When you become a parent, you leave a lot of things behind and refocus, maybe on how simple life really is and what few things there really are to worry about. And everything else can go by the wayside.
Chris Cornell
Being solo really lends itself to different interpretations – and everything is in the moment and on a whim. I never realised how far out you can go when you are by yourself.
Chris Cornell
I think it’s important for fans to know that but if I’m doing something that inspires me musically then I think it will inspire someone else too.
Chris Cornell
And if you don’t believe the sun will rise, stand alone and greet the coming night in the last remaining light.
Chris Cornell
I’ve always liked depressing music because a lot of times, listening to it when you’re down can actually make you feel less depressed. Also, even though a person may have problems with depression, sometimes you can actually be kind of comfortable in that space because you know how to operate within it.
Chris Cornell
I’m not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that’s more what entertainment and music should be.
Chris Cornell
I think Freddie Mercury is probably the best of all time in terms of a rock voice. There was a vulnerability to it, his technical ability was amazing, and so much of his personality would come out through his voice. I’m not even a guy to buy Queen records, really, and I still think he’s one of the best.
Chris Cornell
The idea of telling the story of the Armenian genocide – or, really, any other genocide – and repeating those stories is really important. I also think it’s important to always be exposing the warning signs for what was leading up to it. Those tend to always be the same.
Chris Cornell
There’s sadness to anyone that dies before their time, and specifically ones that seem to affect people in a positive way. It doesn’t matter if it’s Whitney Houston or a nameless, faceless person on the street. That’s just as big of a tragedy for me.
Chris Cornell
I think there needs to be a global focus on people taking care of people.
Chris Cornell
Radio and TV can still push a band, but things need to be shaken up. There is the Internet, but mostly what I see there is little kids on YouTube playing music.
Chris Cornell
Whenever anyone sends me a link to a band, saying, ‘These guys sound exactly like Soundgarden,’ it’s always some super simple sludge riff with a singer that sings high and screechy. And it’s really awful.
Chris Cornell
I think back to my childhood, and I remember running around as a kid. We were all running around then. It wasn’t about getting into shape. It’s just what we did.
Chris Cornell
One of the main dilemmas that’s pretty common to a lot of people who are getting older is the idea that maybe there’s a finish line and that maybe there’s a time in your life when you start to slow down and stop and smell the roses and just kind of settle into what will be a comfortable period in your life.
Chris Cornell
When I started writing songs for Temple of the Dog, I went to my room with my acoustic guitar, and I was happy staying in that mode. It was more chordal based and more lyric driven. I enjoyed not making riff-based songs built around a guitar idea.
Chris Cornell
I’m not usually in a talkative mode.
Chris Cornell
Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn’t their parents’. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.
Chris Cornell
I’ve always had a really difficult time with loss.
Chris Cornell
It’s about trying to step out of being patterned and closed off and reclusive, which I’ve always had a problem with. It’s about attempting to be normal and just go out and be around other people and hang out. I have a tendency to sometimes be pretty closed off and not see people for long periods of time and not call anyone.
Chris Cornell
There’s something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it’s not something that you get over. I don’t believe there’s a healing process.
Chris Cornell
I never went to high school. I never really finished eighth grade. I was kicked out of seventh grade once and eighth grade twice. Mainly for not showing up and not doing it. Then I went to an alternative high school for part of what would have been ninth grade and part of what would have been 10th grade.
Chris Cornell
An acoustic show is all about you, and any little nuance or mistake is amplified.
Chris Cornell
In the United States, workouts tend to focus on body image and how you look. For me, it’s really all about the brain.
Chris Cornell
‘The Beatles’ did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minimalist aggressive rock.
Chris Cornell
Criticism pretty much follows anything anyone ever does. So, anytime anyone ever writes a song, plays a show, or does whatever they do, there’s going to be a certain amount of criticism because that’s kind of what happens.
Chris Cornell
My first favorite band that made music important to me was the Beatles. I was a little kid. I didn’t know who was singing what song or who wrote what song.
