on killing birds...

"Killing Birds we recorded right at the very end. We did all the songs in the first session, except for Your Soul Today and Poison Eye, we did those as a separate two track session, and then at the very very end he was on such a roll that he went and wrote No Such Thing and Killing Birds.

I must admit, Killing Birds could be my favourite song. It's got a sort of indie rock thing about it."

Steve, Chris and baby Chris in the studio

on billie jean...

"I knew the song, I mean, everyone in the world knows the song, but the way Chris sings it it really shows what the lyric is about much more...

In the studio, that was the one vocal take that he could never get better than the floor take. That vocal was the one he sung along with the band.

All the other songs, he did sing along with the band, but then went in and recut them . . . better. But with Billie Jean, every time he went in to sing it again it just didn't have the same feel."

Steve Lillywhite is a legend among producers.

He's also something of a musical midwife; among his best-known triumphs are U2's debut Boy and their widely-acclaimed "return to form" How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. He helped turn 70s punk into something far more lush and terrifying with Siouxsie and the Banshees's iconic The Scream. He worked with English mavericks Peter Gabriel and Morrissey and he was responsible for the only great Christmas single ever, the Pogues' Fairytale of New York featuring his wife Kirsty MacColl.

Before beginning to work on Carry On, was he already a fan of Chris Cornell's previous work?

"I've always been aware of his voice and loved his voice, and that's the beginning of everything for me," recalls Steve. "There are very few classic voices. That was it, really…I didn't go and trawl every record he's ever made. I wanted to go in with a clean slate and see where it would take us, really."

Chris Cornell doesn't have a particularly easy history of working with producers, having sometimes preferred to do much of the work himself. This is the man, after all, who just last year told the BBC's Zane Lowe that some of a previous producer's work on his vocals had made him feel physically sick.

"He was very very gracious…but I had to earn the respect from him," says Lillywhite. "Actually I read an interview from him where he was asked ….why did he choose Steve Lillywhite? He said that he looked at my discography and had seen that I'd worked with bands more than once, so he thought that not only was I good at my job but that I got on well with the people I worked for. So I think he liked that idea and, as I said, everyone on board had to earn that respect. Because he doesn't suffer fools."

Cornell recently resigned from supergroup Audioslave after five years, citing "irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences."

Although there's no serious suggestion that the band's demise was his sole responsibility, other people in the business have at times marked him out as being somewhat aloof. Did Lillywhite ever find him difficult to work with?

"Contrary to what a few people have said, he was one of the nicest - and still is one of the nicest - people I've ever met. I think he's very different from how he was maybe ten, fifteen years ago, but I certainly had no problems. We got on really well…he's really, you know, one of a kind. He's a very private person, a very honourable person, and extremely charismatic. And a brilliant singer and writer. I think people, when they talk about, you know, "Chris is arrogant" or . . . you know, "he's bloody-minded" or something like that . . . it comes from him just not wanting to be around idiots."

Having worked with some of the most colourful characters in music - from punk priestess Siouxsie Sioux to the piratical Keith Richards - Steve has had ample opportunity to distinguish between charisma and conceit. He's adamant that Chris Cornell is no diva.

"I've had the same thing with Joan Armatrading. People would say Joan was difficult. It's just that you have to earn their respect - and once you've earned it, once they've realised you know what you're doing and that you're honourable and you're not an idiot - they open up to you. That's what happened with Chris. And for me, I would love the album to be successful, for the only reason that I would love to do another one with him."

In 1999, Chris's previous solo album Euphoria Morning was critically acclaimed, but failed to do well in the marketplace.

Since then, his life has changed almost beyond recognition. Not only has he been through the whole Audioslave experience - he's also been divorced, remarried, had two more children and moved his home base to Paris. It's a whole new chapter in his life and career - so what was the initial thinking behind Carry On?

Perhaps unexpectedly in connection with a bold move into the future, Lillywhite references a talent from the past. "I suppose my thought at the beginning ... my big picture thing … was that Jeff Buckley was fantastic, and for some reason when I had my initial meetings with Chris we would talk about Jeff, and I felt that if anyone could pick up the mantle of where Jeff was, Chris could."

