Unlike Soundgarden, Audioslave’s Unreleased Material Will Remain Unavailable

Talking with SNSMix, Audioslave’s guitarist and songwriter Tom Morello isn’t confident the public will get to experience more of Chris Cornell through their unreleased material.  In the past, Morello confirmed that each of the band’s three studio albums had additional work done on songs that remain behind locked doors.  With news of Soundgarden almost completing work on demos written by their singer, Cornell fans may have expected Audioslave to also commit to issuing something Cornell-related but alas, the band have not spoken to each other about the possibility.

“So we had, from each of the three Audioslave records, we had songs left over, songs that were really great.  There’s no plans to not put it out, I would love for it to get in the world, and hopefully it will someday.”

Though it was a gracious answer, one wonders what has to happen for Audioslave to decide to make a concerted effort to issue the songs.  The songs have been completed and all contain Chris vocals.  There was a lot of mourning when Chris Cornell passed in 2017, and it was inappropriate to capitalize on his death by issuing material, but as the decade closed, there was nothing new from Audioslave to celebrate the legendary singer. 

The band also did not take cues from the Cornell estate when they issued the solo compilation, Chris Cornell in 2018, or No One Sings Like You Anymore, the 2020 covers album recorded in 2016.  Soundgarden just got inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame a few weeks ago and confirmed work on the new album.  But Audioslave have not made a move and haven’t done anything significant since they disbanded in 2007.  One can only hope that we can get more Chris Cornell through Audioslave at some point this decade, so we’re lucky that Morello is aware of the fans’ hunger.