Our songs would be a lot more like Rage Against The Machine if it weren’t for the fact that we have this guy who is so different than (Rage vocalist Zack De La Rocha). Where we might be riff rocking and throwing hooks together, Chris is singing this beautiful melody that links it together with a slippery glue over the top of something that’s really elemental. It’s different because Rage had one key and one gear. We played in E, B or F sharp. That’s it. That’s all we ever did. We just tried really hard to rock people with intense songs that would make people jump. With Audioslave we’re realizing that there are other ways of rocking and that you can bring it down to a mellow song and people sing along. They may not jump in unison, but they sing in unison and it’s just as powerful. We’ve never experienced that. We’ve heard people rap; we’ve heard people screaming out the words, but never people singing. There’s been more than a few times when the crowd is as loud as the P.A. One time, I was like, “What’s that effect that our soundman is using? What is that? Get it off!� and it was the crowd singing along.
Tim Commerford

It’s exciting. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel. It’s not as much luck as I actually felt like it was when Rage Against The Machine was on top of the world. I was like, “God, I’m a lucky guy.� I kind of felt like I hung out and grew up with the right people at the right time and went to the right schools and it all worked out. Now I feel like there’s something else going on (laughs). There’s definitely a work ethic that the three of us: me, Tom (guitar) and Brad (drums) have. Chris Cornell just jumped right into it and assumed the same ethic. Whenever we get together, we get work done. We’ve got a tour scheduled for a year and it’s no joke. I feel really comfortable that we’ll make a really great second album that’ll be even better than the first record because we’re a better band now. We’ve played more and we’ve been on more tours. We’re just better. I don’t feel the power of being 54 years old, turning on the radio and hearing “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me� (from Rage’s debut). I don’t think it’s going down like that. I could be wrong and I know there will always be fans of that, but I think my chances are a lot better with Audioslave. I just believe in a bigger audience for Audioslave and I’m really excited to look out in the audience and it’s a bunch of young kids who are digging it, too. It’s a whole bunch of different age groups that get off on it. I feel like right now I’m in a better spot than I’ve been in my whole career.
Tim Commerford

He’s an incredible guy. It was Rick’s idea for us to jam with Chris Cornell and he was involved in every decision. I can’t say enough about Rick Rubin. One thing that people don’t realize is that he doesn’t wash his beard and that he keeps a lot of treasures in there. If you know him close enough, he’ll actually allow you into his beard to pull things out. If you’re that lucky, then you’re assured that you’ll have a hit because there’s more than one hit in his beard. He let us all go in there a few times and just hang out and we came out of there with a bunch of hits.
Tim Commerford

Our record company wanted us to do a greatest hits album. Well, we thought it would be really funny to put out an album and call it B-sides instead of A-sides. We were never a band who tried to produce hit singles. I don't even think we've got something like 12 top-20 singles. That's one of the reasons why we all think the compilation should consist of rare recordings.
Chris Cornell

The Seattle scene came from out of nowhere and replaced the commercial hard rock of the '80s. A couple of years later we got replaced and almost everybody in America thought that electronic music is the future of music, but it didn't happen.
Chris Cornell

It took some while getting used to it; that much is clear. Suddenly, being in an environment where you can do anything you want is something that I've never really done before, especially not on a whole album, and that's appealing. It's great being in a band, but it's also great to wake up one morning and have a crazy idea and know that you can do it. That was really the whole point of not getting into another band or a situation where it's just another collaboration.
Chris Cornell