Shrinegarden

“Chris was an introvert. People were attracted to him because he was so talented, but he was more comfortable in a dark room watching a movie than at a party full of people coming up to him, spilling beer on his shoes. He would do that too, as much as he could tolerate. Then he’d withdraw.”

Kim Thayil

from the Guardian June 9, 2026

photo by Paul Lorkowski

Kim Thayil - May 2017

"It hit each of us at different times. But eventually, we all found ourselves wondering — was there something we missed? Something we should have noticed, said, or done that might have changed everything?

By breakfast, the beers were already open. Sometimes, someone would twist the cap off a bottle of vodka.

And then the memories would start.

It wasn’t a party. It was just one of those strange, in-between spaces where conversation drifted from light banter to heavy silence — until someone finally broke down in tears.

Drinking made it easier to reach our emotions. It softened the edges of grief, helped us move between despair and laughter. Without it, everything felt muted, flat. But with it, we could vent, cry, and — just briefly — laugh again. In sobriety, there was no lightness. But if we drank enough, we could almost feel it.

That fleeting brightness, just before the silence returned."

....via Rolling Stone May 30, 2026

....there are times when I think 'Layne Staley is gonna kill this'

Louder Sound Dec 2021

Morello says they have an album's worth of unreleased songs from when Chris was with Audioslave. They hope to put it out 'at some point in the future.'

"Sometimes it’s like, ‘Someone likes this one. Someone’s not feeling that one.’ So, we had from each of the three Audioslave records, we had songs left over. Some of which are really great.” - Vice, Nov 20,2025

I thought it was gone for good!

You know, people always think of rock stars being these really cool guys, but they never are.

They're always these kids who didn't really fit, so they retreat into a corner, then one day they find something in music that creates a spark and other people react to it.

They're the guys no one cared about, and part of making music is a 'f--- you' attitude that starts to grow on them like a fungus. Rock music is a great medium to express difficult emotions, I guess.

Grant Smithies interview with Chris Cornell, June 2015

1988 Susan with SG and tour manager Eric Gunny Johnson.

... in 1985, I was at a life-changing Halloween party where a little power trio played called Soundgarden.

Even though I was dressed up in drag that night .... I looked like [Twisted Sister singer] Dee Snider, with a fright wig and the whole bit, the drummer of Soundgarden came up to me after they performed and said he recognized me from the vintage clothing store that I was working in at the time — where I did not dress like that, by the way. Little did I know that he had been repeatedly stopping in the store to quote-unquote shop, but later he told me he was really trying to work up the nerve to talk to me. So that’s how Chris and I met — at the time, he was the drummer and singer in Soundgarden. 

Great interview with Susan Silver

"I've been thinking a lot lately about how the night before we left for the tour, I knew that something bad was going to happen. Something came over me, and I deeply felt like I couldn't do it. I went around and said goodbye to my family. I could feel it. We were making the same mistake we always did, which was interrupting making our record in the studio to go play some tour for some reason."

Ben Shepherd

I remember a few years back when Tumblr decided to delete half of Shrinegarden's content because Chris or Eddie were shirtless - and that was apparently classed as 'nudity.'

They didn't notice the carefully chosen quotes (that took a long time to find) to go with the photos, nooo too busy being the morality police.

It felt like a bad joke after some of the stuff I saw on here. GIFs of things that can't be unseen.

So today literally a couple of scrolls into my feed there's someone sprawled nude on a couch.

Joni Mitchell (Far Out Magazine Fri 13 October 2023)

“Soundgarden and Vicky Cornell, on behalf of the Estate of Chris Cornell, are happy to announce they have reached an amicable out of court resolution”

Yeah right.

After accusing them of withholding royalties, offering to buy Cornell’s interest in SG for a ‘villainously’ low figure.

After she hijacked SG social media accounts.

I’m sure it was very amicable. They are no doubt hoping never to see her again.