Chris Cornell Matters
Channel: Matters
Date: 2022-11-27

In 2006 I had the privilege of sitting with the late great Chris Cornell in Cape Town at the height of Audioslave’s global modern rock domination. What I was not able to do, however, was capture a voice recording, I was a print journalist at the time, after all, and the record label scoffed at my request. 😉 

Rewind four years earlier, November 2002, the month Audioslave released their seminal self-titled debut album. The phone rang, and their label offered me an interview with Chris, the caveat being it had to be in person in Los Angeles. What to do? Call a friend, which I did, the founding member of The Outsiders, Drikkie Botha, who just so happened to live in California. I told him of the golden opportunity, and he graciously recommended fellow musician and scribe Sander Verlaan. He agreed and recorded the interview, sharing it with me for publication in South Africa. I wrote up his interview and published it for the long-defunct Pulse magazine for Musica.

Then, life happened, and the voice recording he did was lost, saved on some stiffy or CDROM, not retrievable by me. What to do? Call a friend, which I did once again. Drikkie again delivered, connecting me to Sander some 20 years later.

Here’s his reply to my recent Messager request: “Drikkie has told me about you over the years. I have a recording from the Chris Cornell interview I did in your place for the first Audioslave record. Drikkie told me about your podcast, and I immediately said I had an interview I did for you. I know I was a bit of a fanboy interviewing him but let me know if you want the file, and I will be more than happy to look for it.”

Sander was a massive fan of Chris’ work and set off to meet with him at Sony Music’s LA offices in late 2002. Here’s some context from Sander to what you’re about to hear.

“Disclaimer: I was a bit of a fanboy of CC, ha-ha!” wrote Sander. “I was the first one of the day to interview him, super nervous and had arrived in Santa Monica early, having missed the listening session the night before. That said, the Sony contact at the time was a fellow Dutch guy, and because we met early, he drove me to the Sony office and put me in a fancy listening room so I could listen to the record before meeting Chris. They know how to pack you in with a high-quality system like that, so I remember walking into this room feeling impressed with the record, ha-ha! Anyway, some background info.”

Thank you, Drikkie Botha, as always. Sander, you are a gentleman and a man of many talents. Thank you for taking the time to help me resurrect this critical piece of legacy footage – much love and respect to you both.