Chris Cornell

I’m completely self-taught on guitar- limited me in some ways but very helpful in others. My only goal to playing was to write songs.

I've always said that my albums are the diaries to my life. I'm not one of those guys who looks out the window and sees something, then goes and runs home and writes about it. It's more constant observation. I'm not a big talker and I'm sort of constantly looking and thinking, and then I remember odd things. I might not remember the list of things you would, I might not remember the things my wife would, for example, but I'll see things that show up later. As I'm sitting and writing a song I find that it sort of becomes about that.

A lot more can happen in the world of singer-songwriters that I appreciate. This storytelling where you have the ability to sit and listen to it because you don’t have other distractions -- you’re not listening to what the bass part is doing, there isn’t an elaborate instrumental arrangement that’s taking you into Middle Earth and back.. For me just as a singer I think you’re able to hear aspects of my voice and my singing and what it conveys in ways you’re not going to on a Soundgarden or an Audioslave record.

The title came from us being on the L.A. freeway about three years ago. I just started looking at the traffic and realizing there was such an array of vehicles, from Mexicans in f---ed-up Chevys with dents and white guys in f---ed-up pickup trucks to guys with orange sun-bed tans in Porches and limos. And you'd always see these f---ed-up cars on the side of the road. The idea of seeing a couple of limos smashed into one another, I'd never seen that before, and I thought these people in expensive cars - especially the limos where the windows are blacked out and someone else is driving - they seem to have a feeling that they're not susceptible to mortality. During our trip down the freeway, I was talking to this guy who drove a limo, and he said that once this guy was in the back and some supposed vagrant came up and started knocking on the window. The guy opened the door like, "F--- you, you can't touch me, I'm in a limo." And a bunch of other vagrants came up and beat the shit out of the guy, almost killed him. The song describes that sort of decadence and this strange perception that you're so high on the social or political ladder that you're somehow beyond all that. But it's not true.

Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock, in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn’t their parents’. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.

I was so fiercely independent that falling in love was a really terrifying experience. The first time I was in love to the degree that I realized this person has suddenly become so important to me that I can't imagine life without her.

I think Freddie Mercury is probably the best of all time, in terms of a rock voice. There was a vulnerability to it, his technical ability was amazing, and so much of his personality would come out through his voice. I’m not even a guy to buy Queen records, really, and I still think he’s one of the best.

The funeral was very surreal. I was happy for him, because it was packed, and they were showing films of him performing. He was a fuckin’ rock star the day he was born – it didn’t matter if he’d never sold a single record. He was the only rock star I ever met.

Inducting Heart into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame was an eye-opening experience. I was certainly honored, but had always had a cynical attitude about an institution like this as it pertains to Rock 'n' Roll in general. The fan support of all the bands inducted and their emotional enthusiasm changed everything for me.