

“For a band like Soundgarden, being associated with [The Avengers] – for what it’s about and what they accomplish in it – it’s a pretty good way to have a partner in the entertainment business to get your songs out in front of people,” he continued, after saying that licensing music is necessary in today’s musical climate for a decent band to get exposure.

“The record companies don’t have that any more. They don’t have the money. They don’t have the resources. They can’t do it. They won’t do it. Not gonna happen.”

–Nadia Noir, CBS Radio Los Angeles