Blind Melon guitarist Christopher Thorn discussed Chris Cornell’s death in a new Long Island Pulse interview with Greg Prato.
“Chris’ passing really gutted me. It hit me really hard and fucked me up for quite some time. It brought back the same feelings that you’re talking about with Shannon. We did know Chris and we toured a lot with him and he was so kind to us. He was incredible to us because that was the first tour we ever did [in the fall of 1991], and we didn’t know what we were doing at all. Soundgarden showed us the ropes.
And they really were enamored by Shannon, because Shannon reminded them of Andy Wood [singer of the Pearl Jam precursor band, Mother Love Bone] so much. I’m still really crushed about the whole Chris thing. When you don’t have an answer, it’s really painful.”
Thorn was recently interviewed on the Appetite For Distortion podcast. Thorn discussed his love for Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose, and how he appreciated Rose supporting Blind Melon and their singer Shannon Hoon. He did mention though that many feared Rose on tour. Alternative Nation transcribed Thorn’s comments.
“It was a huge deal for me even at that time. They’re the biggest band in the universe at that point, there’s nobody bigger, so to sort of have Axl kind of bless you, and say, ‘I believe in these guys.’ You kind of get the finger on your head, being blessed by Axl. We knew it was a big deal, we were really grateful. We were really fuckin’ grateful, Axl was really good to us. People try to get me to say shit about Axl, and I can’t say anything about him, other than he might be batshit crazy. But he was lovely to use, and he helped our career so much, and he was always so fuckin’ cool to us.”
He added, “He was crazy Axl for sure. I saw him be pretty fuckin’ crazy for sure.”
“Well people were scared the fuck out of him, I do know that. I do know that the crew would just sort of back away whenever he would walk through the hallway. People were in fear of him, I wasn’t because he was always so cool to us because we were Shannon’s buds. He was always super cool to us, but he ran a really tight ship. People were on eggshells around him, I can tell you that.
But it was crazy, he was a perfectionist. I would see him get off stage every night and go back to his room and watch the entire fuckin’ performance and take notes. He was really a pro man, I got to tell you, I learned a lot about just being professional, he was very professional at that point. They were playing stadiums, and you can’t afford to just be okay when you’re playing stadiums. He took it really seriously, and ran a really tight ship, and they were amazing every night.”
Listen to “Ep. 41 – Christopher Thorn, Blind Melon” on Spreaker.
