Cameron Crowe names the best band he’s ever seen live
As a journalist-turned-filmmaker, the harmony between music, the culture it inspires, and cinema has always been integral to the work of Cameron Crowe, dating right back to his first feature credit as the writer of cult classic 1982 comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
His sophomore directorial effort, Shingles, put his love of the music scene at the forefront of his filmography for the first time, and he perfected it with Almost Famous, the Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning modern classic that was semi-autobiographical in nature and inspired by Crowe’s own experiences as a teenage journalist gaining first-hand exposure to the hedonism of rock and roll.
Even when he switched from journalism to a full-time career in writing and directing, music remained at the forefront of Crowe’s thinking. After debuting with rom-com favourite Say Anything, he capitalised on both the emerging popularity of grunge and his fondness for it by crafting a story rooted deeply in a transformative moment for musicians and listeners around the world.
Set in Seattle, the ground zero for grunge, Singles follows the intertwining lives of characters who all live in the same apartment building. For added authenticity, the story roped in several known musicians as themselves and fictional bands, making the narrative feel all the more real.
Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, and Jeff Ament play the group Citizen Dick, while Alice in Chains and Soundgarden make appearances. One of those names was at the forefront of the greatest live performance the Singles writer and director had ever seen, and it wasn’t Vedder or Layne Staley.
When Crowe first encountered Chris Cornell, he knew he was “somebody who I just thought, ‘This guy belongs in the movie’.” Elaborating to Rolling Stone, the filmmaker admitted he was blown away the first time he saw the band perform. “I loved Soundgarden; they were the greatest live show I’d seen,” he said. “I had real strong feelings about Soundgarden and about Chris with this huge heart of his.”
“He was accepting Eddie into Seattle, and he was helping me know what it was to live here, at this time and this place – that feeling of, this guy really matters to this city,” Crowe continued. “So we wanted him for a while, we worked with him, and he’s good!”
Of course, it’s not always easy to shoehorn in your idols, and even Crowe had to deal with scheduling issues. “But it just felt like there was going to be months and months of rehearsals and commitments, and at a certain point, I thought, maybe we can have the best of all worlds,” he confessed. “Chris can be a character who plays, and we don’t have to make him play a wannabe musician. We can just have him be Chris.”
Sometimes, it’s best to just let musicians be musicians. They’re entertaining enough on their own, and when Cornell was involved, it could only be a positive for Singles that he was involved, no matter how he ended up contributing.
