Christopher Cornell was born on July 20, 1964 and is a guitarist/singer-songwriter most well-known for being the lead singer of Soundgarden, of which he was a member from their formation in 1984 until they disbanded in 1997. He began his musical career as a drummer, before moving on to become a singer and guitarist. He is currently the lead singer of Audioslave.

Cornell was born in Seattle, Washington and lived there in his childhood. His Irish Catholic parents are Ed Boyle (a Pharmacist) and Karen Cornell (an Accountant). Chris's last name used to be Boyle, but after his parents divorced he and his siblings took his mother's maiden name. Chris suffered from a severe case of depression during his teenage years, leaving the house rarely. At one point, Cornell spent a whole year without leaving his house, during which time he would play drums and guitar.

While in Soundgarden, Cornell also recorded an album with members of Pearl Jam as Temple Of The Dog, in tribute to his friend and former roommate Andrew Wood, who had died of a heroin overdose. He also worked as a producer on the album Uncle Anesthesia by the band the Screaming Trees and featured as an actor in both a cameo role and an onstage performance in director Cameron Crowe's Seattle-based film Singles.

Cornell himself gained nearly as much fame as Soundgarden during this time, chiefly due to his exceptional singing abilities. Cornell's range is known for being well utilised. Indeed, his ability to "belt" a note, almost screaming it is also well utilised, giving his Baritonal range an often much louder, or "higher" sound than is actually tonally present. This is shown to much effect on Badmotorfinger's "Jesus Christ Pose".

In late 1994 after touring in support of the album Superunknown, doctors discovered that Cornell had severely strained his vocal chords. Under medical directive, Soundagarden had to cancel several shows to avoid permanent damage to Cornell's vocal chords.

After Soundgarden split up, Cornell collaborated with Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider of the band Eleven and released a solo album entitled Euphoria Morning in 1999. Although critically hailed, the album proved commercially unsuccessful despite the album's single "Can't Change Me" being nominated for "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" at the 2000 Grammy Awards. With Euphoria Morning, Chris also contributed the song "Sunshower" (a bonus track on the Japanese release of the CD) to the soundtrack of Great Expectations, as well as a reworked version of the track "Mission" to the film Mission: Impossible II soundtrack, retitled "Mission 2000". Also, Euphoria Morning includes Chris' tribute to friend and fellow musician Jeff Buckley entitled Wave Goodbye. Cornell and Buckley met during the mid-1990's and became fast friends, and were mutual admirers of each others' work. It has been noted that Euphoria Morning is very much influenced by Buckley's songwriting and distinctive vocal style. Buckley accidentally drowned in the Wolf River in Memphis in 1997.

Chris is currently the vocalist in the critically successful alternative rock quartet Audioslave, backed up by the former members and instrumentalists of Rage Against The Machine, Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk. Audioslave's self-titled debut album spawned hits such as "Like a Stone" and "Cochise".

Audioslave's latest album, "Out of Exile", was released on May 24, 2005, and debuted at #1 on the U.S. charts. The album features the singles, "Be Yourself", "Your Time Has Come" and "Doesn't Remind Me".