Chords for Chris Cornell on Filling In For Layne Staley and Living With Andrew Wood

Jeff and I have talked about it before where Jeff would say something to the effect of,
yeah, you know, these things would happen to him that were really horrendous and I'd
see him the next day, have a black eye or something and say a word [E] about it.
You know, I'm like, what [G] happened?
But things would come [Db] out.
The [A] only times that he ever brought any of that up around me was when he was [N] talking
to someone else and I was in the room.
And he seemed uncomfortable with people bringing it up around me.
And I think a lot of it had to do with, he kind of had this dad thing with me because
he thought I was really together for some reason because I always had a job and I didn't
have any drug problems really and I paid all my bills, you know, did all these things.
Weren't you cooking at the time?
Yeah, yeah.
I could cook, you [Eb] know.
And I had a pet.
And when I [Ab] think of myself at that period, you know, I wasn't that together.
But to [Eb] him, I think he thought I was.
[D] I think to him, it bugged [B] him that that whole subject, he didn't want me to know.
He didn't want, you know, I think he was kind of protecting me [C] as part of it.
But he wasn't, you know, he was, that happens [N] when you're that age too and you get into
drugs, having to stay off of drugs is the main problem and things like paying your bills
on time and keeping a job, that's kind of got to be secondary.
I remember he'd get the mail and come in and he'd have a stack of mail and he'd get like
fan letters from obscure parts of the country or like, you know, South America or something
and he'd read them in the South American accent, you know, it was hilarious.
And then he'd go through his mail and then he'd get to a bill and it would have his name
on it, Andrew Wood, and he would go, disregard!
And he'd throw it over his shoulder, go through some more, find another piece of mail where
he owes them money.
Funny thing is that he ended up being my roommate because I called Stone, Gossard, and said
my brother just left and I need a roommate, you want to be a roommate?
And he's like, no, that's alright, I'm pretty happy still living at home, which I think,
I don't know how old we were.
_ We were still pretty young, but _ then he said you should call Andy, my buddy Andy, and I
kind of knew him a little bit and I think he was looking for a place to stay in town
because there was sort of an island thing going on in Seattle and there's a big difference
between being on an island and being in town.
So I called him and he moved in.
But he was, it was fun because I think we were sort of having a friendly competition
sort of as singer-songwriters the whole time.
We both had four tracks, so I think I had one and I would record him and we were both
writing songs all the time.
And he was almost the opposite of me in terms of how he _ dealt with his own sort of creative output.
He seemed to really have no editing voice in his head at all.
He was just free and he'd kind of write and record anything and not really analyze it
too much and I was sort of the opposite.
I had like an editorial staff in my head arguing about what I'm doing.
And I took that definitely from him as a lesson to just chill out and be creative and let
someone else judge it or judge it later, but don't have that sort of circumvent the process
in the moment.
Like, you know, starting to work on a song and you think, oh, no, that's probably sucks.
No, that sucks.
It sucks.
_ And then the other danger is going, this is the best song anyone has ever written.
_ [Bb] And that's where the argument [E] comes in on the other voice.
Uh-uh, no, it isn't.
Yes, it is.
No, it isn't.
The third voice.
Well, you know, it doesn't have to be either one of those things.
_ You know, one of the great, strange, beautiful, sad, cosmic coincidences is his tragic passing,
Mother Love Bone, on the verge of what looked to be an explosion of success musically.
And yet, had that not happened, the entity we now know as Pearl Jam never would have existed.
That has always struck me as one of those bizarre things of life.
What about you?
_ [F] Yeah, the thought crossed my mind, I think, before.
For sure, I think Eddie's creative output would have, obviously, I think, come to being in a way that affects popular culture no matter what.
I can't imagine that that wouldn't have happened.
It just wouldn't have happened in that way.
And I think that's probably a difficult thing to sit and think about when you're close to the person that's died.
That somehow their passing has _ _ made way for another form that becomes really important.
It's sort of tough.
But it's definitely something that I thought about.
[Db] I'm not going to pretend that that didn't occur to me at some point.
Also in Seattle, Mike McCready came up from Pearl Jam and played River of Deceit, the Mad Season song.
And Matthew, I think, had a question about Mad Season and how it was going to, or if it might continue.
Matt?
Yeah.
Hi, Chris.
Thanks for coming.
Yeah, it was back in January you guys did the Mad Season with Barrett and Duff and Mike.
And I didn't see it in person, but I've seen it on YouTube.
Right.
And you just nailed that part.
Oh, thank you.
It was almost like you were channeling your inner Layne Staley.
I mean, it was a very dark Chris Cornell.
Were you purposely trying to do that?
I think it's just [F] the composition's fault, really, to be honest.
But I also think there's a—when I was asked to do that, it didn't—
what came next was listening to the original recordings, which was listening to Layne sing in headphones over and over to learn it and feel like I really knew it.
And that was kind of unexpected.
I don't want to say dark, but it was—that was tough because I hadn't really [A] done that.
And listening to his voice intimately _ [C] and sing those words and sing those songs, _ _ it definitely sort of forced me to kind of reckon with what happened in his life and the fact that he's not around anymore.
And I think that's tough for everybody that knew him, as it is for anybody that loses someone _ that's a friend that's young, or that affects your life, just fans of his even.
I think that's sometimes almost the bigger tragedy in a weird way is that all of the future imagined creative projects that could have happened that didn't.
And I feel that the same [Eb] way about [E]
lots of brilliant people who die young, and kind of senselessly, especially.
_ If it's an accident, you feel like it's an act of God.
If you feel like they did it somehow, _ it's sort of harder to reconcile.
_ It's hard to find a silver lining, but it doesn't change what he did.
You know, _ I've put a lot of thought into that because I have weird dreams, sometimes extremely vivid dreams.
_ [Eb] Sometimes I'm not really sure which is what. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ But I couldn't [Gb] really define [A] multi-dimensions.
All I can say is if you're in a dream and you're having that experience, it's as real as when you're not.
But you feel that Layne [Gb] Staley is in a good place?
I have no idea.
But you said in one of your blogs that you saw him in a dream and you felt _
I saw him in a dream and it felt like seeing him there, yeah, like maybe he's in a good place.
But I also felt like, and I don't know if I say it in the blog or not, is that a projection?
Is that what I want to see?
[Gb] Or is that _ what's really going on?
And I've had that experience a lot with different people I know that have died where they appear in a dream.
And they're sort [G] of the way [F] that they were maybe at a [E] time when I knew [F] them and they were happy or peaceful or something like that or more healthy.
[E] _
And I always sort of wake up with the feeling that _ _ _ somehow that's an indication that they are somewhere good.
But I don't know.
[A] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _