Tom Morello discussed the early days of Audioslave in a new interview with Lars Ulrich on Beats 1’s It’s Electric. Alternative Nation transcribed their comments.
“We were hanging out with Rick Rubin a lot, and listening to music over at his place, and actually the Soundgarden song ‘Slaves and Bulldozers,’ we were listening to it full volume at Rick. We were looking and Rick and thinking it was painfully obvious we should call up Chris Cornell. So Rick and I made the trek up to Ojai, he had this kind of spooky house on this spooky hill, and I didn’t know Chris that well. I had met him a couple of times, it was a Spanish style castle Dracula.”
Lars said, “He comes out with no shirt on, with beads and seven necklaces, looking like the rock God he is.”
Morello responded, “He comes out lanky, like the doors open on their own.”
“I remember we were there in my van, it’s like this kind of long staircase that goes up, and there’s these motorcycles that are parked out front. It’s dusk, it’s turning dusk, and we’re in my van, and Rick and I are parked in the lot there, and the doors open mysteriously. Chris’ lanky form starts coming down the steps, and Rick turns to me and goes: ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’ We ended up staying for six years. Chris was just a real sweetheart.”
