Cornell known for the lead role in bands Soundgarden and Audioslave was a distinct individual in the music role. Trailing the success of Soundgarden, Cornell also launched the band Temple of The Dog in 1990 which was a tribute to his friend Andrew Wood.
Alongside Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Matt Cameron, and periodic support from Eddie Vedder, the band went on to create many great tracks. The frontman of Peral Jam surely did his best to help them. The band only produced an album that was released in 1991.
Many songs on the album feature the story of Andrew Wood. He died of a heroin overdose in March 1990. The song ‘Hunger Strike’ was also written as the album only had nine tracks in total. Following the death of his then-roommate, Cornell recorded the tribute to his musical brother.
Cornell also went on to describe the song. He said, “I was wanting to express gratitude for my life but also disdain for people where that’s not enough, where they want more. There’s no way to really have a whole lot more than you need usually without taking from somebody else that can’t really afford to give it to you. It’s sort of about taking advantage of a person or people who really don’t have anything.”
2014 Bridge School Benefit becomes the last time that Soundgarden and Pearl Jam’s frontmen performed together. The music world was taken by surprise on May 18th, 2017 by the suicide of Chris Cornell. 2014 marked Vedder and Cornell’s singing together ‘Hunger Strike’ for the very first and the last time.
Both appeared on the lineup for the 2014 Bridge School Benefit. And that meant that a Temple of the Dog reunion was inevitable. That hadn’t happened since Pearl Jam’s 20th anniversary in 2011. This all happened when Vedder asked the crowd, “Are there any more singers back there?” He continued, “There’s a lot of types of singers. How about a Chris Cornell-type? This right here is the best Chris Cornell-type singer you’ll ever hear.”
Chris also recalled in 2016 with Rolling Stone. He remembered that he was struggling to finish his new song ‘Hunger Strike’ in the 90s. He recalled, “I was singing the chorus in the rehearsal space, and Eddie just kind of shyly walked up to the mic and started singing the low ‘going hungry’ and I started singing the high one, When I heard him sing, the whole thing came together in my brain. I just felt like, ‘Wow, his voice is so great in this low register. He should sing on it. I’ll sing the first verse and then he’ll come in. Even though it’s the same lyrics, it’s a different singer and it’ll feel like two verses.'”
They created one of the most unforgettable songs of the rock genre. Temple of the Dog never got a chance to tour as Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were busy with their own work. They delivered the performance of ‘Hunger Strike’ together at the 2014 Bridge School Benefit on 10/25/14. They delivered an acoustic-styled rendition and it was great as everyone was glad to listen to it.
Here is the footage of Vedder and Cornell singing ‘Hunger Strike’ together for the first time.
