ccornell

The important things.

2005-07-02T18:15:15Z

Today has been an absolutely crazy and intensely busy day, but it is very worth it and I hope all of you are tuned into Live 8 or at one of the locations supporting it.

In just a few minutes I'm going to be running out on stage to perform here in Belgium at the Werchter Festival. We performed earlier at the Live 8 show in Berlin. The cause is so important and absolutely necessary. If you don't know much about it, I implore you to read and learn. It's being able to take such an active role in these causes that makes music and the power we have to open people's ears so much more worth it.

So many children are dying and if you've seen the footage your heart has surely broken a thousand times over. I've been watching the footage backstage here and if you are, you just saw that this sick and dying baby was on death's door so many years ago and today she is a beautiful young woman. Change can happen. Make your voice heard and support the drive to make that change.

1.3

2005-06-28T17:35:34Z

I haven't disappeared, I just haven't been around. I got an invite from a pretty lady to take a little trip to Mexico. We all know she was really just using me for bail money. There were about three days between shows so I agreed to come out and hang out for a couple nights. It was a crazy time, but I'll leave it up to her to write it all out. I'm not having a good with words kinda day. I had fun, though. The drunken people abounded, but I was okay.

Backstage at my shows for the past couple years it's been a strictly no alcohol kind of situation. I haven't had to deal much with the pressures of people drinking around me and the temptations arising from that. When she invited me out, I was a little nervous about going, but I felt pretty secure about my place at the helm of the wagon, so I agreed to come out. It was a lot easier than I expected and I never had a moment where the bottle was calling to me. It was pretty affirming in that I can now probably surround myself with that type of situation and not fall off. The company and the distractions provided really helped with that, so thanks, pretty lady.

Now we're back on the road. Finland. It's 8:30 p.m. and the jetlag is kicking my ass. Tomorrow night we're rocking the Finnish and then we've got a few days off and then it's bambambambambam quite a few shows in a row. The mexico trip was good to relax but I am ready to get back out on stage. Anyone who wants to should check out the tour schedule and come hang out for a day or two.

1.2

2005-06-22T21:54:32Z

The music scene is notorious for using talent as a reason to score cheap drugs and get loaded. It's a shame when your ability to string together a few words to a good tune gives you access to an unlimited amount of ways to completely destroy your life. You work your whole life to get heard, to show off what you've got, and once you have it, you turn to the quickest thing to ruin all of your efforts.

I've watched countless friends and fellow musicians fall to the wayside because of this type of behavior. In just a little over a decade and a half, guys I spent years building friendships with, before any of us made it big, have succumbed to this disease that filters through this industry so rampantly. Wood. Cobain. Buckley. Staley. This, just the tip of the iceburg. Men full of talent, with so much to offer the world, fallen into a category that ranks them another statistic. Premature deaths that were completely unnecessary.

I was one of those guys. I spent every night getting drunk and getting loaded and walking around high as a fucking kite for days. I slept with so many women whose names I never knew and whose faces I didn't even wait until morning to see again. Those first checks we got went toward buying more booze, more heroin, more cocaine, more acid. It was always about more. Even as we began to get well known and as our dreams begin to see the light of day, at a time when we should have been riding the glory of seeing it all happen, I still wanted more. Thing is, it wasn't to be found anywhere I was looking. I still wasn't ready to learn that lesson.

After I had started attending funerals, on what felt like an entirely too regular basis, I fell into a place so dark that no pitch of black could describe. I drank from the time I woke up until the time I went to sleep. I got so sick from drinking that I turned to the hardest shit I could find to make me feel better. Then I started to get sick from that. Depression doesn't explain the place I was in. My power got shut off. My phone stopped working. I alienated myself from everyone I knew. I lived in a hole so deep that I couldn't even see where up was. I checked myself into rehab and cleaned up for awhile, but not enough to change my ways. The habits were still very much there and very much a problem.

A time of awakening came for me at one specific funeral I had to attend. The gravity of this loss came to me like a punch in the stomach. Word of his death left me in a state of disbelief and utter shock. It was standing before his casket on a rainy Seattle day that something fell from the sky that opened my eyes. A sign. A higher power. Whatever you want to call it, the message slapped me in my face and I knew I had to change.

It's been three years since I had a drink. It's been three years since I pumped any shit into my veins. It's been three years since I buried a friend. It's been three years.

1.1

2005-06-22T07:20:19Z

It's an early morning after a late night of partying. Our tour is in full swing and we're making the rounds through Europe. We'll be swinging this side of the ocean for the next few weeks and I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing.

Our new record, Exile, has been out for a month and it has been rocking the charts. We're sitting pretty at number ten and that's nothing to shake your fist at.

I'm inspired. I'm excited. I've got a lot to say and not a lot of time to say it. However, when I do have some time between shows and cities I want to hang out here and talk to people from the road. So for now, point me in the direction of the cool cats and send them in my direction, as well.