At heart, I’m a 90’s baby. I love everything about that decade. I love the movies, fashion, and especially the music. Seattle was home to the greatest musicians of the 1990’s. Grunge music was everywhere and people couldn’t get enough of it. Arguably the five most influential bands to come out of that era were Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, and Alice In Chains. These bands basically created this new genre of music called Grunge and out of all of their lead singers, Eddie Vedder, from Pearl Jam, is the only one still alive.

On May 18th, 2017 the music world lost one of the greatest talents it had ever seen. Following a concert in Detroit earlier that night, lead singer of Soundgarden, Chris Cornell, was found dead in his hotel room. He was only 52 years old. Throughout his life, Cornell suffered from depression and substance abuse problems like many other musicians that came out of his era. He had been in and out of rehab multiple times in the early 2000’s. But in 2005 he quit drinking and smoking altogether. After Kurt Cobain, Chris is the second singer-songwriter of a 90’s grunge band to commit suicide. Andrew Wood (Mother Love Bone) and Lane Staley (Alice In Chains) both overdosed. Cobain, Cornell, Wood, and Staley all had serious drug addiction dependencies.

If I had a chance to talk to Chris Cornell, or if he could somehow read my writing, I’d want him to hear this:

Chris, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and from the hearts of every other person who you positively influenced throughout your life. Thank you for your music, it has helped me through struggles in my life more than I can bare to put into words. Thank you for being open about your struggles, too. Millions of people around the world suffer from depressive disorders, and you were honest about yours. Thank you for making me fall in love with Seattle and its music. Thank you for being truthful about your dependency on drugs and alcohol, and for teaching people it’s never too late to get help. That getting clean is possible, and that it’s not only important to keep your body healthy, but your mind too. It saddens me deeply that something in your life was driving you to feel like you were better off not living anymore. Life is hard, and it can really suck sometimes, but I’m thankful for what you were able to accomplish in yours, however long or short it might have been. Rest in peace, you will always be one of my favorite musicians, alive or not.