I’ve covered a few supergroups on my channel including Temple of the Dog
and Velvet Revolver. The links to the stories of those bands are below.
You’ll notice one common theme about a lot of musical supergroups and that’s that they
don’t really last very long. Audioslave lasted about as long as Velvet Revolver,
but had more musical output and today we’re going to explore the history of the band.
How they came together, their music, and their eventual end. Stay tuned for the full story.
Audioslave’s origins dated back to 2000 when Rage Against the Machine fell apart
after frontman Zach De La Rocha quit the group. I’ve done a whole video on the reason he left
the group the band, the link is down belowin the description box below. The remaining members of
Rage decided to find a new singer under a moniker and It was rumored initially that
Layne Staley of Alice in Chains was considered to front the band, but guitarist Tom Morello
has since quashed those rumors. It was also reported that B-Real of Cypress Hill was also
a possibility to front the group, but the band didn’t want to replicate the sound of Rage.
The spark that got Audioslave started was producer Rick Rubin who suggested that Tom
Morello and company, meet Chris Cornell. Cornell’s previous band Soundgarden called it a day in 1997
and he had since moved onto becoming a solo artist releasing his debut album Euphoria
Morning in 1999. At the time Cornell was working on his his second solo record, but once the singer
got a call from Rubin to meet up with the guys from Rage Against the Machine he shelved his solo
plans. During their first rehearsal together, the newquartet wrote the song “light my way”.
That collaboration continued to be fruitful with the musicians writing 20 songs in just 3 weeks.
With enough songs written for an album, the band entered the studio in the summer of 2001,
shuttling between Los Angeles and Seattle with Rick Rubin.
The album would be complete the following year. Guitarist Tom Morello would tell Rolling Stone
how instantaneous the chemistry with Cornell was revealing
“He stepped to the microphone and sang the song and I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t
just sound good, it sounded transcendent. When there is an irreplaceable chemistry from the
first moment, you can’t deny it" he'd say. Cornell never doubted his chemistry with his
band members, as he credited them with helping him get through a difficult period in time.
It was during the early days of Audioslave he was going through a divorce from his longtime
wife Susan Silver and at the same time dealing with alcohol addiction. Cornell
would recall that period in his life during the making of the first Audioslave record saying
“During the period when we made the first Audioslave record,
I was going through a horrible personal crisis,” “Before the record was even released,
I went through rehab and my relationship ended. Then I stopped drinking and started re-focusing
and wonderful things started happening. But, not everything was going well for the band.
In fact Chris Cornell quit the band before they even put out their first record. In March of 2002,
Audioslave announced plans to play Ozzfest that summer, But Cornell quit the bands 3 days later
and the Ozzfest tour dates were scrapped. The singer would return to the band six weeks later.
And the fallout happened because Cornell and the former Rage members management companies had a
long-standing feud. The band eventually chose new management and moved on, but there was another
issue.Cornell was signed to one label (interscope) while his new bandmates were signed to another
label Epic Records, which complicated how fture albums from the group would be handled. Eventually
a deal was worked out whereby the two companies would take turns releasing albums from Adioslave.
When it came time to choosing a name the group initially called themselves Civilian,
but soon found out another band already had the name. So they setted on Audioslave, but It turned
out an unsigned band in the UK already had the name so the supergroup worked out an agreement
that paid the UK musicians $30,000 and allowed both bands to use the name. But critics seemed
to hate the name universally though. Pitchfork called it the "most asinine bandname of the year,
while Spin magazine called it as "one of the dumbest band names in recent rock history."
The band also faced one more problem in the run up to releasing their first album
and that was the demos leaked online in May of 2002 so the album released date was moved
up a week from November 26th to November 19th. “Cochise.” wold be the lead single
released from the album and it would peak at number 2 on the mainstream rock charts
and number 69 on the billboard hot 100 charts. The second single like a stone shed any
affiliations the members had with their previous groups. Presenting a sound we really hadn’t heard
with soundgarden or audioslave it would be the biggest hit on the album topping the us
rock charts in America and peaking at number 39 on the hot 100 charts.
The other two singles released from the album included I am the highway and show me to how live
which also charted on the hot 100. When all was said and done
the album went triple platinum and became the biggest selling album of Audioslave’s career.
The band’s debut album proved that the members of the band could stand on their own apart from
their previous bands. When it came time to write the group's second album, Where would they go
next? In late 2003 the band reassembled with Rick Rubin to begin work on their sophomore release.
