CHRIS CORNELL OPEN TO REVISITING TEMPLE

Chris Cornell shares his thoughts on possibly collaborating in some way down the line with Ex Temple of the Dog members.

Chris Cornell, fresh off a run of tour dates supporting his latest album ‘Carry On’ knows a thing or two about collaborating with amazing musicians. After many years being the lead vocalist with his band Soundgarden, Cornell along with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden formed the tribute band Temple of the Dog, as a tribute to their fallen friend Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone, who passed away of a drug overdose in 1990. Later bringing in Eddie Vedder for backup vocals, who was in town auditioning for what would turn out to be Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog recoded the hits, ‘Hunger Strike’ and ‘Say Hello to Heaven.’ Then after Soundgarden disbanded, Cornell formed with Rage Against the Machines’ Tom Morrello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk to form Audioslave and went on to sell millions of albums once again.

We caught up with Chris Cornell recently to discuss his thoughts on possibly collaborating once again in the future with some of the former members of Temple of the Dog.

“I think some combination of those people making a record is always going to appeal to me. I don’t know if it’ll be called Temple of the Dog but some collaboration with any combination of those guys, I’ll always be open to because it was such a great experience. Quite literally Temple of the Dog is the reason why Audioslave happened as far as I’m concerned. That was the only reason I was really open to it. After Temple of the Dog I felt that I wanted to always keep an open mind in my career about different collaborations because I felt like that was an exciting experience and it taught me that it was totally possible and pretty painless to do it.”

Chris Cornell also shared his reason why it’s so hard for musicians from different successful bands to collaborate in the studio on other projects.

“Some of the issues and problems as to why there aren’t these kinds of records coming out happened to us. We got into business problems. Business problems that never really stopped happening. Temple of the Dog wouldn’t have happened had it been 8 months later because the guys that ended up forming Pearl Jam didn’t really have a record deal at that moment. They ended up on a label that wasn’t the label that I was on and I don’t think they would have cooperated at that time.”

Upon completion of his U.S. summer tour, Chris Cornell was diagnosed with strained vocal chords and the doctor strongly advised that he take 10 days to two weeks off from singing onstage to prevent injury. Chris was forced to cancel shows in Poland, Hungary, and Austria, and promises to come back as soon as he can. Chris Cornell has also been announced to perform at KROQ’s LA Invasion along with The Smashing Pumpkins, Velvet Revolver, Foo Fighters, Kid Rock, Cypress Hill, Perry Farrell’s Satellite Party and a few others on September 15th in Carson, California. After the one off radio show Cornell will tour Canada, New Zealand and Australia with dates extending until October 22nd in Brisbane, Australia.