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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.
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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.'
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I always looked at rock & roll as the voice of regular people, of an economic group not in charge.
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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.
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There was about two years where I was more or less agoraphobic and didn't deal with anybody, didn't talk to anybody, didn't have any friends at all.
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I can go from one extreme to another, from playing at the Sydney Opera House on the Songbook tour to shows with Soundgarden at Voodoo Fest, all in a week.
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I don't really go mountain biking per se, like a proper sport.
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When you become a parent, you leave a lot of things behind and refocus, maybe on how simple life really is and what few things there really are to worry about. And everything else can go by the wayside.
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I'm sure I could start a band tomorrow that would have different influences and would want to do something completely different than anything I've done.
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'Black Hole Sun' was written in a car when I was driving home from the studio one night. Pretty much everything that you hear was written in my head.
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I try to solve my problems by writing music and recording albums, but you know what's really funny about that? Once the album becomes a success, it doesn't solve your problems. It just gets harder to write the next album.
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There's no way to be a 30-year-old band, go on tour, and pretend the nostalgia isn't happening.
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For years, I wasn't feeling good about myself. My head wasn't clear. I was doing nothing productive.
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Companies figured out that the easiest way to make money was to reissue records that the accounting department had paid for years ago and already made a profit.
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Kerrang! Magazine, March 1, 1997.
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RockNet Interview: Chris Cornell of Soundgarden (May 1, 1996).
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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.
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There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process.
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In the beginning of Audioslave, I was very honest. I said, 'We make great albums and write great albums - but don't be under the impression I'm going to be a lyricist that writes anything other than what strikes me as inspiring in the moment.' The lyrics weren't going to be focused politically.
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It just doesn't get any more stripped down than going out totally alone and doing songs.
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The first time I ever went to Hawaii, I was listening to island music, thinking, 'I could've been born here, and I'm pretty sure I would never play that.'
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I prefer not to use any machines. I focus a lot on cardio, which is what I do when I'm on stage. I also am into isometric workouts.
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Soundgarden signing to a major, then Mother Love Bone, and seeing the same happen to Alice in Chains. We were all suddenly making music and recording at the same time, and we had money to do it. It wasn't like a $2,000 recording that you do over a weekend. It's like, 'Wow, maybe this will be our job.'
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There wasn't a key moment when I knew I wanted to quit.