happy to carry on

Singer hits the road in advance of second solo record

by jane stevenson, toronto sun media, april 14 2007

Chris Cornell knows it's a bit early to be touring in support of his second solo album, Carry On, which isn't in stores until June 5.

But the road beckoned as the former frontman for Audioslave (2001-2007) and Soundgarden (1984-1997) travels around North America on a short trek before hitting the road in the summer with a longer solo tour.

"It doesn't really matter in a sense, either, that it's for a new album because I'm playing songs as far back as 1990 and just kind of covering music from my entire career," Cornell told Sun Media yesterday in the lounge of a Toronto hotel before his sold-out show tonight at the Phoenix, the only Canadian stop this time out.

"There's kind of two schools of thought. One is you let the record come out and see how people are feeling about it and then you choose where you want to go and how big a room you want to play -- and that's sort of the cautious way of doing. And then the other school of thought is you just go out before the record comes out, boldly, and play new music and play old music and just get in the rhythm of touring."

An early set list on this abbreviated North American tour shows that Cornell is playing such Soundgarden favourites as Black Hole Sun and Rusty Cage, the Audioslave hit Doesn't Remind Me, along with new Carry On tracks such as the single No Such Thing and a slowed-down cover of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.

FAN OF THE ROAD

Cornell, who will be joined on stage tonight by guitarists Yogi Lonich and Peter Thorn (the latter from Edmonton), bassist Corey McCormick and drummer Jason Sutter, said he's just a fan of the road.

"Really, I just wanted to get out and play 'cause it's been too long," said Cornell, who last played in Toronto at the Air Canada Centre with Audioslave in October 2005.

"I really like performing and I like travelling and I like road and most musicians don't, some do. But, you know, if you read stories about, say for example, the jazz musicians, pre-war and post-war, it's what they did. It's all they did. And I don't glamourize that in my mind. I've read extensively about what their lives were like, and I don't envy it. I do it in a much more comfortable fashion. But I would feel a little bit like a pretender, like a fake, if I wasn't out travelling around and playing music 'cause if I'm going to call myself a musician, that's what I feel like I should be doing."

The 42-year-old Cornell, whose first solo album Euphoria Morning came out in 1999, announced in February of this year that he was splitting from his post-Soundgarden outfit Audioslave after three successful albums.

Reprinted without permission from Toronto Sun Media. Originally available as a feature online here.

Chris Cornell Fan Page © Clare O'Brien 2007