Chris Cornell is a sensational songwriter and rock star who has made it to the top and has excelled despite his difficult days dealing with depression and substance abuse as a teenager. The Grammy-winning singer was the lead singer of Soundgarden and Audioslave. He is also known for several solo hits, including Euphoria Morning (1999), Scream (2009), Higher Truth (2015), and others. Read on to learn more about how he overcame alcohol and drug abuse, his parents, the cause of his death, his wife and children.
Chris Cornell Wiki, Biography, Height
Chris Cornell was born in the United States on 20 July 1964. He was born Christopher John Boyle and grew up in Seattle. His horoscope is cancer. He attended Christ the King Catholic Basic School and Shorewood High School. When his parents divorced, he and his siblings – two older brothers and three younger sisters – changed their names to Cornell, their mother’s maiden name. He has a mixed ethnicity of Scottish, Irish, and English descent. Cornell suffered from depression from the age of nine, and as he had no friends, he stayed at home and eventually dropped out of school to help his mother. He worked as a waiter and chef to support the family. Coming from a family of alcoholics, he became addicted to alcohol, hard drugs, and theft as a teenager.
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Cornell was a slim, tall guy with distinctive curly hair. He always appeared as a rock star. When asked how tall he was, he gave various measurements and said he was 6’1″ and also 6’2″, but many believe he was somewhere in between, maybe 6’2″ 25.
Musical Journey – How He Began, Success
Chris Cornell love of music began when he stumbled across an abandoned music collection in his neighbors’ basement. The music collection contained Beatles songs that he liked. It inspired him to learn to play the piano and guitar. The occupation with music reduced his fear and opened up a whole new world of possibilities for him. He said that the music made him believe that he was important and that his life was worth something. He found Soundgarden in 1984 together with his friend Hiro Yamamoto, a bass player he met as a member of the band Shemp’s – a music group he had been a member of before they split up.
Cornell played drums and was also the lead singer. Kim Thayil, who played guitar, joined later. In 1985 they brought in Scott Sundquist, a drummer, to join them so that Cornell could concentrate on the vocals. In 1986 Scott left his family and was immediately replaced by Matt Cameron. Yamamoto also left the family to continue his M.Sc. program and was replaced by Jason Everman. Everman was soon fired and replaced by Ben Shepherd.
The band became quite successful, signed a record deal with SST Records in 1988, and released an album called Ultramega OK, which was followed by Louder Than Love. In 1989 A&M Records released the album Superunknown, which was their fourth and last album as a band. The album won two Grammy awards. In 1990, Cornell and members of Pearl Jam recorded an album called Temple of the Dog to honor their mutual friend and Cornell’s roommate Andrew Wood, who died of a drug overdose.
In 1996, they released an album; Down on the Upside, which included the singles Weight in My Hands, Pretty Noose, and Explodes the Outside World. In 1997 the group disbanded and was not reunited until 2010. In 1999 Chris Cornell released his first solo, Euphoria Morning, and formed the group Audioslave with Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk. Audioslave – the album – was released in 2002, Out Of Exile was released in 2005, and Revelations in September 2006 was their last album together. In 2007 Cornell’s album Carry On was released with the hit single You Know My Name. The title was used in the 2006 James Bond movie Casino Royale. The song was also nominated for a Grammy.
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Parents, Wife, Kids, Family
Christopher Cornell was the third child of his father, Ed Boyle, who was a pharmacist, and his mother, Karen Cornell, who was an accountant. He had five siblings, Peter, Suzy, Maggie, Katy, and Patrick. Chris Cornell was married twice. His first marriage was to Susan Silver in 1990, but they were only married for 14 years. They divorced in 2004 after having only one child, Lillian Jean, who had ten years of marriage in 2000.
In the same year 2004, he married his second wife, Vicky Karagiannis. They met on one of his trips to France and fell in love with Susan immediately after his divorce. He married Vicky after proposing to her in a bar with a diamond ring while he was still in court with his first wife for divorce settlements. Vicky Karagiannis is a Greek-American who was a publicist before her marriage to Chris Cornell. They have two children, a daughter, Toni, (born September 2004), and a son, Christopher Nicholas (born December 2005). This means that Chris Cornell has a total of three children.
Cause Of Death – What Killed Chris Cornell?
It is reported that Chris Cornell struggled with a high level of depression as a teenager. Later he started taking drugs, which he stopped in his later years after rehab. On May 17, 2017, Chris Cornell was found dead at the MGM Grand Hotel in Detroit Michigan, where he had stayed after his stage performance that night. His wife Vicky had reportedly sent security, who is a friend, to check on him, and when he got there he had to break the door down just to find the rock star lying lifeless on the floor of his bathroom. The police confirmed his death immediately. Investigations into the cause of death revealed that he had hanged himself and hung himself, but his wife claimed he had no reason to do so.
