an american in paris

by phil alexander, mojo, july 2007

The matt black armour-plated door provides a discreet entrance to Black Calavados, "the chic-est place to have Kir Royale" in Paris according to one enthusiastic website. Located four blocks from the Champs Elysées in the moneyed eighth arrondissement, the club-cum-restaurant opened in March 2006 and has since played host to luminaries including designer John Galliano, Lawrence Fishburne and the ubiquitous Lindsay Lohan. Accoridng to its co-owner it's also "the only bar in Paris that plays rock music, where you'll hear the new Robert Plant album."

The prospect of hearing Percy's latest offering in a darkened room full of the beautiful people is less enticing than the lobster rolls, Kobe beef mini-burgers and Russian caviar that light up the menu. The menu reads "fermé le dimanche", and it being Sunday night, MOJO repairs grumpily to the plush Hotel De Sers across the road where Black Calavados patron Chris Cornell settles down to discuss his life as a rock star turned Parisian restaurateur.

For the 42-year old former Soundgarden/Audioslave frontman, Paris is now home. "It's my first real experience of metropolitan living," he says. "And it's taught me that the United States isn't the centre of the universe." Nevertheless, he also keeps a home in LA, where he spent much of the last year completing his second solo album, the mature, melodic and happy-to-experiment Carry On, with producer Steve Lillywhite.

"It's an album that I wanted to make to prove that the process of writing songs didn't have to be intimidating," he reflects. "It's like Hemingway used to be terrified of a blank page and in the end he shot himself. Songwriting can be like that."

It's his first album since leaving Audioslave - the rock behemoth he formed with Rage Against The Machine men Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford in 2000 - which he did in February, citing "irreconcilable personality and musical differences".

Probe Cornell further on his decision to leave one of American's most successful bands of the last decade, and he'll mention the rigidity of their musical set-up along with business wrangles. He also reflects on the six years that coincided with his attempts to recover from alcoholism following Soundgarden's split in 1997 and his divorce from wife and manager Susan Silver. For Cornell the nadir of his treatment for alcoholism came when he was bussed from rehab to film Audioslave's video for their first single, Cochise in 2002.

"It was the quintessential rock 'n' roll experience!" he laughs. "They came and put me in a van with a guy who was there to make sure I wasn't given anything. I got my hair and make-up done in there, and then I was parachuted into the middle of this $850,000 video set. The shoot's over, they drive back to rehab! Rehab was never a part of rock 'n' roll culture. Before, all you had to do was die!"

As a prime mover in the so-called Seattle scene, Cornell is no stranger to death. In March 1990 he lost his former flatmate, Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood to heroin. Four years later Kurt Cobain died ("When Kurt shot himself, people rang me because I was meant to be the sensible one," he muses) followed by managerial stablemate Layne Staley from Alice in Chains who succumbed to drugs in 2002. In between came the death of his friend Jeff Buckley in 1997. Amid these losses, Cornell also endured bouts of self-destruction, telling your correspondent in 1992 that he'd become a "two beers and home guy" but spending the next decade putting a lie to that statement. He's philosophical about what triggered this behaviour.

"I think punk rock guilt affected every Seattle band pretty dramatically," he reflects. "But it's like Kurt wearing a T-shirt that said "corporate magazines still suck" on the cover of Rolling Stone, but guess what? He still turned up for the shoot. We were all very good at complaining."

Complaints from grunge protagonists is something Cornell now finds easy to laugh at, yet it was a sense of paranoia that led to the split of Soundgarden after 13 years and five studio albums - including seven million selling US chart-topper Superunknown - packed with some of the most inspired, soulful hard rock since Zeppelin. "Soundgarden really did matter to some people and I feel pretty comfortable with that," he concludes, "I'm more accepting of things now."

Three nights after our encounter in Paris, Cornell arrives in London to play The Astoria, a two-hour marathon that runs from Soundgarden classics (Rusty Cage, Outshined, Black Hole Sun) through Audioslave cuts (Cochise, Like A Stone) and on to material from Carry On. At the end, Cornell leaves the stage with a wide grin plastered across his face. As he said in Paris, "I'm lucky to be here, now I think I'd like to enjoy it."

Chris Cornell on how 007 and Jacko set him free

"I was in the middle of recording the third Audioslave album when Billy Friedkin, who did The Exorcist and The French Connection, called me to ask me to do the music for his next film, Bug. then I got the call to do the James Bond track with David Arnold (You Know My Name, theme song to Casino Royale). That kind of really started me off on the process that led to the album (Carry On) and I found the whole thing really inspiring. That's how I arrived at recording a version of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. I would have never have recorded something like that before. And I realise now, after Audioslave, that haivng a career in music should be absolutely free."

Reprinted from Mojo Magazine.

Also.....read reviews of Black Calavados here.

Chris Cornell Fan Page © Clare O'Brien 2007