You can't always make out the words I sing with Soundgarden.

'Superunknown,' maybe more than most albums, didn't reveal itself to be what it was until the very end - literally until we were three quarters of the way through mixing it.

When you have four guys in a room writing songs, it different. It's great - that's what makes a band a band. Audioslave was great.

I felt very proud to be part of a music scene that was changing the face of commercial music and rock music internationally, but I also felt like it was necessary for Soundgarden - as it was for all of these Seattle bands - to prove that we deserve to be on an international stage, and we weren't just part of a fad that was based on geography.

To me, R&B means Aretha Franklin, who is otherworldly.

For years, I wasn't feeling good about myself. My head wasn't clear. I was doing nothing productive.

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.

Children should always feel like the adults are living in this world to nurture them, to take care of them, to protect them from any bad thing that might come.

I can go from one extreme to another, from playing at the Sydney Opera House on the Songbook tour to shows with Soundgarden at Voodoo Fest, all in a week.

I prefer not to use any machines. I focus a lot on cardio, which is what I do when I'm on stage. I also am into isometric workouts.

There's sadness to anyone that dies before their time, and specifically ones that seem to affect people in a positive way. It doesn't matter if it's Whitney Houston or a nameless, faceless person on the street. That's just as big of a tragedy for me.

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.

It's about trying to step out of being patterned and closed off and reclusive, which I've always had a problem with. It's about attempting to be normal and just go out and be around other people and hang out. I have a tendency to sometimes be pretty closed off and not see people for long periods of time and not call anyone.

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.

Music is supposed to be inspired.

When I started writing songs for Temple of the Dog, I went to my room with my acoustic guitar, and I was happy staying in that mode. It was more chordal based and more lyric driven. I enjoyed not making riff-based songs built around a guitar idea.

When all of a sudden you're successful and sought after overnight, you are instantly opened to a lot of sides of humanity that the average person is never going to see. And those can often be pretty disheartening, and it can make somebody pretty lonely.

Once you sit in front of people and start playing songs, it's all on you. No matter what happens, it's entirely your responsibility the entire time. I like that intensity.

When you're young, playing drums is immediately satisfying 'cause whether or not you know how to play anything, the bottom line is that you're pounding on something, so you're happy about it.

I got in touch with the creative process between the age of 14 and 16, mainly because I was alone so much.

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.

I wasn't good in school. I didn't do sports. I sat in the bedroom and listened to records. Because the Beatles did whatever they wanted to, I took that as a kid and said, 'That's what rock is.'

The sense of anger I had when I was younger is something I thought would never go away. Over time, it's something you get almost bored with.

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