Doug Van Pelt

Spoon Man

Today was pretty cool. I had the chance to interview Chris Cornell of Soundgarden/Audioslave fame. It's not every day that I get to talk to someone who helped influence so many millions of people with a musical movement like this guy. I felt like I brought my "A-game" in terms of interview questions. I knew them pretty well, so I didn't have to read them from my list. The first one I asked was: "Austin, Texas... What are your thoughts each time you arrive in this city, and when you depart, as well as the random times you think back on this fine city." It went on from there and I had to stop before we got through all the questions. He talked, I listened. It was good.

I invited a friend of mine that I've known a long time to the show -- Paul Roraback. He left Seattle to tour with Grammatrain at a time when the Seattle rock stations would play Soundgarden right next to Scorpions. Then, when he returned from that tour in the mid-90s, those same stations wouldn't play anything old school metal-wise -- just grunge, grunge, and more grunge. We had fun hanging out. Since he moved here to Austin, we've spent more time talking on the phone than face-to-face, where we probably had more "face time" back when he lived in Seattle.

Stubb's BBQ was sold out, with 1,500 to 2,000 people there. Some familiar with both Soundgarden and Audioslave, and probably some there just familiar with Audioslave. Anyway, after romping through two Soundgarden classics to start the show, Chris Cornell said, "I had an interview today and the guy asked me what I thought about Austin, Texas the first time I came here. There was a story that time. Then he asked me what I thought about Austin when we departed..." I had to laugh. Just last week Rob Beckley of Pillar was mentioning HM Magazine from the stage ... and now this show. I'm going to start expecting this kind of treatment.
hahaha

I hope to get this interview, which I taped in stereo with the handy Griffin iTalk recorder, cleared for a future podcast, as well as the print interview.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at April 29, 2007 11:59 PM