Home News Classic Rock News Cameron Crowe remembers Chris Cornell on 25th anniversary of “Singles”

Cameron Crowe remembers Chris Cornell on 25th anniversary of “Singles”

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ABC/Randy HolmesThe film Singles was released in theaters September 18, 1992: 25 years ago today. Set in Seattle during the grunge era, the movie featured music from Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and the late Chris Cornell.

In a piece for Rolling Stone in honor of the anniversary, director Cameron Crowe remembers what it was like to work with Cornell, who died by suicide earlier this year.

“Chris Cornell was somebody who I just thought, ‘This guy belongs in the movie,'” Crowe writes. “I loved Soundgarden — they were the greatest live show I’d seen. I had real strong feelings about Soundgarden and about Chris with this huge heart of his.”

“He was accepting Eddie [Vedder] into Seattle and he was helping me know what it was to live here, at this time and this place — that feeling of, this guy really matters to this city,” Crowe adds.

In fact, Crowe originally wanted Cornell to play the role of Cliff Poncier, the dopey lead singer of the fictional band Citizen D**k. Instead, the role went to Matt Dillon, but Cornell still made a cameo in the movie as himself.

“I thought, maybe we can have the best of all worlds,” Crowe writes. “Chris can be a character who plays, and we don’t have to make him play a wannabe musician. We can just have him be Chris.”

Cornell and Crowe would continue to work together up until the Soundgarden frontman took his own life this past May.

“For any of us lucky enough to know him or experience his gift, there’s no past tense,” Crowe says of Cornell. “He’s that vivid of a guy. I can’t talk about him in the past. I talk about him in the present and I always will.”

A deluxe version of the Singles soundtrack was released earlier this year.

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