Kim Thayil Insists Chris Cornell Wasn't Acting Strangely Before Death

As someone who knew Chris Cornell for over 30 years, Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil insists the singer seemed completely normal prior to his death.

But Thayil says he understands why people have spent the last year-and-a-half looking for answers as to why someone as overwhelmingly talented and beloved as Cornell would take his own life. 

Thayil told Billboard in a new interview what he remembered of Cornell's final performance. 

"I remember Chris had just gotten in [to town] and was a little tired and his voice was a little rough, but by about the fourth or fifth song, it kicked in and then it was just, like, super amazing," the guitarist recalled.

"People speculate, and they get causality in reverse. I guess it's natural to try to fill in the blanks to explain a particular mystery. I think it's natural to say that 'We known something terrible happened, so we know there must have been some sort of problem. Let's see what that problem might be."

In the same interview, Thayil described his prolonged period of grief following Cornell's passing. He credited MC5's Wayne Kramer with helping him get through the worst of it.

"My jaw dropped," Thayil said regarding Kramer's invitation to join his MC50th tour. "I thought two things: 'Am I ready to come out of the fetal position?' And then, 'How could I be any more ready than this opportunity to play with what I consider to be my favorite band?' So I made myself ready. It was like, 'Fix your head. This is the one!'"

Cornell's wife, Vicky, believes her husband's suicide was brought on by side-effects from his anti-anxiety medication and painkillers he was taking to help him sleep through chronic shoulder pain.

Vicky says was prescribed benzodiazepine, a tranquilizer, which she has learned is dangerous for people in recovery from substance abuse. 

The prescription caused Cornell to relapse, she said, and kicked off a downward spiral for the late-singer. "In a seven day period, he took twenty-something pills and in a nine-day period - thirty-three," she told Good Morning America earlier this year. 

Photo: Getty Images