Chris Cornell and Audioslave

Today’s writing topic is: Chris Cornell, who sadly committed suicide.

I might be a smidge older than some of the other folks reminiscing on Twitter about Soundgarden and Chris Cornell in the wake of his recent death. My memory of Soundgarden is limited to exactly two songs from 90s radio: Black Hole Sun and Spoonman. I liked both songs, possibly even loved Spoonman. I remember vividly where I was the first time I heard it, actually. It’s an enthralling song.

But I was never a “fan” of Soundgarden per se, and I couldn’t name or hum a single other song they did. I never bought any Soundgarden CDs. I didn’t know Cornell by name back then.

Overall I never got into grunge music in the early 1990s. I liked the “sound” of it, particularly those heavy guitars, which I often tried and failed to replicate, but I never felt it as a social movement like others did. Looking back now, I think I held a little bit of a resentment toward grunge, because they pushed all of “my” familiar rock music from the radio.

It was also around that time that I discovered the progressive rock of Queensryche, and I had also begun to write my own music. I was also working at home trying to make an Amiga software development business work, so I was pretty busy. It wasn’t until years later that I really started to appreciate the grunge movement. (I was always partial to Stone Temple Pilots, though, particularly their second album Purple, which I still think is a masterpiece.)

Now I want to fast forward to around 2002 or 2003, when I heard a little song called Like A Stone. I cannot even tell you where I heard it. I certainly wasn’t listening to FM radio in 2002, and MTV and VH1 were long gone. Even Napster was gone. It’s possible I heard it on a Winamp “Internet radio” station, because I remember playing around with that for a while.

Regardless of how I heard it, I thought the song was amazing. It was such a simple piece with a lot of powerful, evocative, almost religious lyrics. And then the lead guitar started and it just floored me. What was this alien sound and how the holy hell did they get a guitar to make this sound?? (I still don’t know but I assume it was some kind of pitch shifter pedal, possibly that DigiTech Whammy pedal.) I made a mental note of the band named Audioslave.

Not much later, I heard another song by Audioslave called Show Me How To Live. It had a lot of the same qualities as Like A Stone, but it was more of a rocker.

(It’s weird watching those videos now… I’ve never seen them before.)

At that point I’m pretty sure I got Audioslave’s first album. I don’t remember if I heard it first, then bought it, or if I just bought it based only on those two songs. It’s sort of unusual for me to buy a whole album based on only two songs, though. At that time I was into what I think the local rock stations called “buzz rock” and Audioslave fit perfectly, although it seemed to me that it rose considerably above the median.

Every song on that first Audioslave album is amazing, if you ask me. Most every song on the second and third album is amazing, too. That was when I learned the name Chris Cornell, and found out he used to sing for Soundgarden. (I knew his voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.) I was very surprised to learn that the rest of Audioslave used to be Rage Against The Machine, whom I had heard now and then but never cared for.

That’s how I’ll remember Chris Cornell… as the frontman for Audioslave.

“I’ve been wandering sideways

I’ve stared straight into the sun

Still I don’t know why you’re dying

Long before your time has come”

- Chris Cornell, Your Time Has Come