Chris Cornell Quotes (1964-2017)

“I was so fiercely independent that falling in love was a really terrifying experience. The first time I was in love to the degree that I realized this person has suddenly become so important to me that I can't imagine life without her.”

“When we started rehearsing the songs, I had pulled out "Hunger Strike" and I had this feeling it was just kind of gonna be filler, it didn't feel like a real song. Eddie was sitting there kind of waiting for a Mookie Blaylock rehearsal and I was singing parts, and he kind of humbly—but with some balls—walked up to the mic and started singing the low parts for me because he saw it was kind of hard. We got through a couple choruses of him doing that and suddenly the light bulb came on in my head, this guy's voice is amazing for these low parts. History wrote itself after that, that became the single.”

“We were really kind of nervous. You know when you're talking to someone who you really like and you forget everything you want to say. I was just going, 'Hi,' and Chris goes, 'Hi." Then I went, 'Oh fuck, I don't know what to say.' I wasn't going to go, 'You're real cool man,' so I said, 'Can you sign this?' I got him to sign this bank withdrawal card and he filled it all in and everything. It was a classic. Chris wrote 'Tough Guy' for his name and the withdrawal was for like three million dollars or something.”

“I met Chris at the end of '85 at a Halloween party, at an artist studio in Belltown, and I was out on the town that night with my dear frien Chuck, a.k.a. Upchuck from the Fags. And Chuck dresses me up as him in drag – he was in drag most of the time – so I had a long blond fright wig and a kimono and pancake makeup. Soundgarden was playing the party, as a three-piece, with Chris on drums and vocals. They were amazing. I'd worked with Ben McMillan in a vintage clothing store in town called Tootsie's. And Chris came in to talk to him, and the story that Chris told me is that I caught his eye. So he kept coming in and trying to get my attention, but I paid him no mind. Partly because I had just broken up with Gordon earlier that year, so I was in a pretty dark space. After the band played, Chris came up to me and recognized me, which he got huge points for because I was in full drag-queen regalia. He said the band were trying to get a show in Vancouver, so I told him that I was going up there to a show in the next week, and if he wanted to meet, I would take a tape for them. So we met, and he gave me that tape, and we saw each other a week later at the Vogue. After that, we went to a 24-hour dinner. We tried to go back to my house, but I'd lost my keys. We made out for a while, and then he took me to my mom's in West Seattle, and it was just on from there. At the time, it was healing for me.”

“The shirtlessness? I never even thought about it. Honest to God, it's just what he does. Love is blind, I suppose. The female attention never fuffled me. I felt we had such security in our relationship then that it never occured to me. I remember a show in Philadelphia in the early '90s, some girl got on her boyfriend's shoulder and was screaming, "Chris, I wanna fuck you!" or some other equally poetic phrase. Come on. You're embarrassing out entire sisterhood here.”

“Alice in Chains filmed the show at Moore theatre in 1990 and that was the show this new band Mookie Blaylock opened for them. Everyone was still reeling from Andy [Andrew Wood]'s death... and they hadn't really played out yet. The band came on and Chris [Cornell] carried Eddie [Vedder] onto the stage – he was on his shoulders. It was one of those super powerful moments, where it was all a big healing for everybody. He came out as this guy who had all the credibility in the world - in terms of people in Seattle - and Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone were loved bands. Andy was such an endearing personality. It was a hard thing to do - to show up after people die. And Chris bringing Eddie out, and pointing at him, as much to say, 'This is your guy now.'”

“Chris has a very penetrating and unique artistic vision that, when melded with ours, makes for a unique band chemistry. It's such a different vibe than any of us has ever experienced before. There's a great deal of camaraderie.”

“I really like Chris' records and I think he's the best singer that we've got on the planet. I first met Chris when I moved to Seattle, and we started hanging around. I didn't know what musicians did with their life, and I quickly realized that what he did on a Friday night was to get a 12-pack of shitty beer and chase his dog around on the mud for four hours in the forest. That was about an exciting an epiphany as I had! I haven't seen him in town for a while, but I have taken over the whole dog-chasing practice – me and my Hawaiian mutt. The beer's gotten slightly better too.”

