The one band Chris Cornell would have joined without question: “I would have to”
There are countless vocalists who are still wishing that they could figure out what Chris Cornell did with his voice.
Cornell wasn’t the one trying to become one of the finest singers in the world, but when he let his voice go and unleashed his higher register, there’s hardly any other band that could have possibly competed with that Zeppelin-esque thunder that he had whenever he sang tunes like ‘Spoonman’. He was the archetype for how an alternative rock frontman should sound, but it’s not like Cornell had to stay tied to his one band for the rest of his life if he didn’t want to.
Every one of Soundgarden’s records was about going in a new direction, and by the time that they landed on Down on the Upside, they seemed to do all that they were capable of together. They didn’t hate each other by any means, but Cornell needed to let his creative energy out in another way, and the rest of the world was more than happy to go along for the ride when he formed bands like Audioslave.
A supergroup with the members of Rage Against the Machine was just crazy enough to work when Cornell reached the 2000s, but he was never trying to find a band to replace his old one, though. He was offered the gig after Rage broke up, and while they continued on for a few more albums, Cornell felt that he would be much more comfortable on his own. But it’s not like he didn’t still have a great deal of respect for his musical heroes.
He was trying to make the kind of eclectic moves that he heard out of all of his musical heroes, and that meant trying new things all the time. Nick Drake and Neil Young didn’t get to where they were by following what other people wanted out of their music, and when you listen to what Cornell was doing throughout his career, he wanted to see where his muse would take him every time he made a new record.
Then again, someone who was as big a Zeppelin fan as he was would have gladly taken over for Robert Plant if he were to jam with his heroes. Jimmy Page was the kind of musical maverick that had everything that he loved in a musician, and while Zeppelin would never form a full reunion past the 2000s, Cornell was at least interested in working with the band in any capacity if they were to give him a call.
Anyone else would have been a bit too over their head to think that they could add something to Zeppelin, but Cornell at least seemed open to the idea when asked about it, saying, “He never did [ask me]. But if he did, yeah. I would have to entertain it.” And if you were to look at Cornell’s track record as a vocalist, he would have probably been one of the only people on the planet who could have stepped into Plant’s shoes and held his own.
There was certainly stiff competition between him and other heavyweights like Sammy Hagar and Steven Tyler, but Cornell would have brought the energy a lot better than what Plant had been doing around that time. Plant was far more content to make music that sounded a lot closer to his roots, and if he was off making more acoustic-oriented rock, the idea of Cornell performing a song like ‘Black Dog’ would have come just as easily to him as when he made tunes like ‘The Day I Tried to Live’.
Now we’ll most likely never know what Cornell would have sounded like if he had shown up to jam, but that kind of opportunity does at least feel like something plausible. But like all great rock and roll ‘what-ifs’, some of the best lineups that anyone had ever thought of are now reserved for musical heaven.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.