CHRIS CORNELL

The focus on my wife and my children, it really helps me make sense of the music side of it somehow.

My first favorite band that made music important to me was the Beatles. I was a little kid. I didn't know who was singing what song or who wrote what song.

I've had a long career and I want to continue to have a long career. The way to do that is not to go away.

There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process.

If I'm going to go out to be a solo artist, it's because I want to do something different without having to wait on someone else's schedule or hobbies or be limited by other people's prejudices. I'd be kind of stupid not to exercise that.

I think that one of the main privileges of what I do, which I am just starting to learn, is to have the ability to travel all over the world and experience different cultures.

An acoustic show is all about you, and any little nuance or mistake is amplified.

At the end of the day it's the fans who make you who you are.

I think the concept of commercials, for example, I have had offers to do songs in different commercials, and it is not what I have liked.

What's important is to get into shape and then not to have to worry about it. I don't want to get on stage and not being able to do something. Not being physically fit doesn't work for me.

I have a hard time narrowing things down to ten or 12 songs. If I walk off stage in anything less than two hours, it just feels strange. It feels early.

I play Texas Hold'em on my Blackberry. I have amassed a fortune on that. I have almost 30 million dollars from playing. It is unreal.

To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.

Radio and TV can still push a band, but things need to be shaken up. There is the Internet, but mostly what I see there is little kids on YouTube playing music.

When you start your first band and it has an impact on the rest of the world you go through a lot with those guys and you become very protective of that legacy.

I had to teach myself to let go of the conventional rock way of playing guitar and singing. Some things you wouldn't expect to work, did and some things won't ever work.

A true musician, like Johnny Cash, should be able to walk into a room with nothing but an instrument and capture people's attention for two hours.

In the United States, workouts tend to focus on body image and how you look. For me, it's really all about the brain.

What do you think Jesus would twitter, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone' or 'Has anyone seen Judas? He was here a minute ago.'

There wasn't a key moment when I knew I wanted to quit.

I was going to be a musician, no matter what it took. I supported myself with blue-collared jobs so I could write music and be in a band and play shows. I even got into an underground art scene. I was going to do whatever.

There's a lot of music that I don't like.

I actually think to some degree that people are down for longer shows with an acoustic show.

'The Beatles' did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minimalist aggressive rock.

It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.