TOM MORELLO Says CHRIS CORNELL Didn't Exhibit Any Warning Signs Prior To Suicide

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE and PROPHETS OF RAGE guitarist Tom Morello was recently interviewed on the "Wall Of Sound: Up Against The Wall" podcast. You can now listen to the chat using the Audioboom widget below.

Asked if last year's suicide of his onetime AUDIOSLAVE bandmate Chris Cornell has made him more aware of the "warning signs" to look for in fellow musicians, Morello said: "Well, there were no warning signs with Chris; it was such a surprise. The one thing that we just have to all be conscious of, whether it's musicians or not, is just to look out for each other and check in to see how people are doing. But that was such a tragedy. We love that guy and I miss him so much, and I'm just glad that I was able to be in a band with him."

He continued: "I'm actually in my den right now and I'm looking at the AUDIOSLAVE records, and it's so amazing to have been in a band with one of the greatest rock voices of all time. He was a really good dude, and I'm just so happy that we got to play together one last time in January of 2017, where we played at the 'Anti-Inaugural Ball'. AUDIOSLAVE hadn't played in 12 years and we did three songs and it was pretty awesome. So I'm glad that we had that."

While admitting that he also has moments when he is down and out, Tom said that he has "been fortunate to never suffer from clinical depression or addiction issues, which are two things that plague the world and the musician community especially. For me, I've always had a pretty good grounding in close family and friends and the people that I hang out with couldn't care less that I'm in a band at all and I can't even get 'em to come to shows [laughs], and I've got little kids too, who also couldn't care less and never wanna come to shows," he explained. "So, for me, there's a real healthy grounding in family and staying away from some of the trappings that go along with the music business."

Morello last year revealed the existence of unreleased AUDIOSLAVE music from the sessions for the three studio albums the band released. But he told The Pulse Of Radio that at this point he doesn't know what will happen with it. "You know, we recorded music for AUDIOSLAVE records, and then we recorded more songs than made those records, and I'm certain at some point it will come out but there's no plans for it," he said. "We had talked about it when, you know, Chris was alive and we thought at some point there will be the right time to put it out. Now I don't know that there's ever a right time to put it out, but there's no reason that it shouldn't come out at some point."

Morello, AUDIOSLAVE bassist Tim Commerford and AUDIOSLAVE drummer Brad Wilk — who were also bandmates in RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE — are now in PROPHETS OF RAGE, who released their debut LP in September.

Cornell recorded three studio efforts and one live album with AUDIOSLAVE from 2002 to 2007 before leaving the group.