Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell was born July 20, 1964.

Suffering from a severe case of clinical depression during his teenage years, he mostly spent his time, playing drums and guitar.

Chris Cornell is a rock icon who thrives on contradictions.

An innovator who resists genre labels, he was nonetheless the chief architect of the 90s grunge movement.

Frequently ranked as one of the best voices in music history, he has successfully maintained his own unique identity over more than two decades as a multi-Grammy award winning musician, Golden Globe nominee and universally acclaimed singer, songwriter and lyricist.

In 1990, celebrated side project Temple of the Dog showed Cornell’s more soulful side and introduced future Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder to the world.

Almost a decade later, Cornell shocked the business once again with critically acclaimed solo album “Euphoria Morning,” combining lush melody with lyrics which spoke of alienation and despair.

Over three solo studio albums, Cornell has continually redefined his sound and vision to encompass new music, new collaborations and new activities.

He was the first American male artist to write and perform the theme song for a James Bond movie (“You Know My Name” for Casino Royale); wrote and performed the end-credits song “Live To Rise” for The Avengers (with Soundgarden); and wrote the song “Misery Chain” (performed with Joy Williams) on the soundtrack album for Oscar-winning movie 12 Years A Slave.

His performance of his song The Keeper which appeared in the Marc Forster-directed film Machine Gun Preacher was nominated for a Golden Globe.

In 1984, Cornell joined Sound-garden, serving as the band’s lead singer and songwriter.

With this band, he released two compilation albums and five studio records, one of which made them nominated as Best Metal Performance at 1992 Grammy Awards.

In 1997, the band, unfortunately decided to end their career and so went their separate ways.

After releasing “Euphoria Morning”, Cornell joined the remaining members of Rage Against the Machine” and formed a new band called Audioslave with them.

Having double duties as the band’s rhythm guitarist and vocalist, he dropped three studio albums with Audioslave.

After the release of Audioslave’s debut album, Cornell attended a rehab to fight his drug and alcohol addictions. Said to have stayed sober during the making of Audioslave’s second and third albums, he officially announced his departure from the band in 2007, citing “irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences” as the cause.

In 2010, ‘Soundgarden’ made a historic reunion during Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival, and released their retrospective album, ‘Telephantasm’.

They have been touring Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America since then.

In 2011, he released, ‘The Keeper’, an original song written for the film, ‘Machine Gun Preacher’.

Initially, the song was exclusively available as part of the ‘Donate to Download’ campaign for children’s charity in Africa.

In 2012, Chris and Vicky created the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation, which fights to protect the most vulnerable children.

The Foundation is currently developing projects and programs working with leading charitable organizations and partners to raise awareness and mobilize support for children facing tough challenges including homelessness, poverty, abuse and/or neglect.