Alice In Chains’ Jerry Cantrell has told Rolling Stone magazine that Chris Cornell was “the last guy in the world I thought that would happen to,” referring to Cornell’s death. “That’s not the way that book was supposed to end. And it was not the way that book was going.”
Cantrell, whose band lost its original singer, Layne Staley, to a drug overdose in 2002, said that Cornell, represented “a strong strain running through [Seattle] — he was always so honest, from the moment I met him. I share a lot of the issues Chris communicated” in his songwriting. “And there’s a power in sharing your weakness with the people who need to hear that, so they can consider, ‘Fuck, that guy’s dealing with it.’ You don’t feel so alone.”
Cornell “always had it, the same thing as when I saw Layne for the first time — the commitment to take that ride,” Cantrell added. “There was something that I recognized and aspired to — to have your own voice and sound. Nobody else sounds like that guy. Nobody will.
“There is a space now and forever empty because of that,” Cantrell said of Cornell’s death. “It’s never going to make sense. It’s never going to feel right. And it’s always going to hurt.”