By early 2005 the album was done and titled Out of Exile, and it would be released in May
of 2005. In the run up to the album’s release Chris Cornell would claim the album would be
his most personal record in large part due to the positive changes to his personal life. Some songs
would be spiritual successors to the band’s previous album with Tom Morello claiming” Be
Yourself’ was indeed “the spiritual heir” to ‘Like A Stone.’ Soon enough Out of Exile would become a
number 1 hit and went platinum. Critics reacted more favourably than their debut record praising
the band for establishing their own sound rather than rehashing the sounds of their previous bands.
And the promotional cycle for Out of Exile was notable because prior to the album coming out
Audioslave became the first ever american rock band to play the island nation of Cuba.
The band performed a whopping 26 song set, the longest show of the band’s career
to an estimated 70,000 people in the capital city of Havana. During their visit to cuba
the band interacted with cuban musicians with Tom Morello recalling at the time“We single-handedly
demolished the rock’n’roll blockade against Cuba – what a thrill it was to pour every ounce of our
soul power into the performance.” The group's performance in havana released as a live dvd.
With their sophomore release and a successful tour, it seemed like the band had avoided many
of the pitfalls that many high profile rock acts and supergroups seemed to suffer from,
but that was just wishful thinking. As the band turned their attention to their third studio album
Revelations, there were a lot of factors working against the longevity of the band. Audioslave had
worked with producer Rick Rubin on their first two records and for their third album revelations
they instead chose to work solely with Brendan O’ Brien. O’ Brien did work on out of exile,
but he only got a mixing credit and not a producer one. He also previously worked with Rage Against
the Machine during the 90’s. Feeling more diverse and more heavily influenced by funk and soul,
Revelations seems like an underappreciated record because it was quickly forgotten about
and really wasn’t properly promoted. Ahead of the album’s release Cornell would tell
Rolling Stone in May of 2006 where his influences on the album lied revealing “I love rock music,
but my favorite singers are not in rock bands, they’re Stevie Wonder, Mavis Staples, and The
Chambers Brothers,” while the same month Tom Morello would promote the album to MTV revealing
that the sound of Revelations would be and i quote “Earth Wind And Fire meets Led Zeppelin.”
By the time the band assembled in january of 2006 to work on their record, Audioslave had already
written 20 songs during their previous years tour. The albums featured 3 themes life, Love,
and loss. While the band moostly shied away from politics unlike rage against the machine’s music,
there were sparks of politically aware songs like the track Wide Awake
which shines a light on the federal government’s repsonse to Hurricane Katrina.
It was no surprise the band came to an end after the release of revelations.
The members of Audioslave started to drift apart and work on other projects. There was no tour to
support the album and Rage Against the Machine had announced that they were reuniting after a 7 year
hiatus to do some shows in 2007. In addition to that guitarist Tom Morello was working on his side
project The Nightwatchman, while singer Chris Cornell was working on his second solo record
and the theme song titled You Know My name for the new James Bond movie Casino Royal. Even a month or
so before Audioslave dropped Revelations rumors swirled online that the band was breaking up, but
they denied those claims. Then almost half a year later in February of 2007 the news dropped. Chris
Cornell announced his departure from the group claiming to Rolling Stone he hadn’t spoken to
other members of the band in months. He would also release a statement that read Due to irresolvable
personality conflicts as well as musical differences, I am permanently leaving the band
Audioslave," He would further expand his reasoning for leaving the band telling entertainment weekly
“We agreed to do Audioslave under the premise that it was going to be harmonious and fun for
everybody, and as soon as it wasn’t that way anymore, I didn’t want to do it" he'd say.
The band’s final record Revelations still managed to go gold and peak at number 2 on the charts.
Following the dissolution of the group, Cornell released his second solo record in 2007 titled
carry on and reunited with soundgarden in 2010. Rage Against the Machine meanwhile
would tour until 2011 before taking a break until announcing another reunion in late 2019.
Audioslave in the meantime would reunite only once since their breakup for a three-song set at the
Anti-Inaugural Ball in Los Angeles to protest the 2016 election victory of President Donald trump.
Four months after the performance, Cornell would be found dead in his hotel room in Detroit.
It was reported in 2018 that audioslave was one of hundreds of bands whose master recordings
were destroyed in the infamous 2008 universal studios fire. So that concludes todays video
guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe. If you guys
have suggestions for future stories be sure out the google form in the description box below.