Chris Cornell's voice took him far in life. He became a rock god as the lead singer of
Soundgarden and Audioslave. But his time on Earth ultimately ended tragically prematurely.
Here's a look at what the final 12 months of his life were like.
Cornell occasionally wrote music for films, and one of his contributions was the song "The
Promise" for the 2017 movie of the same name, which stars Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale.
The plot of the film covers the Armenian Genocide, which happened at the same time as World War I.
Beginning in 1915, the Ottoman government of Turkey ordered the deaths of as many as
1.5 million Armenians, as well as the expulsion of thousands more.
The Promise director Terry George commissioned Cornell to compose and
perform a song for the film's soundtrack. Cornell
then researched the subject by reading extensively and watching documentaries,
which ended up haunting him. He aimed for his song to convey a message of hope. As he told Billboard,
"The hope was built into the story. To me,
the challenge was being able to distill it in a couple of verses and a chorus."
Cornell donated any money he received from "The Promise" to the International Rescue Committee,
an organization that helps political refugees and people trying to escape countries in conflict.
The song also ultimately earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song.
Cornell is of course primarily known for his singing career, during which he was the frontman
of three different rock bands: Temple of the Dog, Soundgarden, and Audioslave. He also kept up a
prolific solo career, as he released four solo albums between 1999 and 2015: Euphoria Morning,
Carry On, Scream, and Higher Truth. That last one sold fairly well, peaking at number 19 on
the Billboard album chart and generating the rock radio hit "Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart."
Clearly, the masses wanted plenty of Chris Cornell, and he obliged, as he headed out on
tour to promote Higher Truth. The latter part of 2015 saw him playing theaters and concert halls
in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. Then in early 2016, he played throughout Scandinavia and
Western Europe, including a four-night stand at London's Royal Albert Hall. He ultimately returned
to North America for another leg that kept him on the road playing shows for much of the summer.
A few months before Soundgarden released its commercial breakthrough Badmotorfinger in 1991,
Chris Cornell had already emerged onto the scene with Temple of the Dog.
A supergroup consisting of members of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam,
Temple of the Dog released a self-titled album in 1991 that featured the hit song "Hunger Strike."
The album served as a tribute to the late Andrew Wood, frontman of Seattle band Mother
Love Bone and a close friend of Cornell's. Wood had died in 1990 of a drug overdose.
Temple of the Dog was a project with a specific goal in mind that existed in a
specific period in time. It was formed by people who went on to much bigger things,
so the fact that the band ended up reuniting was a bit of a surprise.
Cornell had occasionally joined Pearl Jam on stage over the years, but it wasn't until
November 2016 that Temple of the Dog staged a full-scale reunion tour. They played five
American cities, and Cornell hoped it would be a cathartic experience. He told The Guardian,
"I didn't deal well with Andy's death. After he died,
numerous times I'd be driving and I would look out the window and I thought I saw
him. It would take me five minutes to update to the moment and realize,
'no, he’s actually dead.' This tour, in a sense, is the dealing. It's facing the reality."
After revisiting Temple of the Dog, the Chris Cornell Greatest Hits wave continued when
he got back together with Audioslave, which originally formed in 2001 when Cornell joined
up with three former members of Rage Against the Machine. They released three best-selling albums
in the 2000s and dominated rock radio with hits like "Show Me How to Live," "Cochise,"
and "Like a Stone." They were nowhere near as politically minded as Rage Against the Machine,
but they made their feelings known when they reunited after some time apart.
On January 20, 2017, the same day as Donald Trump's presidential inauguration,
Audioslave helped organize the Anti Inaugural Ball, a star-studded protest in the form of
a concert in Los Angeles. It was a decidedly informal affair for Cornell and his bandmates.
A quick sound check served as their only rehearsal before they performed a three-song
set. According to guitarist Tom Morello, the entire reunion was Cornell's idea.
In the last year of his life, Cornell played and recorded a lot of music,
including contributing covers of a couple of well-known songs for two very different projects.
HBO's short-lived 2016 drama Vinyl, set around a fading 70s record label, featured rock stars
doing their takes on old rock and pop gems in each episode. Cornell's contribution was a version of
"Stay With Me Baby," which was originally recorded by Lorraine Ellison in 1966. He told Vulture,
"I was very honored to be asked. I get to pay tribute to Terry Reid,
whose version of the song has been a favorite of mine for many years and
be included on a great soundtrack with an amazing group of artists."
Also in 2016, Cornell contributed to the animated Netflix series Beat Bugs.
The show was built around the music of the Beatles and featured a group of five bugs,
including actual beetles, learning important life lessons and morals. The soundtrack consisted of
Fab Four favorites performed by high-profile musical guests like Pink, Rod Stewart,
and Cornell, who earned the privilege of singing "Drive My Car" while the Beat Bugs danced around.
In 2012, Soundgarden reunited after 15 years apart with a few concert dates and the release of
a brand-new album, King Animal. It worked out so well that Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer
Matt Cameron, and bassist Ben Shepherd reconvened once more. They had some very ambitious plans in
place for 2017: another new record, a tour, and digging into their vault. In April of that year,
Cornell told Billboard that they were halfway through writing the new album. Each band member
had been writing and recording potential tracks on their own. Thayil told Billboard,
"There's some songs that have been demoed. I think Matt's demoed some things completely,
stuff he's recorded on his computer. Chris has demoed a few things.
