Since the beginning of his career, Neil Young showed himself to be a versatile musician and over the decades recorded albums with different influences, inspiring countless bands worldwide. In the 1990s, he was nicknamed the ‘Godfather of Grunge’ because many elements of his music were adopted by bands from that movement, such as the raw, distorted guitar sound.
He was one of the first major artists to invite grunge bands to tour as his opening acts, one of them being Soundgarden. Over the years, the band’s late vocalist Chris Cornell spoke about that experience and gave his opinion of Neil Young.
What was Chris Cornell’s opinion on Neil Young
Chris Cornell was a big fan of Neil Young and said many times that he was an example for him as a musician. He admired Neil’s commitment to keep doing new things and exploring other possibilities in his career, something that kept him relevant over the decades. One of his favorite albums by the Canadian musician was “Le Noise” (2010). “To me it’s kind of seeing my dream career come to fruition (to do an acoustic tour). I would try to look toward examples that made sense in the long run as kind of blueprints to follow and whose careers those were. Neil Young’s a great example. Tom Waits is always a great example to me. An example of people who will keep doing what they do until they drop dead — and it might be on a stage, for all you know.”
“I never saw a finish line. And when I’ve seen that in musicians, you kind of end up hearing it in the music. You sort of see it in the choices that they make in their career and in the songs that they write. It becomes something else — where they’re not existing in music for the sake of enjoying music and playing music. It becomes more of they’re putting in the hours so they can make a living. And since I can remember, since I decided I was a musician, I’ve always thought I don’t want there to be a finish line. (Music is) not something that I ever don’t want to not do and since there are so many things that can be done. I just love the idea of being immersed in them.”
Chris Cornell continued:
“Neil Young’s a great example. Because you’ll see… Soundgarden toured with him with Booker T. & The MG’s and in the next two years there was a tour with Crazy Horse. There was a tour with Pearl Jam as the band. Then after all that he did an acoustic tour as well as released a couple of albums. And the record he did with Daniel Lanois, ‘Le Noise’, really surprised me. It’s one of my favorite Neil Young records, period.”
“That’s an example that makes me happy. Because I see that it’s possible to continue to be vital in your career and that never has to end. That’s not something that has to stop unless you decided to stop it, so that’s important to me. And that’s where I want to live musically, is constantly be doing things and constantly be doing not things to shock or somehow try to avoid predictability. But just do things that are interesting and fun and exciting,” Chris Cornell told Yahoo music in 2007.
The album “Le Noise”, mentioned by Cornell, was recorded with the producer and musician Danie Lanois. He is famous for having produced albums by many other legendary artists. Some of them are Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson and Willie Nelson.
One of his favorite movie soundtracks was made by Neil Young
Chris Cornell was also a movie fan and co-created one of the best James Bond songs of all time, which was “You Know My Name”, featured on the classic “007 – Casino Royale” (2006). When asked by Indie Wire in 2011 which soundtracks he admired, he mentioned Jim Jarmusch’s “Dead Man”, for which Neil Young wrote the music for it. “My favorite one — I’ve only seen this movie once and (the music) disturbed me. (It is) was a French film called ‘Betty Blue’ and the music was really haunting, and a very simple piano score. That stuck out in my mind. And then Jim Jarmusch did a movie with Johnny Depp called ‘Dead Man’. Neil Young did the score.”
“That was hugely impactful, almost in the same way that it set the tone and coexisted perfectly with the performances and visuals. I loved the film. It was breathing, it was really expressive. It did something that I’ve never heard since. I hear a lot of scores in films that reminds me of seven other films. I’ll sit while I’m watching the movie and start to remember what they are.”
Chris Cornell continued:
“Music can’t really draw you in too much because then you’re just following it. My ear will follow the music over anything else for sure. So if I get drawn in, I’ll imagine this is going to go somewhere fantastic. And then it doesn’t, because really it’s not supposed to and I’ll get frustrated with that sometimes.”
“I think it’s very delicate and it’s really an admirable thing, the composers who do movie scores. How they put so much effort into coexisting with the film and supporting it with the music without doing what I do, which in contrast seems to be very whimsical and egocentric and vain. This is my music and my thing and it’s about me! And here I go and now listen to it, you know? (laughs)” Chris Cornell said.
Cornell covered Neil’s songs and even had the chance to play with him once
To him, Neil was one of the few musicians who were able to keep doing what he believed. Because he didn’t change things because of what was going on in the moment. He did things he really wanted to do regardless of what the market said was trendy. He had the chance to see that up-close especially when Soundgarden was Young’s opening act in the early 1990s.
“What I do now is, I’m always looking at guys who are aging and still manage to have a vibrant career, and still manage to do things creatively that surprise. Yet they do it with authority and with some type of purpose that keeps people interested. Neil Young is a great example of that. He’s almost more frightening when he’s onstage playing a Rock song now than 25 years ago,” he told Rolling Stone.
In 2011, when he would play in the extinct Brazilian festival SWU, doing his acoustic show, Cornell told G1 that he wanted to invite Neil to play. Young would also be at the festival but as a speaker, because the event was focused on saving the planet and preserving nature. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to invite him in time, But I would love to have him at my show. It would be truly wonderful to play something with Neil Young.”
He continued:
“The ‘voice and guitar’ format allows for this kind of intimacy. It gives me the opportunity to revisit my career. I can play songs from my former bands or any cover that comes to mind. Because of that, this is definitely the happiest period of my life in the artistic sense,” Cornell said.
They didn’t share the stage that day, but in 2014 Neil invited him and Eddie Vedder to perform Temple of The Dog’s “Hunger Strike”. The performance was part of Neil’s Bridge School Benefit concert. When touring in 2010, Cornell had already covered Neil’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” during one of his solo acoustic concerts.
Neil Young said Soundgarden played good music and believed in their sound
Soundgarden were Neil Young’s opening act in 1993. They were just beginning to write their successful album “Superunknown,” which would be released the following year. When talking with MTV about the tour at the time, which also featured Blind Melon, Pearl Jam and Soul Asylum on selected dates, he praised the groups.
“They’re just good bands and they play really good music. I’m just glad that they’re playing some of these shows with me. (…) I like the sound, they really believe in their music. (So) I mean, that’s all you need,” he said. When promoting Superunknown, Chris Cornell revealed to KLOS that they actually stopped working on that record to tour with Neil. They had said no to him a couple of times over the years and they were afraid they would stop inviting them if they said they couldn’t do it again.
“He asked (us to tour with him). I guess that was about the fourth time that he was going on tour where they called us up and asked if we wanted to do some shows. Just about every time we were like either recording or we were on some other tour. (So) it didn’t work out.”
He continued:
“We were actually recording that time as well. But we thought that (he) would probably stop asking at some point. So we should maybe (accept the invitation). So that was about two weeks into ‘Superunknown’ recording, that we went out and did those dates. He was cool, everything was great. The audience was really cool, they were interested in listening to a band they had never heard of before.”
“We had other experiences opening for other bands where that wasn’t the case, so that was kind of refreshing. He (Neil) was just a normal guy doing what he wants to do with music, being into his family. It was pretty cool,” Chris Cornell said in an interview with KLOS in 1994.