CHRIS CORNELL: JIMI HENDRIX Wouldn't Get Played On Radio Today

According to The Pulse Of Radio, SOUNDGARDEN singer Chris Cornell has taken a dig at the state of rock radio today in a new interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, saying that mainstream music has become too conservative. He explained, "Think about Jimi Hendrix's 'Smash Hits'. This is an album by Jimi Hendrix and it's even called 'Smash Hits'. But if it came out today it wouldn't be played on the radio. That's weird to me. It's odd that an album that came out in 1967 would be too strange for radio play in 2011."

Cornell added, "Radio and TV can still push a band, but things need to be shaken up. There is the Internet, but mostly what I see there is little kids on YouTube playing music. They're great at what they do, but they're little kids. It needs to go beyond YouTube for a real shake-up to happen."

Although the music business has gone through a lot of changes and downsizing during the years that SOUNDGARDEN was away, Cornell told The Pulse Of Radio that the band is excited about coming back now. "The business of music as we know it is gone, and what it can be is sort of whatever you make it, and the rules change every day," he said. "There pretty much aren't any, and that's an exciting feeling too, because that was the feeling we had in the beginning as an indie band. It was kind of like, 'Well, we can sort of write this book any way we want,' and that always worked for us. And that's kind of where we're at now."

Rock radio has not been unkind to SOUNDGARDEN since the band reunited last year. The previously unreleased track "Black Rain", issued as part of last fall's "Telephantasm" retrospective set, rocketed into the Top 5.

SOUNDGARDEN has been working on its first new album in 15 years, which the band expects to release in early 2012.

SOUNDGARDEN is in the midst of its first full-length tour since 1997 and plays in Chicago on Saturday (July 16),wrapping up on July 30 in the Seattle area.