Former Audioslave drummer Brad Wilk discussed Chris Cornell struggling with drugs when the band first formed in 2001 and 2002 in a new Let There Be Talk interview. Alternative Nation transcribed his quotes.
“It was incredible when he actually did come down, and all of a sudden we’re writing music. We were such a prolific band, we wrote music really quickly. He had a hard time, he was going through hard times as well during that time. We were just getting to know him, before the record even came out we already had him in the process of trying to get him clean. We already broke up, Audioslave broke up before the first record even came out.”
“So that was frustrating because we had this record in the can, and then we weren’t a band. That was tough. But we got it together, he got it together, and we were able to make three records.”
He said sometimes he wakes up and forget Chris is gone.
“I wake up some mornings and kind of forget. It’s like, ‘Oh.'”
“It felt so great to be on stage with him again [in January 2017]. He wanted to do a tour and make music. I was like, ‘Fuck yes! This would be incredible. I love playing with you, I love making music with you.’ Unfortunately it never happened. He will be greatly missed. The beauty of it is he did leave so much amazing work behind, and we will always have that.”
