Soundgarden and Audioslave mastermind heads into the studio with Timabaland
Chris Cornell has done it all. From writing what is widely considered one of the best albums of the ’90s (Soundgarden’s Superunknown ) to penning the theme song to the most successful James Bond film ever (“You Know My Name” from Casino Royale ) Cornell has succeeded in both his solo career and with a band at his back first in Soundgarden and later with Audioslave.
“I planned on being a solo artist after Soundgarden broke up” says Cornell. “And the next thing I was in a band scenario again. As much as I love doing that and I love those Audioslave records I felt like I wanted to be able to experiment musically [and] the window was getting smaller. I think to some degree you have to be a solo artist to really go out there and break down all those conventional walls of how you create things. So once I was a solo artist again I felt like I should really be taking advantage of the opportunity.”
Cornell’s new album Scream is a bit of a detour for the rock guru. Enlisting the help of super-producer Timbaland Cornell is getting away from guitar-driven songs and opening up his style to see what he can do as a solo musician.
“If you raise the bar for yourself it gives you something to live up to” Cornell says. “The first time I heard about Timbaland was from a Missy Elliot song where it had birds chirping as part of a beat. I want to be able to make records where you have that much freedom in what your instrumentation is and what your song is made up of and what the sounds are and how you write it.”
In switching from guitar-driven rock to a more beat-driven R&B style Cornell may be ostracizing his diehard alt-rock fans. In his view though he is just keeping with what got him to where he is in the first place.
“You stick to creating music that inspires you regardless of what anybody else says or whatever the popular norm is” Cornell says. “I remember when Soundgarden was touring with Faith No More there were fans that would scream because Faith No More had a piano player and that wasn’t supposed to be part of the dedicated hard rock esthetic of the time. I thought do any of these fans remember Pink Floyd or Led Zepplin or The Who? Who’s Next has one of the first attempts at synthesizer on a rock song that no decent rock fan is going to say isn’t amazing. You basically just have to do it and ignore pretty much anything and everything and let the chips fall where they fall.”
There’s more to Cornell’s laid-back approach than just a lack of concern for criticism though. More than anything the singer-songwriter is restless refusing to pin himself to one genre.
“Songwriters no matter who they are or how talented they are or how prolific they are are only going to be able to scratch the surface of what’s possible in music in a lifetime” he says. “That is the basic simple fact of it. I think the world creates some people who like one kind of music and they stick with that…. I’m not that kind of person. I’m a fan of lots of different kinds of music and also a super fan of the excitement of creativity and creating something that didn’t exist an hour before. You get something from that as a songwriter and as a recording artist that is pretty unbelievable — it’s the magical aspect of it.”
