During a chat on BBC Radio, Foo Fighters drummer spoke about his late-friend and inspiration, Soundgarden‘s Chris Cornell. Ultimate-Guitar.com transcribed portions of the interview, in which Hawkins was pressed to name his “rock god,” and answered, “My rock god is Chris Cornell, whom sadly we don’t have anymore, which is really, really a bummer; I’m really bummed that I don’t get to see a Soundgarden show ever again. They were a great, amazing band — Matt Cameron‘s one of the greatest drummers to walk the planet Earth, and Chris Cornell was so powerful and beautiful-looking and sounding.”
Hawkins went on to say, “His voice was unbelievable, his range was unbelievable, his lyrics were thought-provoking, dark, mysterious. And I’d send him a track every once in a while and he’d listen to it, and really give me feedback on it. And I’m thinking, ‘Well, Chris Cornell doesn’t need to do that. He’s just being a sweetheart.'”
He went on to shed light on what separated Soundgarden from the rest of their grunge-era peers: “They were that first band to have the chops of a band like — dare I say Rush or Yes or something like that, prog chops, but they weren’t a prog-rock band, they were a punk rock band. Cornell could sing as low as Lou Reed or (David) Bowie and then all of a sudden he could be up in the stratosphere as (Ronnie James) Dio or frickin’ Axl Rose or whatever. He had this range, and the band had a range. So, Chris Cornell is who I pick as my rock god right now and I miss him dearly.”
SIDE NOTES
- Out now is the physical version of No One Sings Like You Anymore, Chris Cornell’s handpicked collection of 10 cover songs.
- The project was originally released digitally in December 2020, with his cover of Guns N’ Roses‘ “Patience” hitting Number One on Billboard’s Rock Radio chart.
- Cornell personally selected and sequenced the project to celebrate artists and songs that inspired him. He recorded it in 2016, and it serves as Cornell’s last fully completed studio album.
- No One Sings Like You Anymore features covers of songs by John Lennon, Ghostland Observatory, Harry Nilsson, Carl Hall, Electric Light Orchestra, Terry Reid, Lorraine Ellison, Janis Joplin, Prince, and Guns N’ Roses.
CHECK IT OUT: Soundgarden’s video for 1991’s “Outshined”: