chris cornell interview

You Know His Name
By Jon Chattman

Chris Cornell won’t be fronting any rock band perhaps ever again, but he’s surprisingly open to steering The Black Pearl with Captain Jack Sparrow in the not too distant future. Well, not exactly, but in a July 19 interview with the former Audioslave, Soundgarden, and Temple of the Dog lead singer, he candidly opened up on leaving rock groups behind, focusing on his solo career full time, and how fatherhood has changed his life on and off the road. We’ll get to that oblique Pirates of the Caribbean reference later on.
Cornell, 43, is currently touring to support his second solo disc Carry On, which includes last year’s killer Bond track “You Know My Name” from Casino Royale, and a soulful cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” After five years of platinum-plus success with Audioslave and near-decade success with the Grammy Award-winning and groundbreaking metal-inspired alt-rock band Soundgarden, the Seattle native said he’s fully committed to being a solo artist from here on out.

We caught up with the singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose power and range on his latest disc mirror his 1999 solo debut “Euphoria Morning,” and asked him if he’s still “looking California, and feeling Minnesota.” As it turned out, his life couldn’t be better right now. To take a line from what is arguably Audioslave’s best song “I Am the Highway,” he’ll “get on all by myself.”

How’s the tour going so far?
It’s been great. We’ve been to Europe and back two or three times already. It’s been very busy.

You’re recently married, and have three young children, how has life on the road changed for you?
We live between Los Angeles and Paris. I will say scheduling is a big thing around our house - trying to figure out who should be where when. It’s a discussion we have everyday [Laughs]. It’s a constant effort to work that out, but it works. I think, for me, the juggling act is simply [scheduling] as much as possible without bringing young children out on the road whether on tour buses and in venues every night. But, my children have been traveling with me since they were born.

So, they’re used to it… I apologize in advance, but I’m just thinking about this: You live in Paris, you’re a family man, and you even have your own restaurant in France. Have you seen Ratatouille?
No, I’m too busy to see films in the theater.

Sorry for that question by the way – literally out of left field.
[Laughs] The thing when you have young children, I don’t know if they’re really old enough to want to sit in the theater themselves. You know living in the age of digital filmmaking and digital animation is not such a bad thing. When they spend that much money on a movie, the content is usually pretty good, and on some level, appeals to adults. It’s that new way of understanding the format: kids are going to want to watch the movie like a thousand times, so like make it at least somehow palatable to the adult. They kind of do a pretty decent job of that.

I have no idea why I’m plugging that movie…
[Laughs] Have you seen it?

Yeah.
How was it?

It’s cute I guess…
And, we’re still talking about it!

I’ve got to stop asking you about this. I’ll make sure though to bring it back at the end of the interview - just to bring it full circle…
Great.

Ok, getting serious, obvious question is why’d it take so long for you to do a follow-up solo album?
Audioslave made three records in like four-and-a-half years so there wasn’t four seconds to make another. Prior to [Audioslave’s debut disc], there was about a year or more where I didn’t do anything after the first solo record. Just in my personal life, I was like just kind of a mess. I sort of started a long, slow slide downward and [got to the point] I didn’t even pick a guitar up for a year. That’s part of it, but once I sort of got back into songwriting and making records, dealt with my own personal stuff, and sort of just became normal again, I then reached sort of the most prolific period I have had in my life - which is actually saying a lot.

When you were with Audioslave or Soundgarden or wherever, did you ever write certain songs and say, ‘you know what, I’m going to save this for my solo album?’
No. I don’t think I ever did that. I think there were times like, for example, with “Temple of the Dog.” [The band] exists literally because I didn’t think Soundgarden would want to do “Say Hello 2 Heaven…” That’s important to say, because I think sometimes people think it’s like ‘oh, your band didn’t like your songs’ or ‘your band didn’t want to do your songs’ and it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t an idiot. I had a very clear picture of what Soundgarden was, and who that band was, and what it should sound like and it didn’t include those songs. I was writing songs that didn’t fit in my band, and at some point there had to be an outlet.

And it worked out pretty well for the band…
Soundgarden became pretty healthy that way. We just decided to be relaxed about those kind of things. But, if I wrote a song that I thought could be a Soundgarden song, I definitely was like ‘here’s a song.’ Always. And I was willing to push the envelope, too. When I started writing songs like “Black Hole Sun” or something for Soundgarden that was not a song that I was sure would become a Soundgarden song, [I still tried it out on the band]. And, if you think about Audioslave, Tim (Commerford), Brad (Wilk), and Tom (Morello), were coming from Rage Against the Machine, and on the first Audioslave, they were co-writing songs like “I Am the Highway,” “Last Remaining Light,” and “Like a Stone.” That’s a big musical jump for those three guys and a big musical risk. I think every band situation I’ve been has been pretty liberal musically.

Last question. Obviously, you’re concentrating now on your solo career, but would you be open to another Audioslave record or being a part of another band?
No. I’ll make more solo records. When Soundgarden broke up, I just assumed I was just a solo artist but based on my experience with Temple of the Dog, I promised myself never to be closed off to the idea of an unlikely collaboration. I’m really glad I did [Audioslave]. I think it yielded three amazing records, and five years of my life that were really rewarding. But, it was something I could afford to do, because I had a solo career. Now, I’m just back doing that and I’m having a good time doing it.

And, hey maybe you could do a Disney film like Ratatouille. There you go: full circle.
You know it’s funny. That’s how Johnny Depp became a pirate. He went into Disney and was like ‘I’ve got kids so maybe could I do a voice so my kids could watch it and they could say hey that’s dad’s voice.’ And, they said ‘yeah, but we also have this pirate thing, why don’t u do that?’

Hey, the door’s open for another Pirates movie – maybe you could star in it.
I could be like a pirate. [Pauses] I don’t know by the time I get good at acting, my kids will be all grown up.