The official Instagram account of Pearl Jam posted a picture of drummer Matt cameron wearing a Chris Cornell shirt during Pearl Jam’s show in Las Vegas as he honored his late friend and Soundgarden bandmate on the anniversary of his death. Cameron paid the tribute as Pearl Jam brought ‘Dark Matter’ tour to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Check out the picture below:
Pearl Jam pay tribute to Chris Cornell
Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell tragically passed away at the age of 52 by suicide in 2017. It happened just hours after, Cornell had played a full, 20-song Soundgarden gig at the Fox Theatre venue.
Cornell was best known for being the frontman of the Seattle grunge band Soundgarden from 1984 to 1997 and again from 2010 until his passing away. The band’s most successful album, 1994’s ‘Superunknown’, had charted at Number One in the US and sold nine million copies worldwide. Cornell later went on to lead Audioslave, who released three albums between 2002 and 2006. He also released four solo albums, the most recent of which, ‘Higher Truth’, came out in 2015. Cornell had even teamed up with Sting to perform several Soundgarden and The Police songs at a charity gig.
While it is no secret that Soundgarden was the platform that made him a household name within the Seattle rock scene in the ’90s, some of his most notable work came with other collaborative projects. Well, Cornell had a connection with Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.
Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder worked on ‘Hunger Strike’
Back in 1991, following the overdose death of his then-roommate Andrew Wood, lead singer of burgeoning Seattle rock band Mother Love Bone, Cornell set out to record a tribute to his fallen musical brother. He recruited his Soundgarden bandmate Matt Cameron and former Mother Love Bone members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, who in turn recruited guitarist Mike McCready, with whom they were starting a new band.
The outfit adopted the name Temple of the Dog, a nod to the lyrics of Mother Love Bone song “Man of Golden Words.” They went on to record a single, self-titled album, featuring a pair of songs written by Cornell while he was grieving Wood’s loss (“Reach Down” and “Say Hello 2 Heaven”), a handful of tunes written by Cornell before Wood’s death, and some re-worked demos from Gossard, Ament, and Cameron.
At the time of the 15-day-long sessions for Temple of the Dog, Ament, Gossard, and McCready were in the process of finding a vocalist for their new band, set to be dubbed Mookie Blaylock. A young vocalist named Eddie Vedder had flown up to Seattle from San Diego to audition and ended up adding some backing vocals to a few tracks.
It turned out that Cornell liked the sound of this newcomer’s voice, and his passionate original “Hunger Strike” was eventually recorded as a vocal duet between him and Vedder for the album. “Hunger Strike” would ultimately become the album’s biggest hit, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Rock charts.
