That time Chris Cornell told me that he thinks about strange, internal, retarded, philosophical things all the time

By Steve Newton

By now most everyone has heard the awful news: that American rock legend Chris Cornell took his own life after a Soundgarden concert in Detroit Wednesday night.

What a complete shocker. What a total downer.

He was only 52.

I wasn’t the biggest Soundgarden fanatic in the world, but I loved a lot of the music Cornell made with that band, and Audioslave as well. And I really enjoyed some of his solo work too.

I only got to interview him once, back in October of 2008, before he came to Vancouver for a show at the Red Robinson Show Theatre (before it changed its name to Hard Rock Casino Vancouver).

The year before he’d released his second solo album, Carry On, which I thought was awesome, so when he called from San Francisco I started the interview off by telling him that, mentioning how it had made my Top 10 albums of 2007 list.

I rattled off my favourite tunes on the album, and asked him what inspired “Killing Birds”, the track I was most impressed with overall.

He replied with a thoughtful commentary on his lyrical process for that tune, and offered a glimpse of what goes on in his head most of the time.

“You don’t have to love the murderer I’ve become…”

Have a listen:

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