like a rolling stone

chris cornell, the howling voice of soundgarden and audioslave, has bemused his fans by doing a spot of r&b funkiness with timbaland

by dave simpson, the guardian,march 13 2008

It's 17 May 1966, and Bob Dylan is on stage at Manchester Free Trade Hall, undergoing his very public metaphorphosis from acoustic folk troubadour to electric rocker. The fans who regard the singer's decision to go electric as a betrayal of his folk roots are angry. One famously shouts "Judas!" "You're a liar! I don't believe you!" retorts Dylan, defiantly instructing his band to play Like a Rolling Stone as loud as possible.

Forty-three years later, American singer Chris Cornell is pondering the "Judas" moment. "It's funny, because the first time I saw the No Direction Home documentary I didn't really like Bob Dylan with the band as much as the parts of the movie where he's on his own." Which is indeed quite funny, because the 44-year old is in an oddly similar position to Dylan in 1966, with fans outraged at his transformation.

Cornell became famous fronting Soundgarden, the heaviest of the Seattle grunge bands, with whom he recorded five albums. That was followed by a three-album stint with multi-platinum post-grunge supergroup Audioslave, during which time he also began recording as a solo artist. His forthcoming third solo album, Scream, is an hour of segued songs featuring electronics, drum loops, Asian samples, R&B grooves, hip-hop, funk and soul. The man adored by fans for his Robert Plant-like wail adopts an anguished soul voice and even a trouser-quivering Prince falsetto. Most outrageously for the rockier elements of his fanbase, Scream finds him collaborating with hip-hop producer Timbaland.

Cornell's fans have electronically cried "Judas". Under the headline "Is Chris Cornell going crunk?" Metal Hammer's website asks: "Is this not one of the most WTF musical moments in memory?"

"The funny thing is," says Cornell, "if you watch that Dylan documentary, they interview the fans and someone says: 'I paid to see folk music and that was just pop music.' But then this guy says a really smart thing: 'Well that wasn't like any pop music I've ever heard.' And he's right, because that performance doesn't sound like any other artist, even though it was approached with guitars, drums and keyboards." Cornell, though maybe not suggesting his own change of direction will have the same impact as Dylan's, believes the sound of a heavy rocker encountering hip-hop "has the potential to make some kind of cultural impact".

In fact, fans are coming round. One "33-year old mother and fan since 1990" explains online that she was originally drawn to Soundgarden's "dark edgy hardrock" but after initial reservations is now listening to his new songs "like somebody grasping for air".

Scream isn't the first time Cornell has wrongfooted his fans. On the first Soundgarden album, Ultramega OK, recorded while he was working in a Seattle restaurant, the band sidestepped their angst-ridden image to send up rock's fascination with the number 666, on the song 665, which included the backwards message "Hail Santa!" "People asked - in all seriousness - 'Are you guys Satanists?'" sniggers Cornell.

Audioslave, too, thwarted expectations. They were the first American rock band to play in Castro's Cuba, and Cornell was widely criticised for working in the group with former members of Rage Against the Machine. "Before we'd released a note," he says, "the other guys in the band wanted to issue some sort of statement, but that would have sounded like an apology, or damage control." His instincts have usually proved right in the end. He copped plenty of flak for singing a Bond theme (You Know My Name, for 2007's Casino Royale) but when Jack White followed suit the following year, eyebrows barely rose.

However, when it came to working with Timbaland - an idea suggested by Cornell's brother-in-law, a DJ - both parties had reservations. The singer didn't want to make "one of these modern albums where there's two or three producers, like labels are throwing darts against a wall to see what sticks". He wanted a full-scale project, the kind artists used to make with major producers, and was concerned that the in-demand Timbaland wouldn't be committed enough to a whole album. Timbaland, for his part, was wary of Seattle rock's reputation, apparently fretting that Cornell would be a drugged-up "flake".

Cornell admits they had little in common, but they bonded over films and hard work. He went in to the studio with no ideas but soon found they had 20 songs. Often, he'd record guitars and find himself taking them off again, but admits he's bemused to be branded R&B. "I don't listen to Beyoncé or Jennifer Hudson records. To me R&B means Aretha Franklin, who is otherworldly." In fact, Cornell's long been a fan of soul and funk (Soundgarden covered the Ohio Players as far back as their third EP, and Sly and the Family Stone on an early Peel session) and only started listening to Led Zeppelin at 17, after his singing was compared to Robert Plant's.

"If you're an American kid, you can't help but be influenced by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones because they're always on the radio," says Cornell. "But from 17 to 19, all I listened to was Elvis Costello and the Beat. When Soundgarden formed we were post-punk - pretty quirky. Then somehow we found this neo-Sabbath psychedelic rock that fitted well with who we were."

Cornell was a rebellious kid, taking drugs and stealing. He hated the institutional aspect of school, especially "the concept that they'd take a group of us and make us all do the same thing and make us exactly the same", and dropped out. There was upheaval at home, too. A combination of a bad reaction to a dose of PCP and his parents' divorce caused him to spend two years barely leaving the house, suffering from depression. That eventually lifted when he formed Soundgarden in 1984.

Soundgarden started as an indie band, first with Sub Pop then SST, before becoming the first grunge band to sign a major-label deal in 1989. They lasted until 1997, but without his band, Cornell's life gradually fell apart. Inspired by the Straight Edge hardcore punk movement, Soundgarden had always been drug-free, but suddenly he was using "everything". One of the drugs was OxyContin, a synthetic opiate with effects similar to heroin. "I was a pioneer," he says, drily. A looming personal crisis came to a head in 2002, when Audioslave formed and Cornell separated from his wife and mother of his daughter, who'd been his manager as far back as the early days of Soundgarden. Their divorce in 2004 was so acrimonious that it took Cornell four years to win access to his own guitars.

"It was the most difficult period of my life," he says. "I'm lucky I got through it." At rock bottom, he ended up in rehab. "I'm not sure if it was the best place for me, but it worked," he says.

Since then, Cornell has had to re-evaluate his whole life. He's now a sober non-smoker, and very different to the brooding star of Soundgarden, who wrote songs about the "sudden fear that life was fucked". He concedes that some of his current lyrics are "more hopeful than some people might prefer".

Cornell has now remarried and splits his time between Los Angeles and Paris (where his wife's family is based) and has embarked on a parallel career as a Parisian restaurateur. In a sense, he's returned to a profession he held in his teens (fish handler to Seattle's sous chefs), although fans irked by his new direction are perhaps unlikely to be pacified by dishes such as Peanut Butter Sole. "That's probably the business I'd have ended up in if it wasn't for music. It's good for me to be involved in different things."

The Soundgarden song Rusty Cage addressed Cornell's refusal to be imprisoned by convention; some things haven't changed. Although grunge is showing signs of coming back, one of its prime movers is unlikely to reform. "When you start your first band and it has an impact on the rest of the world you go through a lot with those guys and you become very protective of that legacy," he says of Soundgarden. "For us to do anything else would risk tarnishing that legacy, which is partly why we stopped. As a performer, I'm able to do what I want, and what I'm doing now feels good."

• Scream is out on Polydor on 23 March

originally available as an online feature here

Chris Cornell Fan Page © Clare O'Brien 2009