Childhood and Early Life
Cornell was born and raised in Seattle, Washington and attended Christ the King, Catholic elementary school and Shorewood High School. His parents are Ed Boyle (a pharmacist from an Irish Catholic background) and Karen Cornell (an accountant from a Jewish background). He has five siblings: older brothers Peter and Patrick, and younger sisters Katy, Suzy, and Maggie. Peter, Katy and Suzy all performed in the band Inflatable Soule in the 1990s. Peter is currently the frontman for the New York-based rock band Black Market Radio. Katy performs as lead vocalist for the Seattle band Happy Hour Hero.
Cornell spent a two-year period between the ages of nine and eleven solidly listening to The Beatles after finding a large collection of Beatles records abandoned in the basement of a neighbor's house. Cornell was a loner; however, he was able to deal with his anxiety around other people through rock music. Before becoming a successful musician, he worked at a seafood wholesaler and was a sous-chef at a restaurant named Ray's Boathouse.
In the early 1980s, Cornell was a member of a cover band called The Shemps that performed around Seattle. The Shemps also featured bassist Hiro Yamamoto. Following Yamamoto's departure from The Shemps, the band recruited guitarist Kim Thayil as its new bassist. Cornell and Yamamoto stayed in contact, and after The Shemps broke up Cornell and Yamamoto started jamming together, eventually bringing in Thayil to join them.
Read more about this topic: Chris Cornell: Unplugged In Sweden
Famous quotes containing the words early life, childhood and, childhood, early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“... a country encapsulates our childhood and those lanes, byres, fields, flowers, insects, suns, moons and stars are forever reoccurring.”
—Edna O’Brien (b. c. 1932)
“She that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers’ touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)