Chris Cornell is irreplaceable as a musician, and his loss in 2017 still casts a heavy shadow. But if Soundgarden's remaining members ever feel like celebrating the legacy they shared with him, Brandi Carlile is offering her services.
The singer-songwriter and her bandmates Tim and Phil Hanseroth already have shared history with Soundgarden's Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd. The musicians originate from the Seattle area and even put out recordings of the band's Black Hole Sun and Searching With My Good Eye Closed featuring the surviving Soundgarden members for a Record Store Day 12-inch release last year.
Now she wants to make it a more permanent relationship and if the Soundgarden trio want to tour with her on vocals, she says would "make the time" to do it alongside the Hanseroth twins.
“I am such a Chris Cornell fan,” Carlile told Rolling Stone for forthcoming new episode of its Music Now podcast. “I loved him so much. I was so devastated when he left us.”
“We are inextricably linked to Soundgarden for life,” Carlile added. “They were our heroes.”
Carlile already has some experience performing Soundgarden songs with the members; first performing Black Hole Sun (as well as Audioslave's Like A Stone and Temple Of The Dog's Hunger Strike) at the 2019 Cornell tribute I Am The Highway in LA and then performing the song again, as well as Searching With My Good Eye Closed, at her Gorge Amphitheatre show in Seattle in August 2021.
If the band were to head out to celebrate their catalogue, and the joy they obviously share from playing together, Carlile could be a very good choice that will avoid direct comparisons with the late icon. But we're also left wondering how great a duet between her and Cornell would have sounded.
Brandi Carlile's new album, In These Silent Days, is out now.
