meet the grammy nominee
by leslie gray streeter, palm beach post, february 2008
Meet the Grammy Nominee: Chris Cornell (formerly of Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and Audioslave) Best Song Written For a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, “You Know My Name” (from “Casino Royale”)
Question: This is your second solo Grammy nomination. What does it mean to you?
Answer: It’s kinda like a bonus. The work has been done. It’s all really about songwriting, about making records. I got this email that said ‘You just got nominated for a Grammy today!” I think of it as a positive thing, one of a whole bunch of different things that can remind me that people pay attention to what I do. The most important one was the first (for Best Rock Vocal for “You Can’t Change Me” from his solo debut “Euphoria Morning”), not just because it was the first one, but because it was for a record from an independant record company. The record sold 150,000 copies, and the fact that we got a Grammy nod on something that you wouldn’t think would have hit on the musical radar spoke well to me of the Grammys, and of that music business, that in that one moment you could make an indie record and have it be recognized.
Q: And how about this one?
A: This one is the opposite of that, coming from this huge musical production. Also, it came on the scene a year late. The song has been available on Itunes, but wasn’t on any particular record. It wasn’t eligible last year even though the movie was already out. I didn’t even know I was eligible this year.
Q: What was it like being included in this long tradition of James Bond theme songs?
A: I wanted to do it based on the dramatic kind of upheaval that the franchise was going through [in the wake of the firing of previous Bond Pierce Brosnan and the hiring of unconventional blond Daniel Craig]. I was a huge Paul McCartney fan, and he did the theme to “Live and Let Die.” When I was asked I thought they were crazy, because the songs had become what seemed like a commercial vehicle for the artist and movie, the last one being Madonna. But they said they were completely changing direction...When I found out the direction they were going to go in, I thought it was really cool.
Q: How much of the script had you seen before trying to write the song?
A: I read the book — it’s a short little book, and I watched a rough edit with my wife and (composer) David Arnold in Prague, about two-thirds of the movie. I got to do that to write one four-minute song.
Q: So having done something so long ago, it must be a trip to now be Grammy nominated.
A: (The song) took on a life of its own. It’s been a year and a half now. Outside of the U.S., it got a lot of radio play, and was one of the biggest hits. So many people heard that song. When the DVD was released, they included the video I made, and I noticed I would be in airports and restaurants and I was being recognized by a lot of people who would not have been in my demographic. It was almost overnight. I got this feeling I was being recognized for sure by people who had probably not bought my previous records. That all ebbs and flows depending on how much you get played on TV.
Q: Speaking of that, back in your Soundgarden days, you made your film debut in a cameo in Cameron Crowe’s ‘90s film “Singles,” about young people in Seattle, with the musical scene there as a backdrop. Do you ever think about doing more acting?
A: That movie kind of cured me of it. The (musician) character Matt Dillon plays was what Cameron initially wanted to get me to play. He was having a difficult time getting the studio to agree to use some unknown musician guy, so ultimately I didn’t do it. I felt like it was probably better for my musical career. This was sort of a cute date movie that happened to be placed in Seattle. Cameron saw that something was going on there before everyone else did. It was an accident that he focused on the music scene. He caught onto something nobody else knew about. That kind of taught me what my focus should be. I always wanted my career to be focused on music.
Originally available online at the Palm Beach Post
Chris Cornell Fan Page © Clare O'Brien 2007
