CHRIS CORNELL On SOUNDGARDEN: 'We Never Repeated Ourselves, Ever'

June 30, 2011

During a recent interview with Australia's Beat magazine vocalist Chris Cornell of reunited grunge legends SOUNDGARDEN was asked about the progress of the recording sessions for the band's new album. "For this one, I was by myself, doing vocals, and also writing," Cornell explained. "In terms of material, I think we're good now. I think we're done."

As for how the new material might compare to SOUNDGARDEN's genre-defining albums of the '90s, Cornell said, "Well you know, what we do always feels new," he said. "We never repeated ourselves, ever. If anything was too reminiscent of something else we'd done, we wouldn't bother spending time on it. Having said that, everybody has their sensibilities. Anyone who writes songs has their sensibilities, and those are [still] recognizable. That's all intact. And I feel like it's also very vital, because that's how we are together. When a certain amount of time goes by, some people lose their... I guess the best word for it is 'passion'. But we all still have that. You never know if that's going to be there or not. And fortunately, in my life, it always has been."

When asked how the SOUNDGARDEN members have managed to overcome the creative differences widely believed to have caused their breakup in 1997, Cornell said, "Well, that's kind of B.S. I feel like that's a script written by other musicians or bands, or from how other people look at it. Tensions between the guitar player and the singer, you know..." he laughed. "Whenever those kinds of characterizations would creep up, we would always look at each other thinking: 'It's like we're on a completely different planet.'

"It probably didn't even need to be called a breakup," he added, "but just an indefinite hiatus. That's really what it's ended up being."

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