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Today we’re looking back to 2025 Inductee Hiro Yamamoto’s visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame where he shared the story behind the 1986 Chevrolet Beauville, bought with money his family received after internment. Soundgarden used this van between the years of 1988 and 1990 — when they embarked on a US tour and signed to A&M Records, becoming the first grunge band to sign to a major label.
See the transcript below:
Okay, so here’s the Beauville. Soundgarden’s van.
This Beauville came to Soundgarden in 1988 or ‘89, sometime around there, but a lot of it is the responsibility of my parents who were interned in what they called internment camps — I call them prison camps — camps for being Japanese during World War II.
They were actually very lucky, because they’re one of the only people who have been given reparations for that and a full apology from the United States government.
So my parents were given $20,000 each. I have three siblings, and we all got $10,000 each. I used all that money and some more of the Soundgarden money to buy this van.
We went all the way across the country in this. I remember us leaving California being really paranoid about the stickers on the back. We scratched out “Butthole” off of “Butthole Surfers” and then we put paper bags over them and we taped them over.
But then when we got pulled over by the cops in Louisiana, they pulled them off and they’re saying, “What’s this? Corrosion of conformity?” And then they said, “Have you ever heard about RAD? Rock against drugs?”
That’s when, you know, Tipper Gore was making sure they labeled “This is parental advisory. There are explicit lyrics on this darn CD.”
We spent a lot of time now that I’ve been in it, I’m like — yikes! Don’t want to do that again!
Thanks to my parents and their for their service, but actually just to recognize that that’s part of my history. Really, that spring-boarded Soundgarden in a lot of ways.
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Check out more about Soundgarden, below:
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