Chris Cornell and Jeff Buckley had been friends before the latter's tragic death by drowning in 1997, and Cornell had helped in the track selection for posthumous double album Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk. Was there a sense, then, in which they were musical fellow travellers?

Lillywhite's voice softens. "Jeff Buckley was one of the fantastic voices and I think Chris shares that with him. I wanted him to make a record that was maybe . . . not like Jeff Buckley, but that maybe evoked something of him."

Chris had come into the studio with fairly fully realised demos of the songs: "… and they were all really slow," laughs Steve. "They all sounded very dirgey, because I think when he writes he doesn't think, 'what sort of tempo can I do this?' So my big thing was, how much energy can we get into this song without it being too ridiculous? So I would really spend some time making sure that the tempos were right and that he agreed with me."

However, the material seems to have evolved more or less naturally in the studio.

"I dunno, maybe we turned all the slows up to mid-tempo, because a lot of people have said there are a lot of mid-tempo songs," recalls Lillywhite. "But we tried to inject some energy into all of them. That was the main difference, other than cutting the odd chorus or adding a bit here or there -- I didn't need to do a lot of that. With a lot of records I've done, I've done a hell of a lot of that, and with a lot of records I haven't needed to. It's much better to not need to do that; to work with someone who has a good sense of how his song is structured."

The improvement in Chris's voice in recent years has been much remarked upon, with fans and critics alike speculating on explanations -- from his quitting smoking to having taken up some kind of vocal training programme. It certainly seems that his tone is smoother and that he's regained a lot of range and agility. Steve thinks it's an ongoing process …. and that the real reasons are much more obvious.

"He said to me after the Astoria, 'Steve, my voice is in great shape at the moment, I can hit some notes that I had real problems on the album hitting', he recalls. "And I said, "well look, you know . . . durr . . ." He would never warm up in the studio and in fact he doesn't warm up now, but gigging two hours a night, you know, it's a muscle, and it's growing really good." .

Some listeners to Carry On were so impressed by the vocal sound that they felt it couldn't be real - that some kind of studio trickery had taken place. "That's funny," laughs Lillywhite, " I never use studio trickery. All I ever use on vocals, is an old-fashioned EMT echoplate which is what every record pre-1980 had. I mean I didn't use any digital echo or anything like that, it was all very natural."

Nevertheless, some people were quite insistent that the sustained high note that he does just before the last chorus on album opener No Such Thing had somehow been constructed or spliced together from different takes.

"No, that was just perfectly . . . that was just one," says Lillywhite, genuinely surprised. "I mean, when he goes in to do a vocal he doesn't just sing it once, he'll sing it three or four times or maybe even five or six times, and then I'll compile a composite vocal from all the takes. That's how records have been made, you know, for ever. It's much better to do that than, if he makes a mistake in the vocal, to stop and start and to go back over that one bit. It allows him to not worry about making mistakes; it allows him to perform the song and then, given that there's five takes of it, the bit that he made a mistake on will be covered on one of the other takes. But if you keep stopping, you don't get a performance."

As a backing vocalist, Cornell has the rare ability to wrap melody lines round each other, twisting them together, almost plaiting them. Nevertheless, during the making of Audioslave's last album Revelations, he delegated some of the backing vocal duties to Timmy Commerford and producer Brendan O'Brien, saying that he disliked the sound of his own voice layered up. Steve doubts whether that is still true.

"Hmm . . . specifically on Safe And Sound, She'll Never Be Your Man, and actually on the song Carry On - even though it wasn't used - I said, why don't we get a bunch of black guys in . . . some different voices . . .it could be fantastic. And he said no, no, let me do it . . . in fact he did every single backing vocal on the album."

Previously married to the late, great Kirsty MacColl - who as well as maintaining a creditable solo career was also one of the greatest backing singers of all time - Steve Lillywhite is an expert on the construction of multitracked harmonies from a single voice. ". . . So I really could get where he was coming from in that respect. Kirsty….hers was much more Beach Boys, whereas Chris is, I dunno, almost gospel in some ways. That may be why I wanted to try [the black singers].

