I don't get in there and create a character. It's more of a voice that I hear living inside the music.

I think that sometimes almost the bigger tragedy in a weird way is all of the future imagined creative projects that could have happened that didn't. I feel the same way about lots of brilliant people who die young, kind of senselessly especially.

I don't ever want something that I didn't do because I was afraid of it or I didn't think I'd be good at it - within reason. Obviously I'm never going to be able to play the trumpet.

I don't think there are too many rock bands in history that can look at the beginning and middle and ending of themselves and see what I see when I think of Soundgarden. I think from the beginning through the middle and the end it was such a perfect ride and such a perfect legacy to leave.

I don't get in there and create a character. It's more of a voice that I hear living inside the music.

I started as a drummer, so I sort of took on singing duties by default. I had sung backgrounds and some lead vocals from behind the drums in different bands that I'd been in, and I'd gotten great responses for the songs I would sing. I really started pursuing the possibility of being a lead singer based on the fact that I was working a full-time restaurant job and then playing gigs at night, hauling drums around. One day, it just dawned on me that, 'Hey, I could be in a band and be the singer, and it would be a lot easier!'

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