Chris Cornell Tickets

Short Biography
'Songbook' Solo Acoustic Tour - October 2011


CHRIS CORNELL, the Grammy winning rock icon and one of the greatest male voices of our time, brings his solo acoustic "Songbook" tour to Australian theatres in October after his hugely successful sold out run in the United States.

Having sold over 21 million albums, Cornell has experienced both critical and commercial success as a singer/songwriter for his bands Soundgarden, Audioslave and Temple of the Dog, as well as his own solo work.

Performing alone on stage, Chris Cornell will spotlight songs from throughout his illustrious career, as well as a few surprise covers.

Aust...

Short Biography
'Songbook' Solo Acoustic Tour - October 2011


CHRIS CORNELL, the Grammy winning rock icon and one of the greatest male voices of our time, brings his solo acoustic "Songbook" tour to Australian theatres in October after his hugely successful sold out run in the United States.

Having sold over 21 million albums, Cornell has experienced both critical and commercial success as a singer/songwriter for his bands Soundgarden, Audioslave and Temple of the Dog, as well as his own solo work.

Performing alone on stage, Chris Cornell will spotlight songs from throughout his illustrious career, as well as a few surprise covers.

Australian audiences will have the chance to see Chris perform unplugged, up close and personal - an event many fans have been eagerly anticipating for years.  

Within this alternative setting, Cornell can easily interact with the audience and share insights about his music. Familiar songs emerge in a new context, showing that great songwriting translates to any idiom.

Tickets for all shows go on sale 9am, Friday, June 10.

US critics have raved about his just completed, totally sold out US tour:

"Chris Cornell still possesses the best voice in rock music... one of the most important artists to ever walk the face of the earth." - Rick Florino, Artist Direct

"The two-hour, nearly two-dozen-song performance was a master class in the fine art of solo performance" - Sarah Rodman, Boston Globe

"Sometimes you don't recognize the full power of a voice until you strip everything away from it... how rare his timbre remains."- Jim Farber, New York Daily News

"Charismatic, quick-witted and good-looking with a killer voice" - Jane Stevenson, Toronto Sun

"He can make any noise between whisper and scream sound musical."  - Dave McKenna, Washington Post

Chris Cornell has the ability to connect with listeners like few others of our time. He has maintained his own unique identity over more than two decades as a singer, songwriter, and lyricist.   He has been heralded as one of the pioneers of the grunge era for writing a string of hits for Soundgarden, including the Grammy award-winning "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman."

In 1991, Chris formed Temple of the Dog, writing classic song "Hunger Strike" featuring a duet with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.

In 2000, Cornell joined former Rage Against the Machine members (Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk) in Audioslave and wrote a series of the band's hits including "Like a Stone," "Be Yourself" and "Doesn't Remind Me". Cornell continued to shine as a solo artist writing songs such as "Can't Change Me," and "Mission", which was included on the soundtrack to the film Mission Impossible II.

His songs have been recorded by diverse artists from Johnny Cash to Alice Cooper, and his movie soundtrack credits include hit theme song "You Know My Name" for James Bond thriller Casino Royale, one of the most successful instalments of the spy franchise to date.
 
Keep looking for updates on the "Songbook" series on www.chriscornell.com

Don't miss Chris Cornell - appearing at:

MELBOURNE        PALAIS THEATRE                WEDNESDAY OCT 19


TICKETS ON SALE 9AM FRIDAY, JUNE 10

In-depth Biography
Originally finding success as the frontman of Seattle's Soundgarden, rock vocalist Chris Cornell forged a successful career after the band's 1997 demise, both with the supergroup Audioslave and as a diverse solo artist. Born in Seattle on July 20, 1964, his music career didn't take shape until he was a teenager, when he began playing drums in a local cover band. Although he spent most of his teenage years as a loner, rock music helped Cornell overcome his uneasiness around others. After dropping out of high school and working as a cook, Cornell laid the foundation for what would become the influential grunge band Soundgarden by the mid-'80s. Cornell assumed vocal duties for the group, with friend Hiro Yamamoto on bass, Kim Thayil on guitar, and eventually Matt Cameron on drums.

