Hunter Benedict Shepherd, known to us as Ben, was born September 20, 1968 in Okinawa, Japan. His father was in the military and was stationed there. After residing briefly in Texas, the family moved to Bainbridge Island, WA when Ben was 2 years old. He and much of his extended family still reside there today. As a youth he would hitchhike into Seattle with his siblings to see bands, an activity sometimes fraught with peril. He gave this account to Kim Neely in her book Five Against One, about a confrontation with a gang of street kids before a Dead Kennedys/Husker Du/Fartz show: "There were four guys, and every one of ‘em had a knife. We started walking toward the Showbox, and all of a sudden they grabbed my sister and put a knife up to her throat. My brother talked ‘em out of it. Then we were waiting in line to get into the show and they started coming back. I was just instantly hating society. We were getting all this shit because they thought we were punk rockers, just because we listened to this music."

In Kerrang! 2-12-94 he relates: "My brothers were in a pretty progressive crowd. Especially for where we lived, in a small redneck town. Once people found out we listened to punk they totally disregarded us as human beings. They thought I was a faggot cos I read too many books, but I knew they were full of shit. I had my friends, and we had bands off and on all the time. Everyone hung out at my house and when kids ran away from home they’d come to my house, cos my parents were cool. Our family were the freak family!" chuckles Ben. "Very rarely you’d come across another punker at school- most often with a black eye. I wonder if a lot of these kids even know how much shit punk rockers used to get. I don’t think they do; they don’t get it the same way."
[Kerrang!] Did that make you stronger and more determined, though?
"Yeah, that’s how I figure it," nods Ben. "You learn how to fight without throwing a punch, because you learn to believe in what you stand for, and hopefully you learn not to do the same shit that's been done to you."

By the age of 12, Ben was playing guitar and was soon forming garage bands with his schoolmates. He talks about his favorite albums and some of his musical influences in an article from Kerrang! magazine in 1994. Click here to read a dodgy translation from Spanish.
In a Radio One UK interview in March 1994, Ben had this to say to interviewer Claire Sturgess (as transcribed by Sabrina Knauf for the Unofficial Soundgarden Home Page):

Claire: What were you like at school... Ben?
Ben: I didn't go to school. I'd leave home or leave there and go back home and play guitar.
Claire: Really.
Ben: Yeah. I'd just go to watch kids. That's what... that's why I liked school at all. Then they got boring. 'Cos I learned the trick of boredom. And then I went from there to guitar.
Claire: What sort of music do you listen to? What... at school age. What were you into then?
Ben: Probably in a... what was it... sixth grade, seventh grade, I was really into AC/DC. Then Bon Scott died. Then I went to... umm.... more punk-rock, I guess you call it post-punk.
Claire: I was reading you're into Bauhaus. I was a huge Bauhaus fan, you know, in the backcave-era. Fabulous.
BS: Yeah, there's a whole spectrum of music. I was like... from James Brown all the way to... y'know Birthday Party.

Among the bands he played in as a teenager were 600 School, March of Crimes, Tic Dolly Row, and Mind Circus. Click here to learn more about these bands. Ben attended North Kitsap High School, but dropped out. He worked as a carpenter.

After playing in a band called Episode, Ben joined Soundgarden in 1990 and stayed with them as bassist, prolific songwriter, and occasional vocalist until their disbandment in April of 1997. He then joined Devilhead briefly and played a few live shows with them. He played with bandmate Matt Cameron in Hater, which continued as a live band until September 1997, when they disbanded. They released one album in 1993, and recorded a second in 1995, which was finally released in 2005, at which time the band re-formed and toured, with Ben on guitar and lead vocals, Bubba Dupree on guitar, Andrew Church on bass, and Andy Duvall on drums. On September 30, 2008, Matt Cameron took the seat behind the kit for a Hater benefit show at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle.

Ben also played in the Wellwater Conspiracy until September of 1997, and appeared on their first album, Declaration of Conformity. He participated in the Desert Sessions series of recordings, recorded at Rancho De La Luna studios in the summer of 1997 as a bassist.

In the fall of 1998 Ben accompanied Mark Lanegan on bass for his Scraps At Midnight tour of Europe and the western U.S. In the spring of 1999 he was a bassist for Pete Krebs’ project, the Gossamer Wings and appears on the Sweet Ona Rose album. He appeared as a bassist on Mark Lanegan's album of cover songs "I'll Take Care of You", released in September of 1999, and backed up Lanegan, alternating bass and acoustic guitar duties, on a mini-tour in October, 2000. He is also featured as bassist on one track on the Tony Iommi solo album, IOMMI. In the fall of 2000 he fronted The Brotherhood of the Electric (Wellwater Conspiracy with Dan Peters taking the place of Matt Cameron, who was touring with Pearl Jam) as vocalist and harmonica player, and has continued to perform vocals on a few songs live with Wellwater Conspiracy since Matt's return. A previously recorded bass track of Ben's is featured on the song "Keppy's Lament" on the Wellwater Conspiracy's third album, The Scroll and Its Combinations.


For a fun article about Ben's background and how he came to join Soundgarden, read this interview from The Rocket, Nov., 1991.

To download a 16 minute MP3 interview with Ben, go to http://www.toazted.com/ and search for Soundgarden. It's the only entry.


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This page maintained by Jenny Grover. Contributions, information, and comments welcome.

Pertinent Links:

Unofficial SG Homepage
Unofficial Wellwater Conspiracy Homepage
Hater Homepage
Devilhead Homepage
Onewhiskey, Mark Lanegan Homepage
Cavity Search Records (Pete Krebs)