“It got scary”: The album Chris Cornell said he made at his worst
Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll. That’s always been the motto. From the early days of rock music up until recent years, the party side of rock music remains a prevalent part of the genre that people, regardless of their level of fame, seem somewhat drawn to. It’s all well and good until things get out of hand, and due to the addictive nature of substances that make up the party side of rock music, things get out of hand pretty often.
A lot of people take drugs in a bid to tap into their creativity. This is a dangerous way to create something, as while a lot of artists have revealed that substances such as LSD are helpful when it comes to unlocking certain feelings and seeing the world through a different lens, they can also lead to artists becoming consumed by that altered state and losing sense of self.
The Beatles famously took LSD around the release of albums such as Revolver and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which made other people think that maybe this kind of substance abuse is the secret to unlocking hidden aspects of creativity. “I don’t think my fans are going to take drugs just because I did, you know,” said Paul McCartney when asked about his relationship with LSD, “But the thing is, that’s not the point anyway.”
Damon Albarn struggled with heroin addiction for some time, as he initially turned to it to help him work and create, but steadily found himself slipping. “[Heroin] freed me up. I hate talking about this because of my daughter, my family. But, for me, it was incredibly creative,” he said, “[Heroin] does turn you into a very isolated person, and ultimately anything that you are truly dependent on is not good.”
A lot of artists can recognise something is a problem and subsequently seek the appropriate help; however, others struggle with that. In the case of Chris Cornell, he needed his fellow bandmates to pull him out of a hole he found himself in. Their conversations strayed away from the band and more towards Cornell’s health when his drug addiction was getting out of hand.
“Realising how I was affecting people I cared about made a big difference,” he said, “The other three members of Audioslave didn’t know me that well, and when we started making the first record, I was pretty much at my worst. I think they just looked at it as, ‘Oh, this is the kind of guy we have in our band now’.”
Although Audioslave was writing good music, Cornell’s dependence was becoming too much, and the band had to intervene. “We were writing great songs, but then it got scary from them,” he said, “Their urging didn’t come from a place like ‘We’re concerned about our careers’. It came from a place like ‘We’re concerned about you’. I felt a massive sense of sadness and fear in them that made me wake up.”
