Everyone has to be thinking in the context of new possibility to live in this world, because things are moving so fast. We’re living in this world where things are changing, and we’re being lifted almost hourly by new technology, which opens new possibility. There are a few songs I pressed to vinyl, and I actually play the records onstage and sing to that-I’m performing to a vinyl album instead of a laptop. I don’t know if I’ll even perform it that way. The basic arrangement was chord-based, but overall I never tried to make that work as an acoustic song. That was really the only song that wasn’t written to work acoustically first. The drum loops were all kind of synthetic, electronic-sounding. On the original demos, I found a keyboard patch that sounded liked Middle Eastern horns. The last song “Our Time in the Universe” seems like it would work. I don’t feel like there’s a whole lot of confusion between projects. If Soundgarden did a cover of one of them, it’s possible, but not probable. I don’t see any of them necessarily being songs that would make sense as Soundgarden songs. Some of it really is me, and some of it is a character I’ve created, like one might create a character for a novel. I have somewhat of a dreamed-up image of who this guy is. I’m actually able to see this character and this identity outside of myself. A song I wrote for Soundgarden, and a song I wrote for Audioslave, and a song I wrote for Temple of the Dog and a solo song-and my interpretation of a John Lennon song or a Michael Jackson song-they’re all now kind of making sense together. It’s the whole ball of wax, from the time I started being a songwriter until now. Anything I do that doesn’t sound like it should be part of the image and the identity of the Soundgarden monster, we call that “solo records.” As a solo artist, I don’t think I had an identity until I started doing the Songbook touring.īeing able to get up with just an acoustic guitar and pare down 28 years of songwriting in various bands and solo projects to this distilled acoustic-guitar-and-singer thing started to become something that made sense to me as who I am. But with the solo records, that never has been the case. I know what Soundgarden should sound like, and I’m always trying to push the boundaries of that. We’re all writing the soundtrack to what that is. It’s a band that has become its own monster. In a sense, Soundgarden records are conceptual, in that everything I write is my interpretation of what the band should sound like. It’s the closest to an overall concept I’ve ever had making a record. Safe to say the record was inspired by the Songbook project? “ Higher Truth was written to make the Songbook tours a living, breathing thing,” he says, “instead of a nostalgic look back at my history.” That record alienated many longtime fans, so this time Cornell decided to give listeners something less experimental. It’s a significant changeup from Cornell’s last solo studio effort, 2009’s Scream, a collection of R&B jams helmed by hip-hop innovator Timbaland. Handling all the writing and arranging and much of the instrumentation, Cornell made Higher Truth with producer Brendan O’Brien, best known for his work with Pearl Jam. ![]() ![]() It’s the summer home to my winter Soundgarden.” “I started to realize this was something that really works for me,” says Cornell about the no-frills format he chose for the new record. The live album Songbook, featuring songs recorded during the tour, was released later that year. His fourth studio album, Higher Truth, is a stripped-down singer-songwriter set inspired by his 2011 Songbook Tour, when he roamed the world with an acoustic guitar playing solo songs and Soundgarden classics-as well as tunes he wrote for the supergroups Temple of the Dog and Audioslave. The band makes genre-pushing hard rock revered by punk fans and metalheads alike, and with albums like the 1994 blockbuster Superunknown, the quartet has pushed its big, artsy sound into the mainstream.Īs a solo artist, Cornell has always taken a more varied approach. When he plays with Soundgarden, the seminal Seattle alt-rock outfit he formed in 1984, Chris Cornell knows pretty much where things stand. Photo Credit: Carlos Ramos CHRIS CORNELL Going solo means going acoustic for the Soundgarden frontman
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