The singer Chris Cornell thought everyone is meant to be: “Most frontmen are not born hams like David Lee Roth”
In the middle of the age of irony, it was a miracle that someone like Chris Cornell came out of the woodwork.
Nothing about the Seattle scene was meant to be commercial, but the minute that Cornell opened that mouth of his, everyone found the natural answer to Robert Plant for Generation X. While Soundgarden did have that same adventurous spirit that Led Zeppelin had, Cornell admitted that he didn’t exactly wake up trying to be one of the biggest frontmen in the world.
In fact, Cornell was dangerously close to pulling a Phil Collins when the band started. Before they had everything finalised, Cornell had their original drummer before stepping in front of the microphone, but even with Matt Cameron covering the bases for the percussion, Cornell needed a little bit more time before he was completely comfortable playing the role of the rock and roll god.
Louder Than Love was probably the closest the band ever came to being a standard hard rock band, but even in the video for their song ‘Loud Love’, there’s something about his stage presence that feels off. He’s got all of the chops that Mick Jagger and Plant had in their prime, but it was always better to picture him strumming away on an acoustic guitar or playing the most complex riff in the world while he was playing.
Because as much as Soundgarden were the epitome of what people thought of as a hard rock band, they never really fit that definition. Some pieces of their sound were definitely closer to metal in some spots, but whereas most of the other “metal” bands of the time were the glittery acts from LA, there was a much more punk attitude to the way that they carried themselves in their early days.
It didn’t translate all the time whenever someone heard their music, but their heroes ranged from everyone from Black Sabbath to Dead Kennedys, and in punk, it was never about grandstanding. The DIY attitude meant that anyone with a big enough heart could find a way to get up onstage, and Cornell felt that everyone he met was born to follow the lead that the Ramones had set.
While Cornell eventually developed his sense of swagger, he felt that the awkwardness that came from his early days came back to watching Ramones live, saying, “Most frontmen are not born hams like David Lee Roth. We’re more like Joey Ramone: awkward geeks who somehow find our place in the world on the stage.”
If anything, Roth may have been the exact opposite of what grunge represented. Most fans could find a way to relate to someone that they could have hung out with after the show when seeing bands like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, so it’s not like they were going to be entertained by the Van Halen frontman in the same way, especially with his old-school Hollywood showman schtick.
Although Ramones were never going to be at the top of the musical food chain like they should have, they are a lot closer to the template that most artists should go back to. Everyone likes to dream of being a natural talent like Roth, Steven Tyler, or even Jim Morrison, but a lot of us in that position would probably be slowly trying to figure it out the same way that Ramone did on the band’s first album.
