Chris Cornell
I feel like you're not a real musician or entertainer if you can't go into a room, pick up an instrument and entertain people.
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.
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.
I don't get in there and create a character. It's more of a voice that I hear living inside the music.
I never wrote music or arranged songs or lyrics when I was under the influence of anything but coffee. That's not gone away.
I got in touch with the creative process between the age of 14 and 16, mainly because I was alone so much.
Most frontmen are not born hams like David Lee Roth. We're more like Joey Ramone: awkward geeks who somehow find our place in the world on the stage.
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.
What formed me as a musician, a songwriter, the sound and personality of my band, a whole lot of that happened well before 1991.
The words you say never live up to the words in your head.Collection: Words You Say
Be yourself is all that you can do.Collection: Being Yourself
I used to work in jobs I hated because I needed the money to buy a guitar. I know what it feels like to be depressed. On the other hand, I also know what it feels like to have money, to be successful, to be independent, but I can tell you that money and success never solve your problems.Collection: Jobs
People don't realize how much fun it is to be depressed.Collection: Fun
I think that sometimes almost the bigger tragedy in a weird way is all of the future imagined creative projects that could have happened that didn't. I feel the same way about lots of brilliant people who die young, kind of senselessly especially.Collection: Thinking
She gives the night its dreams.Collection: Dream
Any way that you can get the end result is valid, whatever it takes.Collection: Whatever It Takes
I don't think there are too many rock bands in history that can look at the beginning and middle and ending of themselves and see what I see when I think of Soundgarden. I think from the beginning through the middle and the end it was such a perfect ride and such a perfect legacy to leave.Collection: Thinking
I would hope that the future would have an international community that's not just bent on commerce, but that's focused on refugees, of all kinds and from all places. We don't know that won't happen in the U.S. someday. It literally could be a crisis from climate change, or anything. I think there needs to be a global focus on people taking care of people.Collection: Thinking
I'm pretty critical, but I'm also pretty good at letting go once it's done. There's this existential argument that comes in, at some point, when you're over-thinking the songwriting process. There's no guarantee that the more time you spend or the more you concentrate on certain aspects that that's going to produce a better result, especially in the arts. Some of the most brilliant things that someone might do could happen in three minutes because it's something that just occurs to them.Collection: Letting Go
I don't care what people think of me or for what reason they think of me. I don't feel like I don't know who I am to the degree that I have to change my hair to create a new me.Collection: Thinking
Led Zeppelin is just a bunch of stupid idiots who wrote cool riffs.Collection: Stupid
I'm looking California, And feeling Minnesota...Collection: Life
They always say that the entertainment and restaurant industries are the only businesses that don't sink during a depression or a recession. I've done both, and I recommend to anyone who wants to be a rock star, if that doesn't pan out, become a cook.Collection: Done
What makes that song, I think, is how stark it is.Collection: Song
I don't ever want something that I didn't do because I was afraid of it or I didn't think I'd be good at it - within reason. Obviously I'm never going to be able to play the trumpet.Collection: Thinking
I don't really go to clubs so I don't know what sounds are made there.Collection: Sound
Friends of mine that are from here or that have spent time here have told me about Israel and how warm the people are and that I should someday come here.Collection: Israel
Ever since I can remember I’ve had positive and negative fan reviews. And whether it was positive or negative it wasn’t always based in reality or what my perception of the music was. But judging from playing these new songs live and my feelings on the record [Scream] – and it’s a great record – there is definitely an audience for it. Also, I don’t really go to clubs so I don’t know what sounds are made there.Collection: Song
If you sold a million records, the only way you could be disappointed is if the guy down the street sold seven million. But you've got to start dodging bullets once you've sold that many records, because everybody wants to kill you. We're not in that position. We can still be very successful and not have to worry about wearing bulletproof vests.Collection: Successful
Sometimes, if a song is written, in essence, to be that stripped down, it's very touchy when you start adding things, because even the smallest thing can have a huge impact. Somebody has to make the decision that there's a better song in there if there's less.Collection: Song
If you are trying to think ahead musically, it is not going to help you. It is better to ignore what is happening melodically and just look at the little dots coming at you and the corresponding colors and try to do it at the right time.Collection: Thinking
It isn't necessary to be an untouchable rock-icon guy surrounded by bodyguards and be ushered in and out and have everyone do everything for you. It isn't necessary to change the way you present your band to the public just because you're successful. That happened a lot in the '80s: there was a school of thought that said people would like you more if you acted like you were the unattainable star.Collection: School
Maybe sincerity is the new punk. But to me, I think I have to connect with something emotionally, on some level, or I don't care about it. And if I don't care about it, then I don't think anyone listening to it will, either.Collection: Thinking
When that much time goes by, you're really listening to your old music differently. At the time it's written, it was the beginning of our career and with every song we're thinking, 'This is what's creating us.' Now, nothing is creating us. We're well-created. We're there. It becomes just pure pleasure and you become sort of an archeologist of your own music. You don't judge it, because what's the point? It's a 30-year-old song. It just becomes fun.Collection: Song
I started as a drummer, so I sort of took on singing duties by default. I had sung backgrounds and some lead vocals from behind the drums in different bands that I'd been in, and I'd gotten great responses for the songs I would sing. I really started pursuing the possibility of being a lead singer based on the fact that I was working a full-time restaurant job and then playing gigs at night, hauling drums around. One day, it just dawned on me that, 'Hey, I could be in a band and be the singer, and it would be a lot easier!'Collection: Song
If I had a musical identity that was definable then it would be time to get into painting or something else. Race car driving.Collection: Race
When you're having a conversation with someone who, despite his brilliant medical career, says he's going to produce the film, you think, "How's he gonna do this? Is he insane, or is he really going to pull this off? It might be both." It's really amazing to see someone do what he's done.Collection: Thinking
People don’t realize how much fun it is to be depressed.Collection: Fun