Chris Cornell Quotes

Just with the basic one guitar, one piano and one vocal and an audience, I think that the intimacy comes through more. People feel much more connected to the song because there's nothing in the way, and I actually enjoy doing that.

When I write, I'm sort of old-fashioned in the sense that I like to write something that I feel I could just perform alone, obviously, because I do that a lot in concert.

Folk is bare bones music.

What I love is when I play gigs, it's just me and a guitar - very simple, very direct and intimate, and you hear every lyric, and you hear every detail.

I'm very much of that old-school mentality of believing that if it works with an acoustic guitar and a vocal, then it should work within any format - and especially when most of my live work is just guitar and vocals, so it really does have to work with only that.

I liked being in a smaller theater. I love doing shows of all sizes, but sometimes it's nice to be in a smaller space and to strip away some of the music so that you can be a little less than larger-than-life; you can be a little more naturalistic.

Well, yeah, I wanted to resist the urge to thicken everything up with instrumentation, because I just felt like I was interested in seeing how the songs did on their own.

It was really fun. Well, Bobby was just basically a folk singer. He didn't play with any bands or anything, like all the rest of us. Just played his guitar and sang his songs.

Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

I feel really comfortable when it's just me and a guitar. It's special and more vulnerable to strip it down. It can be scary, but it's also empowering.

I was definitely drawn to the mythology of one man, one voice, and one guitar.

I don't like a lot of monitors on stage. I like the real raw sound of the open piano.

The less people present in an urgent situation that a moderately high stakes recording session can create - the less people there are in the room - the more openness there can be. These songs share that as well, in addition to just the obvious, basic starkness.

I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no's force me to the yes. I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us.

I still believe in the old-school show thing no frills, no fancy equipment just a guitar and some amps and some drums, and throw it out there and do it the best you can in a live sense, because it's easy to make records. But the live show is where you really show if you've got the balls to do it.

Simplicity is not the absence of clutter.

Obviously I still gig on my own, but I've always heard my music with a band.

I really like the idea of banality and repetition being used to generate the image, which are simple and unobstructed and not captivated by composition.

Our clothing, our food, our household furnishings - all could be much simpler than they now are and at the same time be better looking

I try to play the bare essence, to let everything be just what it's supposed to be.

I still play solo shows. And some of those shows are still some of the best, most gratifying shows.

My goal is to omit everything superfluous so that the essential is shown to best possible advantage.

Sometimes, if a song is written, in essence, to be that stripped down, it's very touchy when you start adding things, because even the smallest thing can have a huge impact. Somebody has to make the decision that there's a better song in there if there's less.

Living simply makes loving simple.