Chris Cornell
Criticism pretty much follows anything anyone ever does. So, anytime anyone ever writes a song, plays a show, or does whatever they do, there’s going to be a certain amount of criticism because that’s kind of what happens.
Chris Cornell
There was no animosity in the breakup of Soundgarden.
Chris Cornell
There wasn’t a key moment when I knew I wanted to quit.
Chris Cornell
I really had to come to the conclusion, the sort of humbling conclusion that, guess what, I’m no different than anybody else: I’ve got to sort of ask for help – not something I ever did, ever. And then part two of that is, like, accept it when it comes, and, you know, believe what people tell me.
Chris Cornell
Music is supposed to be inspired.
Chris Cornell
If I’m going to go out to be a solo artist, it’s because I want to do something different without having to wait on someone else’s schedule or hobbies or be limited by other people’s prejudices. I’d be kind of stupid not to exercise that.
Chris Cornell
Some of the most brilliant things that someone might do could happen in three minutes because it’s something that just occurs to them. And then, there’s the example of really chipping away at something to create something great. I don’t believe that one is more reliable than the other.
Chris Cornell
When all of a sudden you’re successful and sought after overnight, you are instantly opened to a lot of sides of humanity that the average person is never going to see. And those can often be pretty disheartening, and it can make somebody pretty lonely.
Chris Cornell
To me, music shouldn’t be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you’re sitting in a room, writing songs, it’s a completely different process. It’s a completely different place. It’s a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.
Chris Cornell
I came from a childhood where I spent a lot of time alone and a lot of time just living with my imagination, and a certain amount of the adult world was kind of alienating.
Chris Cornell
When I was eight, my piano teacher played seven or eight notes, and I sang them. She stopped and looked at me in shock! That was the first time I’d gotten that reaction. I’d had looks of horror, but never shock in a positive way.
Chris Cornell
When you start your first band and it has an impact on the rest of the world you go through a lot with those guys and you become very protective of that legacy.
Chris Cornell
I can go from one extreme to another, from playing at the Sydney Opera House on the Songbook tour to shows with Soundgarden at Voodoo Fest, all in a week.
Chris Cornell
I got in touch with the creative process between the age of 14 and 16, mainly because I was alone so much.
Chris Cornell
One thing that I have thought ever since Temple of the Dog is that I would never say no to an interesting collaboration, and that’s partly where Audioslave came from.
Chris Cornell
There was about two years where I was more or less agoraphobic and didn’t deal with anybody, didn’t talk to anybody, didn’t have any friends at all.
Chris Cornell
I felt very proud to be part of a music scene that was changing the face of commercial music and rock music internationally, but I also felt like it was necessary for Soundgarden – as it was for all of these Seattle bands – to prove that we deserve to be on an international stage, and we weren’t just part of a fad that was based on geography.
Chris Cornell
There’s something about that blind trust between Timbaland and me – two people that have almost nothing in common except for a love of music – that is really rejuvenating.
Chris Cornell
Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, and Silverchair are taking the simplest elements of Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam and melding them into one homogenous thing.
Chris Cornell
I would look at older blues musicians who just keep going into their seventies. They keep doing it until they drop dead. And I’ve always felt like that’s what I want to do. I’ve felt that since the day I was able to start playing music for a living. I don’t see the point of thinking about retiring because it’s not work to begin with.
Chris Cornell
At the end of the day it’s the fans who make you who you are.
Chris Cornell
Children should always feel like the adults are living in this world to nurture them, to take care of them, to protect them from any bad thing that might come.
Chris Cornell
You can really walk around a song and completely, if it’s a good song, look at it from a lot of different angles. Johnny Cash with Rick Rubin illustrated that perfectly.
Chris Cornell
I think the Beatles is one band that, if I’m working on a song arrangement or if I have some idea for a song, and there’s a little bit of a Beatles quality to it, I never avoid that. I always will steer into it.
Chris Cornell
Due to irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences, I am permanently leaving the band Audioslave. I wish the other three members nothing but the best in all of their future endeavours.
Chris Cornell
The reason there’s no modern-day Shakespeare is because he didn’t have anything to do except sit in a room with a candle and think.
Chris Cornell