Soundgarden frontman spoke at Billboard's Touring Conference about bringing grunge from the underground to the mainstream.
Ed Note: Chris Cornell died May 18, 2017. Cornell appeared at Billboard's Touring Conference as the keynote speaker in 2014.
Speaking to a crowd at Billboard's Touring Conference, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell recalled his rise from the Seattle grunge scene to worldwide fame. The anxiety that permeated the band's climb to the top eventually culminated, he said, in an "existential meltdown."
"The meltdown was when the small indie scene became an international scene," he said. "We shared [TV] airtime and pages of magazines with what we considered to be the enemy -- bands who were presented in a way that we knew we were against when we started out -- so it was like, if you're reading about Soundgarden and you turn the page and it's Poison, are we the same?"