Origin: Seattle, WA

Decades: 1980's and 1990's

Soundgarden made a place for heavy metal in alternative rock. Their fellow Seattle rockers Green River may have spearheaded the grunge sound, but they relied on noise rock in the vein of the Stooges. Similarly, Jane's Addiction were too fascinated with prog rock and performance art to appeal to a wide array of metal fans. Soundgarden, however, developed directly out of the grandiose blues-rock of Led Zeppelin and the sludgy, slow riffs of Black Sabbath. Which isn't to say they were a straight-ahead metal ba... Read More

AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Black Flag, Jimi Hendrix, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Ramones, The Beatles, Neil Young, MC5, Meat Puppets, The Velvet Underground, Bad Brains, The Stooges, Black Sabbath, Ohio Players and Funkadelic

Alice in Chains, Everclear, Stone Temple Pilots, Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, Deftones, Candlebox, Sponge, Nickelback, Trapt, Creed, Monster Magnet, Our Lady Peace, Godsmack, Seven Mary Three, Bush and Days of the New