What Would CHRIS CORNELL Tell Himself At 18? 'Don't Drink'

According to The Pulse Of Radio, SOUNDGARDEN singer Chris Cornell said that if he could give advice to himself at the age of 18, he would keep it simple: don't drink. In an interview on MTV2's "120 Minutes", Cornell was asked what he would write in a letter to himself at that age. He replied, "Don't drink. And that's serious. For me, that's one, because I never wrote, I was never creative while drinking, and there were these periods of not drinking and just kind of white-knuckling it and writing and recording, and then drinking a lot and coming into the studio hung over and being in the studio drunk and never being able to do anything to the level or to the degree that I thought that I should be. I'm proud of everything that I did, but I think it was a lot more difficult than it needed to be."

Cornell began using drugs and alcohol when he was 12 and told The Pulse Of Radio a while back what finally led him to check himself into rehab in 2002. "I really had to come to the conclusion, the sort of humbling conclusion that, guess what, I'm no different than anybody else, I've got to sort of ask for help not something I ever did, ever," he said. "And then part two of that is, like, accept it when it comes and, you know, believe what people tell me. And trusting in what I have been told, and then seeing that work."

Cornell is currently in the midst of an acoustic solo tour to promote the arrival of his acoustic live album "Songbook" on November 21. Although he had to postpone a show in Nashville on Wednesday (November 2) due to illness, he is expected to perform Friday night (November 4) in Orlando, Florida.

Meanwhile, SOUNDGARDEN is finishing up its first new studio album in 15 years, with the set likely to arrive in the spring of 2012. Cornell told Billboard that the record is "the next logical step in SOUNDGARDEN, creatively."

2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the band's commercial breakthrough, "Badmotorfinger", a milestone that has been somewhat overshadowed by 20th anniversary celebrations for PEARL JAM's debut "Ten" and NIRVANA's landmark "Nevermind".

Cornell said on MTV2, "It doesn't really seem like 20 years. You know I don't collect things and I don't focus on the past too much, but there's something to celebrating it, certainly."