photo by Sean Smith

What were some key moments for you from that timeperiod?

Thorn: The first gigs- Yahoo music, and Las Vegas on Freemont Street with Army Of Anyone – we were just getting going and it was so exciting. Heading over to Europe in May/June to do all the big rock festivals there, playing Hyde Park on June 24th (my birthday) with Aerosmith. South America in the fall of 2007, those were some of the best shows we did. Touring with Linkin Park for two months in 2008, that tour was like summer camp, so fun, Chester would sing “Hunger Strike” with us every night. The Wiltern gig in LA in May 2009 and jetting off right after the show to do Letterman the next day. Europe in 2009, we’d really become a band – we played and interacted like a band by then, it was second nature. Even though we were sidemen.

Lonich: I really enjoyed when Chris would tutor us on the tunings and guitar fingerings for some of his songs. He had an unorthodox style of guitar playing. He mainly played with his index and middle fingers, so he would come up with odd tunings that would accommodate his style of playing. He would sit down on the drum riser, grab a guitar and proceed to tune it in a way we’ve never heard before. I have several videos of his demonstrations. After watching him play songs, it made so much more sense. Chris would also take these moments to share stories of his life.

Another stand out moment was when we played Webster Hall in New York City and gave the audience a surprise during the encore. I was chatting with Pete that I wanted to shave my head. Pete had the brilliant idea of asking Chris to cut it on stage. At soundcheck, I asked Chris and without hesitation, he replied “sure”. We decided on doing the shaving during the encore which would ne during the song “Reach Down”. After soundcheck I had to find a beauty salon to buy an electric razor. Our guitar tech Dave Lapham was made aware of the stunt and procured an extension cord and bar stool for the night. I thought Chris would shave my head down in a couple minutes, but he would end up shaving my head for almost 10 minutes. Chris was an artist with my hair. The cut was to happen during my guitar solo and ended up sounding like howls and groans from my guitar. It was cathartic.

Sutter: Every show was an “event”! I do remember our first real gig was a KROQ radio morning show, super early in LA (on youtube) We played five or six tunes and by the time we walked out we were a band! Our next gig, first in front of an audience in LA, was on a movie lot. I remember Chris pulling us together before we walked on stage. No artist has ever done this before and he said ” I spent a lot of time finding all of you and we’re together for a reason. There are no mistakes or wrong notes from now on just music, don’t ever think twice if you feel something and don’t have any second thoughts. Just make music and let’s have a blast.” It was the most inspiring moment I’ve had with a boss before or since. We were all young guns ready to reach for the stars and Chris had just given us full reign to spread our wings and fly and we definitely did! We basically blew every band away at every festival and the side stage was always filled with a who’s who watching on (Brian May, Jimmy Paige, Billy Corgan etc). Chris would ask us to learn usually a few songs a week on the road and we would rehearse them at soundcheck. We would be responsible to be ready to play them at any time once we had learned them.

I remember once in Boston early on, in the first promo tour of the US, we were asked to learn Soundgarden’s “Slaves and Bulldozers” for soundcheck and after the guitar solo there was space and I just started to do a drum solo as a joke and Chris waved me on to keep going and then we all came back in with a chorus and it was insane. In the dressing room Chris said we would close with that including an extended drum solo with a breakdown, after that I would cue everyone back in. It was a show stopper and we closed with it for the first two years! By the summer I had three drum solos a night and the shows where reaching three hours as Chris would do an acoustic set in the middle. By the end of the tour we had learned over 80 songs that we had to be ready to play on a moment’s notice and often did!! Chris confessed he loved drum solos as a kid and when Soundgarden and Audioslave were playing, drum solos weren’t cool and now they were, so we just went for it. If you watch YouTube of the solos Chris never left the stage and often interacted with me as he loved them. I made it a point to change them up for him as I really was playing them for him every night. He would smile ear to ear when I tried something new. I still have a few tour front bass drum heads that have hash marks from his mic when he would join in with me.

One other fun memory is when we were doing pre-production for the Scream record he wanted to do a week before the band came in with just me a pro tools engineer and himself so he could acclimate to the new tracks and “beats”. After a few hours on one of the days, he suggested we grab lunch and we were in North Hollywood where I lived so I recommended a cool fresh Mexican secret place in a strip mall. This place is tiny, and has about eight tables. We walk in around 1pm and the only occupied table is Dave Grohl with his wife and daughter. Of course, Dave got up and gave Chris a hug and we sat across the restaurant from each other and I just remember thinking “Here I am with two legends of an era and I’m eating with them”!! Again, a wonderful memory and testament to what real and genuine humans these guys are aside from their superhuman musical powers.

McCormick: Meeting Jimmy Page backstage in London at our soundcheck, meeting Brian May in Hyde park. Playing in South America in front of the most incredible crowds I’ve ever been in front of. Mostly I think about the times (which were few) where Chris and I got to hang. He was such a sweet, encouraging guy. He never made me feel less than, he always picked me up. And the last time I saw him, at one of the last Bridge School Benefits, I was just sharing my gratitude for the times we had playing together and he grabbed my shoulder and looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t worry man, we’ll do it again”.