Grunge rocker dead at 52
Chris Cornell, an icon of the ’90s hard-rock grunge movement and the anchor of Soundgarden and Audioslave, was never quiet about his need to perform, saying that onstage he was “the guy that wants to just let it all out.”
The artist’s death at age 52 was reported early Thursday after a Wednesday night Soundgarden concert in Detroit.
The Wayne County medical examiner’s office has ruled Cornell’s death a suicide by hanging, according to The Associated Press.
Cornell and Soundgarden were scheduled to perform today in Columbus as headliners at Rock on the Range, the three-day concert extravaganza at Mapfre Stadium. Rock on the Range public-relations representative Kristine Ashton-Magnuson verified on Thursday that Rock on the Range will still take place.
“Our hearts are filled with sorrow, but the show must go on. Please join us immediately after Live’s performance for a special tribute to Chris Cornell,” Ashton-Magnuson wrote in an email Thursday night.
Soundgarten originally was scheduled to take the stage after Live in the final performance of the opening night.
Early Thursday, Rock on the Range organizers posted a statement about Cornell’s passing on the event website.
“We are devastated to hear about the sudden passing of Chris Cornell last night,” the statement read. “He was a true hero to music, the voice of a generation. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and the entire music community. The voice of an angel, now watching down on us as we celebrate and honor him all weekend long.”
Cornell had said he would have led a much quieter life if not for the stage.
“If I didn’t do what I do, I think for the most part I would have very few friends and be a shut-in most of the time,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1991. “It’s sort of a battle between that person and then the guy that wants to just let it all out in front of 2,000 people and rant and scream and say anything he wants.”
During the following decades, those few thousand fans would become millions as Soundgarden, with Cornell, became one of the most commercially successful rock bands of a generation. Among the band’s biggest hits were “Rusty Cage,” “Jesus Christ Pose,” “Spoonman” and “Black Hole Sun.”
In a statement to The Times, Cornell’s publicist Brian Bumbery wrote that Cornell’s wife and family “were shocked to learn of his sudden and unexpected passing.”
Sgt. Adam Madera of the Detroit Police Department confirmed that police received a call from the MGM Grand Detroit hotel early Thursday and at 4:05 a.m. discovered Cornell’s body on the floor of his hotel room.
Soundgarden, which reunited in 2010, was in the middle of a tour that had taken the band to the Fox Theater in Detroit.
The band’s set list, which included a number of fan favorites, suggested the gig was to conclude with an encore of “Behind the Wheel,” according to a photo published by CNN.
However, the band’s last song was a cover of “In My Time of Dying,” an old blues song recorded by Blind Willie Johnson, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and others. Its opening lines are: “In my time of dying, want nobody to mourn/ All I want for you to do is take my body home.”
After first releasing music on the indie Seattle labels Sub Pop and SST, the band signed to A&M Records and issued its major-label debut album, “Louder Than Love,” in 1990. The group’s 1991 follow-up, “Badmotorfinger,” gave the band its first platinum-selling album, although it peaked at only No. 39 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart.
But with “Superunknown” in 1994, Soundgarden shot to the top of that chart with an album that went on to sell more than 5 million copies, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
After that group disbanded in 1997, Cornell demonstrated his versatility first by forming Audioslave with Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk, and subsequently performing shows in a solo acoustic format.