Soundgarden fans are enjoying “Live To Rise,” the band’s first new song in 15 years. The tune is featured on the soundtrack for the film, “The Avengers,” which opened this past weekend.
Now, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell gives Rolling Stone an update on the band’s full new album, their first with new material since 1996's “Down on the Upside.”
The as yet-to-be-titled album will be mastered in a week's time so, in Cornell’s mind, "it's done. It'll be out in probably October," he says. "I would say September but I'm just guessing October. We're pretty much done with everything." "Live to Rise," a riff-heavy rocker, while not necessarily representative of the entire album's sound, the singer says, would "work just fine on it."
As for the band linking up with a blockbuster movie, Cornell says, it’s as clear a sign as any of the "new landscape." "[Licensing songs] has become kind of the cheap way that bands with any version of credibility have to get their songs out in front of people," he explains. "It used to be absolutely the forbidden fruit for any band – if you put your song in a commercial you were screwed. I've never felt like that was a no-no."
Cornell does take solace in the fact that The Avengers is a film that he and Soundgarden respect and enjoy. "For a band like Soundgarden, being associated with [The Avengers] – for what it's about and what they accomplish in it – it's a pretty good way to have a partner in the entertainment business to get your songs out in front of people," he says. "The record companies don't have that any more. They don't have the money. They don't have the resources. They can't do it. They won't do it. Not gonna happen."
Soundgarden Soundgarden – Live To Rise
See also:
VIDEO: Soundgarden debuts Live To Rise in concert
VIDEO: Soundgarden – Live To Rise