Chris Cornell on David Bowie’s Evolution: ‘He Was an Inspiration’
When news of David Bowie’s death spread, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell tweeted a video of himself singing the Ziggy Stardust track “Lady Stardust” and wrote that “140 characters will not suffice” when it came to honoring one of his musical influences. Here, he parses the significance of an artist who showed him that it’s OK to change.
David Bowie was an inspiration. As a songwriter, he had this intense vitality throughout his entire career. He made aging as a recording artist seem totally doable in a vital way.
I remember seeing the Ziggy Stardust album everywhere when I was a kid. People used to have all their vinyl in their living rooms, like part of the decor. You would see Let It Be and the faces of the Beatles everywhere, in a corner. At some point, I’d seen Ziggy enough that it piqued my interest, so I probably stole it from somebody.
Listening to that record was a bit like going to college, like the Beatles. The songwriting is incredible. I didn’t know anything about him, and it was a bit past when that album was a moment in pop culture, but I didn’t care. I was interested in the songs and loved every single song on the album.
When Scary Monsters came out, I saw him performing on a talk show, and I saw the “Ashes to Ashes” video where he dressed in some strange European clown costume. That had a huge impact on me. Because my first interpretation of him was the red-haired, androgynous Ziggy Stardust character, and seeing him like this made me think, “Oh, you can be whoever you want. You can live a hundred lives. You can create you and you can recreate you, and it’s viable.” He was the one that proved that that works.
I finally got to see him live on the Serious Moonlight Tour, around Let’s Dance, in 1983. I was a huge fan by then and I really didn’t want to go to that show, because it was at the Tacoma Dome, and I didn’t like big crowds. But I went anyway. It was somewhat uncomfortable for me, but the show and the sound and everything about the set and the songs were incredible.
The theatrics stood out to me. The Simms brothers were on that tour as backing vocalists, and I remember when they weren’t singing, they would stay onstage and sit in the corner at a table and play cards. Nobody ever left the stage. It was an atmosphere where it was theatrical, but relaxed. When you’re a kid from Seattle, you’ve never seen anything like that before, and it was in the context of a pop record, so he didn’t have to do that. He could have done anything he wanted. I saw the Police at the same dome, and they just came out and played Police songs and that was that. He didn’t leave it like that. I was super impressed.
“He was an incredible guy, super inclusive and warm.”
He was like one of those actors that fully embodies the character that he’s creating. He was extremely transformative during different periods of his career. There was something about it that was very European and very not American. American rock bands would walk out like, “This is us and this is who we are and that’s what we do,” which I think is great, but Bowie was not like that.