Along with the Melvins, Soundgarden was one of the first rock bands to slow down punk's youthful energy to a Black Sabbath-like crawl. Following the release of several recordings on various independent labels, Soundgarden also became one of the first bands of the Seattle underground to sign with a major label, A&M, which issued Louder Than Love in 1989. After the album's release, however, Yamamoto left and was first replaced by ex-Nirvana member Jason Everman, who was later ousted by Ben Shepherd. With Soundgarden's quintessential lineup in place, the group became one of rock's most popular bands on the strength of such albums as 1991's Badmotorfinger, 1994's Superunknown, and 1996's Down on the Upside. With each album, Cornell's singing grew stronger as he demonstrated a growing mastery of his multi-octave range.

From the start, however, Cornell's talents weren't limited to his work with Soundgarden. He organized a tribute for late Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood in the form of 1990's Temple of the Dog project, which featured a stripped-down sound and yielded the moderate hit "Hunger Strike." Cornell's first officially released solo composition, the acoustic "Seasons," was the highlight of the 1992 motion picture soundtrack Singles. His bluesy voice also helmed a superb cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" on the 1993 Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix compilation (under the pseudonym M.A.C.C.). Meanwhile, he found time to pen songs for other acts (including Flotsam & Jetsam and Alice Cooper) while also producing the Screaming Trees' 1991 release, Uncle Anesthesia. After Soundgarden's demise in April 1997, Cornell slowly but surely began to assemble a solo album with his friends from the band Eleven.

Issued in 1999, Euphoria Morning was a departure from his former band's sound, emphasizing Cornell's vocals and lyrics rather than meaty guitar riffs. Shortly after its release, Cornell launched his first solo tour, mixing songs from all eras of his career. After the tour's conclusion in early 2000, a tepid remix of the Euphoria Morning track "Mission" (retitled "Mission 2000") was included on the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack. It appeared as though Cornell would take a break from music for a while, as his wife gave birth to the couple's first child in June of the same year, but by late 2000, Cornell found himself involved in a project that promised to be a classic hard rock collaboration.

Rage Against the Machine had decided not to break up after longtime vocalist Zack de la Rocha left the band, opting instead to find another singer and carry on under a different name. Cornell accepted an invitation to jam and pen a few songs (which former Rage guitarist Tom Morello described as "really groundbreaking") and, shortly thereafter, officially joined forces with the former Rage members under the moniker Audioslave. Produced by Rick Rubin, the band's self-titled debut arrived in November 2002 and went multi-platinum. The follow-up effort, 2005's Out of Exile, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and was followed by the platinum-selling Revelations in 2006. Despite such success, Cornell left the band that same year, citing the usual "irreconcilable differences" for his departure.

Cornell returned to his solo career with 2007's Carry On. Although the album was largely biographical, it also featured a cover of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" (a rendition made famous one year later by American Idol contender David Cook) and a song from the James Bond movie Casino Royale. Two new singles, "Ground Zero" and "Watch Out," were offered as digital downloads one year later, featuring a newfound emphasis on electronics and studio trickery. The tracks had been recorded with producer Timbaland, with whom Cornell partnered for the creation of his third solo album. Stocked with drum machines and R&B melodies, Scream arrived in March 2009, heralded by Timbaland as "the best work I've done in my career" but received poorly by several critics. The following year, Soundgarden joined the many popular '90s alternative bands who reunited in the 2000s and 2010s, headlining that year's Lollapalooza festival and releasing the retrospectives Telephantasm and Live on I-5, which documented the group's 1996 tour, as well as recording new songs. The following spring, however, Cornell returned to his solo career with the solo acoustic Songbook tour, from which came two EPs and the Songbook album, all of which were released in 2011. That September, Cornell contributed a song to the Machine Gun Preacher soundtrack. Soundgarden's first album since Down on the Upside was expected early in 2012. ~ Greg Prato, Rovi