The artist Chris Cornell was terrified of meeting: “I was just awestruck”
For every rock star, there comes a point where it feels like almost nothing can phase you. As much as people might dream of reaching that certain level of fame, having fans around the world and becoming one of the biggest names in the country also takes the edge off of working with one’s fellow luminaries in rock and roll. While Chris Cornell could have easily continued being God’s gift to rock vocalists everywhere and developed an Axl Rose-sized ego, he knew that he needed to be on his best behaviour meeting Johnny Cash.
Before rock and roll had even existed, though, Cash was the poster child of what that kind of rebellious figure looked like. Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly had designed the format for what a rock and roll star would look like going forward, but Cash’s no-bullshit attitude whenever he stepped onstage and his willingness to go against the grain whenever he performed wasn’t lost on those emerging musicians.
Just look at the way that he performed when he got the chance to play at the White House. Despite being one of the biggest symbols of American culture today, Cash’s decision to perform the moral-questioning song ‘What is Truth?’ in front of Richard Nixon mere months before the Watergate scandal unfolded is still the most badass move that any artist has ever attempted.
It’s not like Cash lost that dark spirit in his older age. Sure, he had gone through some embarrassing moments in the 1980s, but hooking up with Rick Rubin and being coaxed into covering some modern rock hits was a work of genius. Although Cash’s version of ‘Rusty Cage’ sounded absolutely nothing like what Cornell made, the rambling beat and thick drawl made it fit perfectly as an outlaw country tune.
But what was grunge, if not the outlaw version of hard rock at that point? The entire premise of the genre had turned into a parody of music with glammified pretty boys, and hearing Cornell’s feral screech on ‘Outshined’ and ‘Black Hole Sun’ was exactly what was needed to carry the ethos of rock forward.
While Cornell was taken aback that Cash thought enough of the track to make his own version of it, he was in no shape to meet him, recalling to Rolling Stone, “I met him at one of his shows at the Paramount. We spoke about the song and the lyrics. I was just awestruck. I was totally scared, even though he couldn’t have been more gentlemanly. I wanted the conversation to be over before I put my foot in my mouth.”
Cash probably didn’t need to go out of his way to meet the people that he covered, but that was all part of his character. He never claimed to be higher than any of the people that he listened to, so this was his small way of thanking Cornell for the inspiration behind his comeback during the 1990s.
Although Cornell and Cash seemed to be poles apart in terms of their approaches to music, their aesthetic was always one and the same. Both of them were looking to reshape things from the inside out, and even if it came out a little bit sideways, there was no doubt they would leave their audience satisfied whenever they got to the end of the tune.
