Chris Cornell Quotes

I never felt bad about being lumped in with other Seattle bands. I thought it was great.

Chris Cornell Soundgarden

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• I've always been really anti-social, and being relatively famous has just given me an excuse to go out even less. If I didn't play in Soundgarden I'd have no excuse for being the way I am. My friends and family would hate me, whereas now they probably feel sorry for me. Y'know, 'Poor kid, he can't come out because he gets hassled a lot.'

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Family
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  • Hate

• I wasn't good in school. I didn't do sports. I sat in the bedroom and listened to records. Because the Beatles did whatever they wanted to, I took that as a kid and said, 'That's what rock is.'

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Good
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• My history of singing has always probably been closer to a David Bowie approach than, for example, an AC/DC approach.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • History
  • Singing

• RockNet Interview: Chris Cornell of Soundgarden (May 1, 1996).

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • May

• One thing that I have thought ever since Temple of the Dog is that I would never say no to an interesting collaboration, and that's partly where Audioslave came from.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Interesting
  • Dog
  • Collaboration

• Oddly enough, I was in Paris, the last show of a Soundgarden tour. I didn't know him that well, but I had friends who were trying to talk to him and it wasn't working out. I had this idea that when I got home, I'd try and sit down with him.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Trying
  • Home
  • Friends

• I have a hard time narrowing things down to ten or 12 songs. If I walk off stage in anything less than two hours, it just feels strange. It feels early.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Time

• You sometimes get the feeling that people think getting back together after a hiatus to write and record a record is work, you know, arduous and unpleasant. Being able to write and record - that's a privilege. I don't forget the long days I spent working in a restaurant, when I wanted to be done so I could go home and work on a song.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • People
  • Work
  • Long

• My favorite Bob Dylan record is the very first one where he sings one Bob Dylan song and the rest of them are his interpretations of the Dust Bowl-era folk songs, or even going back as far as the mass influx of people coming into the U.S. during the gold rush. His interpretations of those songs are incredible.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • People
  • Song
  • Rest

• The rest of the band Soundgarden thought it was silly of the press to concentrate on the beefcake when I was writing songs, singing, and playing guitar for the band. Even now, some people will stick a paragraph about my hair in the body of a review.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • People
  • Writing
  • Band

• When you break out the acoustic guitar, the words are the focal point unless you're the Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar. So the words have to have meaning.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Words

• I was depressed for a long time. If you’re depressed long enough, it’s almost a comfort, a state of mind that you’ve made peace with because you’ve been in it so long. It’s a very selfish world.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Time
  • World
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• A lot of what attracted people to Nirvana was that they were like the people you went to high school with.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • People
  • School
  • High

• If you knew someone who was terminally ill and in grave pain, would you participate in an assisted suicide? I would.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Pain
  • Suicide

• My first favorite band that made music important to me was the Beatles. I was a little kid. I didn't know who was singing what song or who wrote what song.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Music
  • Important
  • Song

• As a child, I was this record collector/listener that would sit in a room and listen to the entire Beatles catalog alone, over and over and over again.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Alone

• I think everybody, no matter how rich or poor, how young or old, has a phase in his life when he's depressive. It's reality. Not a lot of people want to talk about it. Most people rather hide that fact, but it's just one of the facts of life that absolutely fascinates me.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • People
  • Life
  • Reality

• I don't listen to Beyonce or Jennifer Hudson records.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden

• I always looked at rock & roll as the voice of regular people, of an economic group not in charge.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • People
  • Rock

• I rejected most of the folk I was exposed to in the Seventies. I came around later to Tom Waits, some parts of Jim Croce, and a lot of Cat Stevens.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Cat

• In spite of my lack of education, I didn't lack direction.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Education

• I don't really go mountain biking per se, like a proper sport.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Mountain

• The sense of anger I had when I was younger is something I thought would never go away. Over time, it's something you get almost bored with.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Time
  • Bored

• I never went to high school. I never really finished eighth grade. I was kicked out of seventh grade once and eighth grade twice. Mainly for not showing up and not doing it. Then I went to an alternative high school for part of what would have been ninth grade and part of what would have been 10th grade.

  

  Chris Cornell Soundgarden
  • Up
  • School
  • High