Former Audioslave drummer Brad Wilk discussed Chris Cornell in a new Let There Be Talk interview.
“I love that man, at his core he was a really sweet, thoughtful, smart guy. A true artist. He felt the pain of people.
News was a hard thing for him. You could see it physically hurting him, taking on pain, I think like any artist, and anyone I’ve ever played with suffers from this. You take on the energy of rooms sometimes, and you feel the pain as much as you feel joy. I think that’s what makes for really great art, when you can feel that. It’s also what makes it so tough to live on a daily basis without masking that, or taking drugs to try to not feel that for one day, or a few days.”
John Carter Cash recently discussed Chris Cornell working Johnny Cash’s lyrics into a song.
It’s inevitable that a new recording by Chris Cornell would take on an added poignancy following his suicide last year. Yet there’s an extra chill that comes in listening to his contribution to a recently-released collection of Johnny Cash’s writings set to music.
In taking on a Cash poem called, “You Never Knew My Mind,” Cornell adds “really” after “never” a few times for emphasis. At one point he sings, “you did not see me well enough to recognize the signs.”
The former Soundgarden singer may not seem like an obvious choice to participate in the project, but Cash’s son John Carter Cash recalled meeting Cornell with his father backstage at a show in Seattle in the early 1990s. Johnny Cash later interpreted Cornell’s song, “Rusty Cage,” among the series of recordings that ended his career on a creative high note.
Cornell eagerly agreed to participate when John Carter Cash reached out to him for the “Johnny Cash: Forever Words” project.
“Chris connected deeply with my father’s words, and his finished version of ‘You Never Knew My Mind’ tied his own life experience to my father’s on an honest level,” Cash said.
