inside the album

by stuff magazine , june 2007

After parting ways with Audioslave, former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell is releasing a solo album, carry on. We screeched with him about orphans, control freaks and meat loaf.

STUFF: Did you think about the expectations of Soundgarden's and RATM's audiences when you started Audioslave?

CHRIS: Well, we were sure that we would piss off both, since we were neither of those bands. The awkward part was that I was used to playing with the members of Soundgarden for a Soundgarden crowd for over 10 years. It's sort of like your parents die in some freak accident and you have to go live with this new family. You're happy to not be an orphan, but you're not exactly sure you like how they make the meat loaf, either.

STUFF: What was wrong with Audioslave's meat loaf?

CHRIS: Nothing terrible, they were just different from me. They wanted to have the A&R guy come down to the studio; they wanted the producer to tell them what he thought of the music. That just wasn't my thing.

STUFF: Is there a difference between being a front man of a rock band vs being a solo performer who plays with a backing band?

CHRIS: Some bands are formed around an egocentric, control-freak singer, and others are more democratic. I mean, if you are playing as a Smashing Pumpkin, is that much different from playing in Billy Corgan's band? One thing I can say is that when you are playing solo, you don't have to do anything you don't want to, musically.

STUFF: Have you ever had anyone measure your vocal range? They say Mariah Carey's is, like, 5 octaves or something.

CHRIS: I've never had my voice measured in that way. I think I can hit 4 or 5 octaves or something. It's mostly feeling - I don't really know the technical stuff - which makes for a very interesting scenario when you are trying to reproduce live what you sang on a record.

STUFF: People say that Bob Dylan's tombstone should note that he wrote "Blowin' In The Wind." What song is going to be mentioned on yours?

CHRIS: I hope I haven't written it yet. But if I have, it'd probably be "Black Hole Sun." That song seems to cross over to weird places where I never would have expected to see it.

Reprinted from Stuff Magazine.

Chris Cornell Fan Page © Clare O'Brien 2007