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Chris Connelly: "Euphoria Morning" is quite different than a lot of your past work, musically and lyrically. What sort of things were going through your mind as you wrote the lyrics?Chris Cornell: Mostly just day-to-day things that were going on. I think a lot of my early lyrics were sort of wordscapes, lyrics that fit with the music, and it was kind of a fantasy world. On the last album I made with Soundgarden, I started reaching back and drawing from past experiences, just little glimpses from the past that were really colorful. On this album I didn't force it at all. That was kind of interesting for me. Connelly: Did you write a lot of it in Los Angeles, or did you write it at home in Seattle?Cornell: I don't think I wrote anything in Los Angeles. Connelly: Why is that? Is this a scary place for you? Cornell: No, it's not scary. I'm just used to writing at home. And really, there was no need to write lyrics here. All of it was kind of already worked out. This is where we just concentrated on recording the album.Connelly: How important was it for you to decide on collaborators for this record? It seems you kind of established two people [Natasha Shneider and Alain Johannes] right away.Cornell: It was luck, really. I went from a collaborative process I'd known for years to a totally new one, even though it was with people I already knew and people I'd already worked with. Soundgarden had toured with Natasha and Alain and their band, Eleven, a couple of different times, so we were good friends. And when the last Soundgarden tour was over, they invited me to spend some time with them. They're brilliant musicians, so it took maybe two days of visiting with them before we were recording music, because we couldn't think of anything else to do.And when it came time to choose producers, I had a few different things in mind that never really panned out, and there wasn't anyone else I was really excited about, but I didn't want to do it entirely by myself. I wanted to work with somebody, if only to learn something. And it worked really well with those two. It was just like sliding into a creative situation where there were no hitches. Connelly: How was it collaborating with them, rather than with guys you worked with for so long?Cornell: They have an idea of what I'm about, and they really want to support that musically, because it's a solo project. But at the same time, their idea is different than someone from Soundgarden's would have been. And their tendencies musically are completely different than mine, or anyone else's. So it's just that uniquely human perspective. Everyone has a unique way of working, even if they try to change it and adapt to something else, it's still skewed through their own persona, somehow. Which is really cool. Connelly: Was there a certain fear in making this record?Cornell: At moments. When I first started writing songs, and it was clearly going off in different directions, and there was nobody in my band to give me a little perspective. In the past, about half the stuff my band didn't like, I would listen to five years later and think, "Thank God that somebody told me that this sucked," because it really was awful. And I didn't have anybody like that this time, but eventually Al and Natasha were sort of helping me out with that, as well.And other stuff was scary, like the first day the drummer showed up. I was always involved in every part of Soundgarden production, but not in drums, really, because Matt was so good at what he did. But here we are and the drum sounds are coming up, and it doesn't sound great to me, but I'm thinking, "I don't know really how to make it sound the way I want it to sound." It took a few days, until I realized, "Yeah, I can do this," because really, it's all about your ear. You really have to trust it. If it sounds good to you, great. If it doesn't sound good to you, you just describe what's missing, and change it, and it works.Connelly: The first single and video is "Can't Change Me." People will be nibbling at the lyric a little bit. How would you describe what it means?Cornell: I guess the immediate idea that someone's gonna get is that is that it's a guy making a statement to a woman, like, "You can't change me. So f*** off," but it's not that, really. It's sort of the guy discovering that he's involved with this person who has this amazing power over him, in a positive way, but it doesn't seem to be rubbing off on him at all. In a sense, it's kind of sad.Connelly: One song that's about a specific incident is "Wave Goodbye," which refers to Jeff Buckley's death. How well did you know him?Cornell: We were good friends. We would call and talk about things we had in common, which was songwriting, performing, dealing with the record industry, and things we disliked about it all. And we were really mutual fans. He was a unique and very interesting person, and that's really the hardest part. Losing that idea. That projection. [Points to head.] Because when I think of somebody that's really talented, and has a brilliant future, I'm kind of projecting that future in my own mind.I've lost a lot of friends, and people have said, "Try to say something that will help somebody else understand that you can deal with this and adapt to it." But my feeling was always that I don't want to adapt to it, or accept it. But I'd never written about the day-to-day things, and that's what really helps. That's not me telling somebody that it's all okay. It's me telling somebody that this is what I'm going through, and you might be, too, and it's all right.Connelly: How do you think getting older and dealing with all the things about adulthood helped you on this record? Getting past the youthful alienation, and all that.Cornell: Well, the alienation part, and the angst and the aggression -- I've definitely had my moments. But like anything else, that gets a little bit boring. Reacting and responding to life in that way all the time, eventually you start to think, "Well, I've done this already, haven't I?" And as far as lyrics go, that's just a natural progression based on the same idea. "Well I've tried this, and I've tried that. What haven't I done? Where can I go that's fresh?" Fortunately, with music and lyrics, it's pretty infinite.
 
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