No longer a Audioslave to rage

Audioslave’s Chris Cornell, Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk have gained a wider fan base.

Chris Cornell has his back to me. He pours himself a glass of water in the kitchen of the hotel suite. You have to admire the 40-year-old's style - the old-fashioned straps and clasps on his shiny waistcoat really are quite flash.

On the otherhand, Audioslave's hospitable bass player Tim Commerford looks like he's just been mountain-biking. He sits cross-legged on the couch at the Mondrian Hotel in Hollywood with his tattoos blazing, fresh grazes on his legs and wearing funny flat-toed shoes.

Meanwhile, Cornell gulps his water, glances round shyly and walks out the door. What was meant to be a good old fashioned sit-down chat about rock'n'roll - from his old band Soundgarden, to nearly joining Rage Against the Machine, to forming Audioslave, and that band's new album, Out of Exile - didn't happen.

Remember a seated, brooding and seemingly arrogant Cornell on the video for Like a Stone, from Audioslave's 2002 debut album? Many wanted to ring his neck then. I did, and I feel like it again now. It was the kind of deliberate dash out the door where you know he won't be coming back.

Luckily 37-year-old Commerford - the family man - sticks around. "I don't know where he is," he says, craning round on the couch to see out the door.

The former Rage Against the Machine bassist doesn't seem worried. During his time in bands he's been through screaming matches, fights and break-ups, so being lumped with an interview is nothing.

"It's just exciting rock man, that's all I know man, and I'm just really excited to get to this stage," he says about Out of Exile, which they recorded with producer Rick Rubin. He's not wrong, it is a better album than their patchy debut. But more on Out of Exile later because Commerford isn't holding anything back about the demise of his old band and the volatile start to Audioslave four years ago.

Rubin - the most prolific and high-profile producer around today - was the man responsible for bringing together Audioslave, also made up of Rage guitarist Tom Morello and drummer Brad Wilk.

"I call him the angel at the crossroads because if it wasn't for him I wouldn't be here today," says Commerford. "Rick Rubin was the one who said, 'You guys should jam with Chris Cornell'. That was a great piece of advice, and Rick opened up his house to us and we had meetings there with a therapist, and we hammered out [musical] ideas at Rick's house."

Did you catch that? Commerford said "therapist".

"We actually had the same therapist [Phil Towle] that Metallica used in their movie [Some Kind of Monster]. But we did it before them," laughs Commerford. "We're the trailblazers of therapy."

The therapy was for Rage's sake, not Cornell. Rage Against the Machine ended in 2000 when singer Zach de la Rocha left the band. The remaining members, Commerford, Wilk and Morello thought about continuing with another frontman (one option was B Real from Cypress Hill). It never happened.

"Tom, Brad, and I, we come from a very dysfunctional band and we wanted to make it right. We wanted to continue working together and we wanted to not feel the way we were feeling for 10 years.

"He [Phil Towle, the therapist] cost a lot of money [$40,000 a week] for one thing and that, right out of the gate, caused a lot of problems. That was a lot of cash. But now we have a great relationship and we work great together and we're all very proud of that.

"Before, when [Rage] played on stage together, we would never look at each other 'cause we didn't like each other. It would just be weird to even look over to a guy that you don't like on stage, and you wouldn't even know how to respond. With this band it's different, I look over at Chris when we're playing and he's smiling and it's just like, 'Yes, this is dope'. It just feels great."

Cornell's old band Soundgarden wound up in 1997 after influential albums like Ultramega OK (1988), Badmotorfinger (1991) and Superunknown (1994). Before Audioslave he released a solo, singer/songwriter-type, album called Euphoria Morning in 1999.

Rumour has it Cornell joined Audioslave, then un-joined, only to rejoin. But Commerford disputes that, saying, whether Audioslave formed was more to do with whether he, Wilk and Morrello wanted to continue as Rage.

"We didn't realise how easy it would be to get Chris Cornell to join the band," he says.

Commerford constantly compares Audioslave with Rage. When he's talking about his former band he's negative and when it's Audioslave he's positively gushing.

