There have been quite a few successful supergroups in rock, one of which was Audioslave, a fusion of Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell. But how did the members of Rage decide on Cornell to be their new frontman at the time?
De la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine in 2000 after releasing four albums with the group. He said in a statement [via Far Out Magazine], “I feel that it is now necessary to leave Rage, because our decision making process has completely failed. It is no longer meeting the aspirations of all four of us collectively, as a band, and from my perspective has undermined our artistic and political ideal.
“I am extremely proud of our work, both as activists and musicians, as well as indebted and grateful to every person who has expressed solidarity and shared this incredible experience with us.”
Morello, Wilk and Commerford wanted to continue making music together, though, so they met with producer Rick Rubin and brainstormed. According to an interview with Howard Stern, Morello recalled that they listened to Soundgarden’s 1991 album Badmotorfinger a lot during that time, and as suggested by Rubin, they decided to meet with Cornell.
As reported by MTV, Cornell had been offered to sing for a few other bands after he left Soundgarden, but only considered auditioning for this new band because he received a call from Rubin. And at their first rehearsal, he was extremely impressed by their musicianship.
“I just thought, ‘I am lucky. I get to be the singer in this band if I get up there and I am good.’ So I decided to be good,” Cornell said, with Morello adding, “He stepped to the microphone and sang the song and I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t just sound good. It didn’t sound great. It sounded transcendent. And… when there is an irreplaceable chemistry from the first moment, you can’t deny it.”