During a recent appearance on SiriusXM, guitarist Tom Morello singled out what he sees as possibly the biggest musical contribution of his late Audioslave bandmate, singer Chris Cornell.
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Tom said:
“I got to be in a band with the dude for some years – one of the greatest rock singers of all time.
“From his spectacular rock-god presence to his tremendous creation of melody to his very unique voice, I think his greatest contribution might have been that he and his band Soundgarden, with the help of one or two other groups – maybe Jane’s Addiction and Living Colour – redeemed hard rock music.
“Because growing up on hard music, it was about groupies and the devil, and those were the subject matters… [Soundgarden] was music that combined nuanced, poetic intelligence in the lyrics, but with unapologetically kicking your ass with rock and roll.
“And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! That’s for me.’ So that really opened the door for the entire… all the bands – from Rage to Tool to Smashing Pumpkins; all of it – was [because of] the doors opened by Chris and his embracing those two things: the hard rock music and the intelligence.”