The news Chris Cornell’s death hit like a freight train to many of the musicians from Grunge and metal scene, and his fans worldwide. It was unexpected and the love for one of the most influential voices in metal was so much that people are still in shock about Chris’ death.
Chris was found dead on May 17 in Detroit. At the time of death he was 52 years of age, and his death is being considered a tragic one. Chris Cornell was the lead singer of Soundgarden and Audioslave, the former being known as one of the most powerful bands in Grunge scene.
Chris hanged himself to death and the unfortunate event was that his wife, one of the closest persons to her, was not present with him at that time. She even apologized for her absence through a letter she uploaded to billboard.com.
In this letter she has used some really strong words agreeing with many things Chris had said to her when he was alive. She concedes in the letter that her love for him is more than she can imagine and that she knows he was not himself the day he killed himself.
On May 26, a private funeral took place in LA where Chris’ cremated ashes were buried in the ground in the presence of many metal music stars. The most notable people present at his funeral include James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich (from Metallica), Brad Pitt, Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters), Chester Bennington (Linkin Park) and Pharrel.
When the mourners were just outside the gate of the cemetery, there was music in the atmosphere from Chris’ band Soundgarden. When mourners were being seated on the white chairs it was Like a Stone playing in the background, a song sung by Chris Cornell as part of his other band Audioslave.
Chester Bennington had a close relationship with Chris Cornell. Chris Cornell even appeared as a guest at one of Linkin Park’s live concert performances to sing Crawling. At the funeral, Chester paid tribute to Chris Cornell by performing his own version of Hallelujah, originally sung by Leonard Cohen.
A lot of other famous people delivered eulogies including Tom Morello, Kim Thayil, Jeff Ament, James Brolin etc. There were songs playing in the background during several parts of the funeral. The song playing when mourners were coming out of the funeral venue was All Night Thing by Temple of the Dog.
Many of the metal musicians have shown their grief for Chris’ loss during several radio and TV shows. Metallica’s James Hetfield talked about Chris loss and stated that everyone needed to stay closer to each other in order to know what other people are going through.
He said that people are sometimes so lost in their own issues that they don’t pay attention to bigger issues going on in the lives of people around them. He asked everyone and especially the people in metal community to stay in touch with each other so such events could be avoided.
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