"I feel so lucky that I feel the music is at the forefront of Audioslave, and the songs are the most important thing. I feel lucky that I'm in a group with three other people that are confident that what ever I play is going to be cool. You don't find bands like that. There's always some jackass in a band that doesn't like s*** that's happening."

One of those prone to being a "jackass" was de la Rocha - the politically motivated, some would say militant, frontman of Rage. Commerford hasn't spoken to de la Rocha since 2000 when he called him to say he was leaving the band. "The last words I said to him were, 'Are you sure you want to do this?'."

The pair were childhood friends who played basketball and rode skateboards together and they shared a love of jazz, most importantly John Coltrane whose influence still comes through in Audioslave's Be Yourself, the first single off Out of Exile.

Commerford also remembers he and de la Rocha playing Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger in the car on the way to rehearsals. "We wrote many a Rage song where we'd use Soundgarden as a template," he says.

They, together with Morello and Wilk formed Rage in Los Angeles in 1991 and with the release of their self-titled debut album, featuring anthems Killing In the Name, Bombtrack and Bullet In the Head, became one of the biggest bands around.

All the members of Rage were politically active - most famously the band protested at the 1993 Lollapolooza music festival against censorship in music by standing on stage naked, in silence with their mouths duct taped, for 14 minutes.

Morello is still political and is the founder of the Axis of Justice with Serj Tankian from System of a Down. But it's hard to find overt politics in Audioslave's music and Commerford admits, nowadays, his family is more important than censorship and affairs of state.

"I was proud of the anger and animosity that [Rage] had towards each other and towards everything around us. That's how we made our mark, by being upset. Our music came from that. But now as I become older, and have children, and things are changing - and I still have the same left of centre view - those children have become my political outlet."

Audioslave's first album was the sound of two bands coming together - Cornell writing lyrics, and the other three writing less jumped-up Rage songs. In fact, much of it sounded arrogant and laboured.

On Out of Exile they sound like one band and it makes for a far better, far rockier, and at times beautiful album. There are moments where Morello goes over the top with his whining, high-pitched guitar solos but the chugging and imaginative rhythm section and Cornell's voice get better with age.

"I hear some of the two bands together, that Frankenstein thing happening, and then I also hear some of what I just consider Audioslave type music. This record is definitely less Frankenstein, more Audioslave. That comes from not having any preconceived notions and no boundaries and I feel like we've been blessed in that we are very lucky to be able to play any type of music that we want to play.

"And no one's afraid. No fear, no one's saying I don't like that, and that's what prevented us from doing those sort of things in Rage. Ideas come up, we turn them into songs, and then we let them grow. That's a beautiful place to be.

"No matter what you're doing, whether you have a business with someone, a band with someone, when you feel confident that your idea is going to be embraced, and even if it isn't, that everyone is going to work on it as hard as they can, then that's a great thing."

Songs like Be Yourself, the country jangle of Doesn't Remind Me and the ballad Heaven's Dead, show Audioslave are more sensitive than their previous bands and it is gaining them a wider fan base.

On the band's last tour it wasn't just angry young - and middle aged - men showing up, but a broader audience with women in it.

"That's the biggest difference for me, as the guy from Rage Against the Machine, is there's women. It's incredible. And a lot of the kids are not familiar with the Rage and Soundgarden catalogues - they [just] like Audioslave.

"I used to gauge shows by how big the pit was: 'Wow, that pit's big, two people died, and six people got injured. That's a good show'. With Audioslave there's no one moving but I'm blown away that there's people singing and their voices are louder than this 10 million watt system that we use. Now, that's a good show."

LOWDOWN

WHO: Audioslave

FORMED: Los Angeles, 2001

LINE UP: Guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford, drummer Brad Wilk and singer Chris Cornell

ALBUMS: Audioslave (2002); Out of Exile (2005, out now)

ALSO CHECK: Soundgarden: Ultramega OK (1988) and Badmotorfinger (1991) and Rage Against the Machine: Rage Against the Machine (1991) and Evil Empire (1996)