![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He attended a Catholic elementary school, Christ the King, then Shorewood high school, but left education at 16, and worked various jobs (including sous-chef at Ray’s Boathouse restaurant). After his parents’ divorce, when Chris was a teenager, he and his siblings took their mother’s maiden name. I was sober but I don’t think my brain was clear … It took me five years of sobriety to even get certain memories back.”īorn Christopher Boyle in Seattle, to Ed Boyle, a pharmacist, and Karen (nee Cornell), an accountant, Chris had three younger sisters and two older brothers. “I think Audioslave suffered from that because my feet hadn’t hit the ground yet. “It was really hard to recover from, just mentally,” he recalled. This was a significant period in his career, since he had been suffering from problems with drug and alcohol abuse during his later years with Soundgarden, and had made a strenuous effort to overcome them. The release of Revelations (which reached No 2 on the US charts and 12 in Britain) was preceded by the appearance of two of its tracks, Wide Awake and Shape of Things to Come, in Michael Mann’s film Miami Vice (2006).Ĭornell quit Audioslave in early 2007. The first of these was by far the most successful, selling 3m albums in the States and spinning off five hit singles including Cochise, Like a Stone and I Am the Highway. Over the next five years they recorded three albums, Audioslave (2002), Out of Exile (2005) and Revelations (2006). But his solo career was put on hold when he formed Audioslave in 2001, with former Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford, who had been recommended Cornell by the producer Rick Rubin. This found him exploring a mix of rock, pop and psychedelia, allowing him to use different facets of his impressive vocal range beyond a heavy-rock roar, though again critical enthusiasm did not translate into huge sales. After a further marathon bout of touring, the group announced they were splitting in April 1997.Ĭornell released his first solo album, Euphoria Morning, in 1999. When it was released in 1996, it was acclaimed by reviewers but sales fell far short of its predecessor’s. After extensive international touring, Soundgarden started work on their fifth album, Down on the Upside, though Cornell’s desire to lighten the group’s dark, metallic sound with acoustic instruments triggered arguments with his bandmates. Soundgarden’s next album, Superunknown (1994), duly topped the US chart (and reached No 4 in the UK), and went on to sell 5m copies in the States alone. They released an eponymous album in 1991, and last year reunited for a 25th-anniversary tour.) Cornell also had a solo cameo performance in Cameron Crowe’s 1992 Seattle-based romcom Singles, with his gentle acoustic track Seasons. (In 1990 Cornell had joined with members of Pearl Jam to form Temple of the Dog, in tribute to the late Andy Wood of another Seattle band, Mother Love Bone. “Was that good or bad? And what happened was we toured with them and their audience all bought Soundgarden records.”Ī berth on the 1992 Lollapalooza tour alongside Ministry, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and fellow Seattleites Pearl Jam framed Soundgarden as one of the rising names in American alternative rock. “Our big moment of truth was when we were offered a slot opening up for Skid Row and we didn’t know what to do with that,” Cornell told the music journalist Pete Makowski in 2011. The singles from that album, Outshined and Rusty Cage, received heavy play on alternative radio stations and MTV, and Badmotorfinger earned a Grammy nomination in 1992.Īn invitation to open for Guns N’ Roses on their Use Your Illusion tour (1991-93) introduced Soundgarden to huge new audiences in both the US and Europe, as did an opening slot with the heavy metal band Skid Row in 1992. Soundgarden signed to A&M records, and their second release for that label, Badmotorfinger (1991), became a multi-platinum seller in the US, also reaching the Top 40 in the UK. After releasing a single, Hunted Down (1987) on the Seattle-based Sub Pop label, and a debut album, Ultramega OK (1988), for the independent SST, Yamamoto left the band, and was briefly replaced by Jason Everman, formerly of Nirvana, before Ben Shepherd joined on bass. The group was started in 1984 by Cornell, along with guitarist Kim Thayil and bass player Hiro Yamamoto, with Matt Cameron becoming their full-time drummer in 1986. ![]()
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