Musicians Talking About Chris Cornell

We’ve already compiled clips of Musicians Talking About Kurt Cobain and Musicians Talking About Layne Staley, but now we’ve put together a montage of musicians talking about Chris Cornell.

Just a few weeks ago marked the fifth anniversary of Cornell’s death. Since May of 2017, a ton of fellow artists have spoken about the impact he had, from his work with Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and Audioslave, to his solo material and countless collaborations with other musicians.

“I didn’t realize the impact that Chris had on me as a writer and as a singer until I really started thinking about the fact that he had no boundaries when it came to writing music and doing whatever he wanted,” Slipknot‘s Corey Taylor said. “If he wanted to try a genre, he’d do it. He was completely fearless. For me, watching that over the years, I was so inspired by that, whether it was the heaviness of stuff like ‘Jesus Christ Pose’ or the beautiful, acoustic stuff like ‘Seasons’ that he did on the Singles soundtrack.”

Despite Cornell’s versatility as an artist and how massively influential he came to be during his career, his Soundgarden bandmate Matt Cameron recalled the singer being incredibly shy onstage during the band’s infancy.

“I remember him not speaking to the crowd for like a good year or two when I first joined. The way that he would perform back then, he sort of went into this trance. When I would watch those guys before I joined, I was just really mesmerized by the way Chris would just sort of like turn into this Shaman-kind of dude,” the drummer remembered. “Eventually he became more comfortable with an audience, and I think he was naturally a really shy person, believe it or not.”

Metallica frontman James Hetfield explained how Cornell’s tragic death reminded him and his bandmates how fortunate they are, and made them more appreciative of each other.

“It does make you hug those around you for sure — bandmates, family that’s out here, family at home. It makes you realize that there’s a darkness that anyone and everyone can find and feel that they’re trapped in. When you’re there… at least I know the depth of my darkness at times, it’s difficult when you’re in that space to even fathom that there’s someone there that can help you or has been through that before.”

See these musicians talking about Chris Cornell below.