He's written lyrics for ideas that I've written and that Ben and Matt have written."
Thayil also noted that they were looking into issuing various unreleased recordings,
such as excised material from Screaming Life, the band's debut 1987 EP. While those projects
have yet to materialize, Soundgarden did tour throughout the spring of 2017,
which Cornell seemed to be excited about. He told Billboard,
"What I look forward to the most, because I tour so much, especially the last couple of years,
by myself, is the camaraderie. It's what we missed when we weren't a band."
Iconic singer-songwriter Johnny Cash was a big influence on Cornell. The Man in Black
even covered the Soundgarden song "Rusty Cage" in 1996. Cornell once said of him,
"I met [Cash] once or twice in my life,
and he was so gracious and he was such an influence on me as a musician."
"Since that time, I've felt like
he's maybe one of the bigger presences in my life, in terms of an artist that I'm a fan of."
Cornell was such a big fan of Cash that shortly before he died, he adapted two of
his poems and added original music to create a ballad called "You Never Knew My Mind." It
appeared on Forever Words, a collection of Cash's little-known non-musical works set to melodies,
released in April 2018. It marked the first time Cornell's voice was heard on record since
his passing. Johnny Cash's son and Forever Words co-producer John Carter Cash said,
"Chris took the two pieces and put them together
in this one…I can't listen to it without it laying me down."
In 2004, Cornell married his second wife, Vicky, and they went on to have two children together:
a daughter named Toni, born in 2004, and a son named Christopher, born in 2005.
It wasn't long before Toni Cornell and her father began collaborating on some musical projects.
She wrote a song called "Far Away Places" when she was just 12 years old, which her
dad recorded and produced at his home studio in Florida. The song was later released in a 2019
short film made by a Cornell family friend. In 2015, Chris had accompanied his daughter
in her first-ever public performance, as they played Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" together
at the Beacon Theater in New York City. In a poignant Father's Day gesture in 2018,
Toni released to YouTube her duet with her late father of the Prince song "Nothing Compares 2 U."
Soundgarden hit the road in spring 2017 with Cornell at the fore,
and the tour arrived in Detroit for a May 17th date at the Fox Theatre.
The Detroit Free Press covered the performance and reported,
"It was clear that something wasn't right with the 52-year-old Cornell...He
often staggered back-and-forth across the stage, and seemed weak in his movements.
Just one or two songs in, it was if the energy had exited his body,
and what was left was a shell of a man scrambling to do his job."
Cornell also reportedly forgot lyrics on more than one occasion,
and his vocals weren't in sync with the music. At one point, he wandered offstage,
leaving the rest of the band to vamp with their instruments until he returned.
They finished their set with their downbeat 1991 track "Slaves & Bulldozers," intercut
with elements of Led Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying." And thus ended Soundgarden's last show,
and Cornell's final performance before the tragic events of later that night.
Following Soundgarden's show at Detroit's Fox Theatre, Chris Cornell headed straight
to his hotel room at the MGM Grand. That's when bodyguard Martin Kirsten helped him
with a computer issue and then gave him two doses of an anti-anxiety medication.
At around 11:30 PM Cornell took a brief call from his wife Vicky, who noticed that his speech seemed
slurred and that he sounded overly sleepy. He repeatedly assured that he was just tired.
"He was slurring his speech a lot."
"So at that point you were thinking, you've got to get him help."
"Yes."
At a quarter past midnight, Vicky called Kirsten to have him check in on her husband, but he found
Cornell's room locked. He kicked down the door, only to find the bathroom door locked as well.
After kicking down the second door, he discovered Cornell on the floor, unresponsive, not breathing,
blood coming out of his mouth, and an exercise band firmly tied around his neck.
An E.M.S. unit arrived on the scene, and a medical professional performed CPR on Cornell,
but without success. At 1:30 AM, a doctor pronounced Cornell dead,
after which homicide detectives arrived to investigate while another officer called
Vicky to tell her that her husband had passed away. He was only 52 years old.
According to a police report regarding the scene of Chris Cornell's death,
Vicky Cornell told police that her husband was a recovering drug addict.
Indeed, he had long struggled with substance abuse, and Vicky told
ABC News that her husband had suffered a relapse in his sobriety in 2016. However,
according to authorities, drugs didn't seem to actually play a significant role in his death.
"My husband was the furthest thing from a rock star junkie. He just wasn't."
An autopsy and toxicology report issued by the Wayne County Medical Examiner's office reported
evidence of several commonly abused substances in Cornell's system. These included the painkillers
naloxone and butalbital, the anti-anxiety drug lorazepam, allergy treatment pseudoephedrine,
and caffeine. However, none were present in anything beyond small-to-moderate safe doses,
leading the medical examiner to rule that these chemicals didn't lead to Cornell's death. Police
ruled out homicide , and all authorities involved officially believe that he took his own life.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.