After Rage Against the Machine dissolved, Tom Morello wondered what his next phase of music would be like.
Although the remaining Rage members formed Audioslave with Chris Cornell, Morello remembers the chilling final moments he had with the rock icon.
However, Morello was already lenient when he first met Cornell, telling Howard Stern,
“Chris lives on the loneliest castle outside of LA. It’s dusk and we see Transylvania like streets and Rick Rubin was right next to me. Right as we get to the gate he said ‘LET’S GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.”
While Morello remembered last seeing him at a charity show before his death saying,
“He sang, he’s one of the most powerful rock gods of all time. He looks great and he sings both ferociously and beautifully. And his lovely sweet smile, it was great to hang out with him backstage. His last words to me were, ‘I had a great time, let’s do that again, you guys let me know.’ And so, that was lovely.”
After Cornell took his own life, Morello thought that his inner demons drove his songwriting saying,
“What sometimes goes unacknowledged is his creative brilliance and power came from the darker side of his psyche. His demons were, that was the root of his awesomeness, in the part that may have eventually been his undoing. It was the dark box that he accessed and he wrote the shadow part of himself, like a chariot of lightning to make some of the greatest rock and roll of all time.”
Despite Audioslave’s breakup, Morello was always complimentary of Cornell’s abilities saying,
“While Chris was a friend and a bandmate, I never stopped being a fan of his. And his ability to craft melody out of the ether. With a couple of chords or some complex riff, he would create something either beautiful or terrifying.”
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