“Ed [Eddie Vedder] was super, super shy. Chris took him out for beers and told him stories. He was like, "Hey, welcome to Seattle. I love Jeff [Ament] and Stone [Gossard]. I give you my blessing." From then on he was more relaxed. It was one of the coolest things I saw Chris do.”

“Chris was that kind of a guy. Most of us in Seattle have always been pretty supportive of one another. There wasn't a lot of taking potshots or trying to derail each other. It was mutual admiration. And that's a powerful thing for Chris to do, but he loved those guys [from Pearl Jam].”

“In Seattle, there's a sense of community that's not competitive. It's very enlightened, if you ask me. Chris Cornell could have shut Eddie [Vedder] out and said, "No, Soundgarden gets all the glory now". But he got up onstage with the newcomer and built his confidence. It helped Eddie grow those wings pretty fast.”

“I’ve always said that Chris was the greatest songwriter to ever come out of Seattle. Jimi Hendrix could play the guitar like crazy, but Chris had the song-writing chops that we all sort of hoped to get to at different points in our songwriting careers. He had a way he could wrap a melody around odd time signatures and weird parts and make them catchy. He was a beautiful wordsmith. If you look at his lyrics, he obviously was processing his pain and depression, and all of those things. I think that’s part of what people, myself included, responded to when he was singing. With the songwriting he had that voice, there’s not too many people that have that many options with their voice. He could do a lot of different things with it, and have a lot of different characters in that voice. I feel so lucky that I got to be in a project with him, got to hang out with him, and just sort of witness his greatness.”

“He was just a really amazing human being. Seattle's not that big of a town, I remember just hanging out, going out in the woods with a half rack of beer, a couple of dogs, and about three or four of us cruising through the woods, and going down to the beach, and being kind of buffoons. We went to each other's shows. He was always consistent to me. There's a handful of people in your life where no matter how many years pass, when you see them it's the same look in your eyes, and you have the same connection. It never changed with him. I'll miss that, but I also treasure a lot of times that I had with him. Also his legacy as an artist, it's an amazing body of work. Soundgarden has always been one of my favorite bands, a flagpole band for the rest of us in the Northwest. They were around before anybody, except for maybe Stone [Gossard] and Jeff [Ament] in the Green River days and stuff. I think they were pretty much the band we all looked up to.”

“That was a very moving and poignant experience. We didn’t say much about it beforehand, and we didn’t say much about it afterward, because we thought the music said enough. I wanted to do ‘Boot Camp’, because that was my favorite song on [Soundgarden’s 1996 album] ‘Down On The Upside’, so I went and learned it, but the thing with Chris is, he would tune the guitar to his voice, so it’s kinda complicated to learn from following YouTube! In the end, and in the spirit of Chris, I just made up my own version and we practiced it in a hotel room in Chicago. [Jerry] Cantrell wanted to do ‘Hunted Down’, because he already knew it and it’s a rad song. But what I really liked about it is it ended up being these really nice bookends to the first song on the first Soundgarden EP [1987’s Screaming Life], and the last song on the last record Soundgarden made during their first phase.”

“They didn’t have such a long time together, no, but they were of the same mind and heart. Chris was a very kind and compassionate person too. And Chris said that Andy showed him how to be a rock star. Andy said, “Come on! Follow me! I’ll show you!”. And he just showed him. And Chris, of course, developed his own style. He was wonderful. Chris was wonderful. They loved one another. Andy used to make Chris, Chris Cornell, just… you know, they’d write songs together. But Andy would write eleven songs to Chris’ one. And then Chris would say, “Most of it was shit but one or two would be diamonds. He would write eleven songs to my one, you know.” They’d be in a competition together. You know, Andy couldn’t… they wouldn’t let him go when he was dying, until Chris got there.”