"But, you know, he's a great lead singer, he's a great backing singer. He doesn't do the usual harmonies. I think that previously he didn't enjoy the singing process so much, so it might have been that he said he doesn't like hearing his voice layered up, but it was more a case of he didn't like doing it. So yeah, he did all of them -- and I've got to say he weaves his own voice very well."

With four other guitarists and a keyboard player involved, it's quite a surprise to learn that Chris actually had a lot of instrumental input into the album, too. Chris had previously told me about his one-finger keyboard technique ("If it sounds like a monkey could play it, that's me") but according to Steve, his guitar input was much more extensive.

"The backwards solo on Poison Eye was Chris. We actually just took that off the demo. He also did the solo in Your Soul Today. There wasn't a solo in No Such Thing, that was mainly Brian Ray and Dmitri, and Killing Birds was Brian Ray. All the others, everything from She'll Never Be Your Man to Arms Around Your Love and Safe And Sound - all the soloing guitar was Gary Lucas.

Steve with Gary Lucas (in hat) and Chris

"And then right at the very end Chris played a rhythm guitar on everything and really, I think, gave it some attitude. He's a great guitar player, Chris. His keyboards are very much the one finger sort of stuff but he knows exactly what he wants. Apparently he sits up in his bedroom with his little home tape recorder and jams out these songs."

Steve Lillywhite is plainly proud of Carry On and of what he hopes might be a continuing collaboration with Chris Cornell. " I just hope that people can give it some time to get into this record. He's a 42 year old man . . . he's going through a journey with his music. I think there are elements that sound almost like a great Rod Stewart record, or Sam Cooke, or something like that. I felt it was quite a universal record."

"Universal", in the end might be the best possible word to sum up Carry On. It's possible that Chris Cornell might be moving away from the hard rock niche in which he previously operated and towards a sound which is less easily categorisable. Those who fall in love with it are unlikely to come from a recognisable age group or demographic; they may be as likely to call themselves soul, folk or country fans as part of the rock 'n' roll faithful. What will unite those who buy it is a taste for musical exploration, experiment and adventure.

And the future? Lillywhite is already imagining what it might be like. "[At the Astoria], I said to him you've actually found yourself a really good live band here, there's no reason why you couldn't just go and write some songs and go and make another record," he recalls. "And personally I'd love to be the man. "

Steve with David Arnold,Chris and most of his live band at the Astoria, May 2006

on disappearing act:

"Funnily enough, the thing with Disappearing Act is, it sounds like the simplest song on the album but we spent more time on that one than any of the others..that one didn't slip out easily at all."

on silence the voices...

"It is a very odd melody, and it was my idea to put all those military drums in in the first verse, if I remember rightly.

Cameron did a load of drone guitar which was really good - it just felt like that song wasn't ever going to be a radio song, so we felt 'let's make it weird' . . . well, not weird but, you know, just push the boat out on it a little bit and try and see where we can take it."

Jeff Buckley

on keyboards

"We got [Jamie Muhoberac] down to the studio and he played piano on Billie Jean and a couple of others, but like a lot of keyboard players who do synths...the way he does it, he'll take the track away with him and then just bring it having done all his fiddlings on his own at home, and we just chose what we liked of what he did."

on guitar

"Chris wanted someone who was just solid at the beginning, so we could get just a solid backing, and Cameron [Greider] was really that kind of solid guitar player.

We knew we'd have fireworks because I wanted to get Gary Lucas involved. He's a bit of a crazy guy but an absolute genius, and he came and did pretty much all the solos on the first batch of songs.

Dmitri [Coats]was Chris's choice because of Burning Brides supporting Audioslave.

I had met Brian Ray a couple of times around LA and London, through Paul McCartney, and thought he was a pleasant chap."

on bass

"I wanted a bass player who wasn't your usual rock bass player, because some of the songs needed the upright and Chris said he wanted someone who played upright as well as electric bass. In fact Miles is more of an upright player than an electric player.

An upright bass is like a jazz bass, it's an acoustic instrument, it doesn't drive quite so much. I felt that Chris's voice could have a little bit more of a sensual backing to it rather than just the testosterone thing."

on drums

"I almost booked Jeff Buckley's drummer, Matt Johnson.

But in the end I met with Nir [Zidkyahu] who is just a brilliant drummer, and ended up choosing him."