Chris Cornell’s brother Pete pays tribute: ‘He was a warrior and a wizard’

"It wasn't until this week [that] it really hit me how he belonged to the world."

Chris Cornell‘s brother, Pete, has shared a heartfelt statement about the late Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman.

Chris Cornell was found dead in his hotel room earlier this month (May 17). He was 52. While Cornell’s death is being treated as a suicide, his family have claimed that prescription drugs may have contributed towards him taking his own life.

“My heart is broken,” Pete Cornell wrote on Facebook. “Chris was always just my brother. We just “were”. No pretense. No dog and pony show. We didn’t have to get deep all the time. Sometimes we only needed to just be in the same room and just be present. That was enough.”

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He continued: “It wasn’t until this week, it really hit me how he belonged to the world. That he is an icon and a legend. That being said, I am so sorry to YOU for your loss. Artists, actors, musicians. We rely on these people to lift us up. To inspire us and distract us in times of trouble. Chris protected us when we needed him to. His one of a kind-ness surrounded us like a suit of armor. He was a warrior and a wizard. A howling wolf and a trusted mentor.”

“My brother gave freely of his gifts and it was never a struggle,” Pete Cornell added. “He kept himself from the saturation of celebrity in such a humble way. The power and anger and passion of my brother’s music was always genuine, original and legitimate. He was the powerful, sensitive, fragile, angry, mystical creature that will exist forever in his body of work. And he did it for ALL of us. Giving it away. Leaving all on the stage or in the recordings that will keep him immortal.”

Meanwhile, Trent Reznor has admitted he regrets criticising one of Chris Cornell’s solo albums.

The late musician’s Audioslave bandmate Tom Morello has said Cornell was “shining” the last time they saw each other, which was at the band’s anti-Trump reunion gig in January.

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