Chris Cornell guitarist Pete Thorn revealed that late-Soundgarden frontman and Eddie Van Halen actually worked together on the same track. Loudwire reported that the pair had become friendly around the time Cornell was recording his 2009 solo album Scream — with Cornell asking Van Halen to play on one of the tracks. Producer Dave Friedman hooked the pair up, with Thorn recalling, “45 minutes later he texted me and said, ‘Ed wants you to call him, here’s his cell phone number.’ So I left him a message and he called me back and said, ‘Well how soon can you come up the studio and play me this stuff?’ So we set up a date, I drove up the 5150 (studio) , and he was just so cool.”
Thorn went on to remember making the trek to Van Halen’s studio and getting to work: “I get out of the car and there he is, and y’know, he gives me a big hug and said, ‘Okay, let’s go studio and take a listen. . .’ I was just like, ‘This is my hero,’ y’know? ‘This is awesome!’ He took me into 5150 and he was so humble and unassuming.”
He went on to explain, “I don’t want to get anyone excited about this thinking it ever got finished because it didn’t, but he did work on it. I would go up there over the next couple of weeks and he had played on it and I’d be like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening, myself and Eddie on a track.’ But it’s a long story, but it never got a vocal on it by Chris. And Ed got busy doing the next Van Halen album right about then. . . it just never ended up getting finished. I heard it once, but we just never finished it. So somewhere at 5150 there’s a 24-track reel with that on it, and someday I’d love to (find it).”
CHECK IT OUT: A tour of Eddie Van Halen’s 5150 studio: