Pete Thorn, who was Chris Cornell’s touring guitarist from 2007 to 2009 on the Carry On and Scream tours, has posted a tribute to mark the one year anniversary of his bandmate’s death. Thorn is also in Detroit, the city Cornell died in, to perform a concert today.
“This is how I like to remember this guy. Always liked to have a good time, and we surely had some good times. I don’t know where the hat came from but it was backstage in Finland… I really don’t like marking the day people passed away every year- it seems odd to me to annually remember the worst day, when you can remember them every other day and think about the great times. But here we are, I’ve ended up in Detroit on May 18, 2018 and am definitely thinking about you today all day, Chris Cornell.”
Thorn wrote on Instagram last month, “Kinda can’t stop thinking about this guy the last few days. Why’d you have to go, dude? Wish you’d just picked up the phone and rapped with me about guitars, and music, and politics and anything. I’m sure basically every one that knew you (and didn’t know you) feels that way.”
Pete Thorn made tribute posts for Chris Cornell on Facebook last year, here are a couple of beautiful ones:
“Today was/is hard. For some reason I dreamt of CC for most of last night, you never know when that’s going to happen.. was one of those dreams where people are still there, there’s been some sort of terrible mistake and they aren’t gone, and you really don’t want to wake up. I’ll miss texts/emails like this, always. For the record, his fav Yacht Rock episode was Jimmy Buffet/Footloose and if you haven’t seen it, go immediately and find it on YouTube. Sweet Jesus it’s smooth… James Ingram getting drunk on Malibu… CC’s the one who turned me on to Flight Of The Conchords, (I think the Bowie one is what he told me to go watch 1st) #missyou #yachtrock #flightoftheconchords #chriscornell #smoothmusic #keepitsmooth #kokosboathouse.”
“I am just at a loss with all of this. Took this while on tour with Linkin Park in 08, we had so much fun that summer. I was not a huge LP fan before although I respected them, but often you BECOME a fan when touring with a band- you get to see the best parts of any band while on tour, and for me with LP it was Chester, I thought he was an exceptional front man. He sang ‘Hunger Strike’ with us every night, and I just saw him at Chris service in May- he sang ‘Hallelujah’ just beautifully and afterwards I told him what great memories I had of that summer on tour, and he said “me too!”, it really was like summer camp. He was always very cool, hanging out at lunch and chatting and just seemed like a good dude. I watched him really give his all every night, we toured with them in Australia and NZ in 07 as well and I watched him break his arm one night jumping off a riser- didn’t even stop the show, he came back the next night with it in a cast and continued on rocking. It’s all just very sad, terrible. What else can you say.”