Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello said there was ‘no other choice’ but Chris Cornell to front Audioslave when the band originally formed and they were thinking about their next move after Rage Against The Machine’s 2000 breakup. In a Spotify video (transcribed by Alternative Nation), Morello said:
“After Rage Against The Machine broke up we were sitting around like: ‘What are we going to do with our lives?’ We were sitting over at producer Rick Rubin’s house, and just listening to records and thinking about what might be a match, what might be something that might be exciting as another chapter for us, and we put on the song ‘Slaves and Bulldozers’ at maximum volume.
We were just so floored and terrified by the beauty and ferocity of Chris’ performance in that song, and we knew that there was no other choice, but for us to reach out to Mr. Cornell. He is very much missed. He was a great guy, a sweet guy, love him, miss him forever, but his music will continue on, and it will rock you furiously.”
Former Audioslave manager Peter Katsis said, “When I finally got to work with him he was in Audioslave, and at that point I was already a huge fan. They really found a way to kind of marry what they had been doing as Rage and as Soundgarden into something new. In a lot of ways, I felt like it might have been his best songwriting ever, when you listen to ‘Like a Stone.’
He’d come up with these beautiful melodies, and he’d mix them up with the really hard stuff, and yet he could still belt like a motherfucker too. So it was this contrast that few people could ever get near. Nothing beats a great song, and not too many people touch someone like Chris Cornell.”
He also said, “The thing that really stood out about Chris was how majestic his voice was. He could that up against real hard music, and still come out sounding beautiful.”
