“Chris Cornell’s death makes no sense,” says System of a Down Star

Serj Tankian, the lead singer of the band System of a Down, said that Chris Cornell's death still “doesn't make sense.”

Cornell, the voice behind grunge pioneer Soundgarden, died on May 18, 2017, hours after the band's performance in Detroit. The Seattle native was 52 years old. The band's lead singer's body was found on the bathroom floor at the MGM Grand Detroit Hotel. The official cause of death was suicide by hanging.

The singer, who also fronted the supergroup Audioslave, was known for his menacing lyrics coupled with the bravado of his legendary four-octave voice.

During an interview for the YouTube channel Mythical Kitchen, Tankian spoke about the people in his life who died by suicide, including Cornell. The station's host, Josh Scherer, asked the singer if he had managed to make sense of the senseless.

Newsweek emailed a spokesman for Tankian on Tuesday seeking comment.

“I think when you feel hopeless, I think hopelessness is the most dangerous thing for a person, you know? And when you feel hopeless, you see the doors closing. “You don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he explained.

“That's the most dangerous thing we talk about and, you know, experiencing it with Chris Cornell, who's also a dear friend. And I had only seen him months before, and he had a lot of dreams, you know?”

Tankian said he spoke with Cornel in the lead-up to his death about his tour with Soundgarden and his solo acoustic material. He had encouraged his friend to sing with an orchestra and even offered to help with the string arrangements.

The lead singer said he told Cornell he would “love to help” because he wanted to hear his voice with an orchestra.

“We talked about it, he had a covers album in mind. “He had a lot of plans, which is why I can't understand that, can I?” Tankian continued.

“When you have a lot of plans, you don't just ruin them in one day. Correct? It doesn't make any sense. Despite it.”

Founded in 1984 by Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil and bassist Hiro Yamamoto, Soundgarden was the third best-known band to emerge from Seattle's grunge scene, after Nirvana and Pearl Jam. His 1994 album, Super unknownreached No. 1 on the Billboard charts, won a Grammy Award and was certified six times platinum.

Cornell's breakthrough came in 1991 when he formed a one-off band called Temple of the Dog with then-unknown members of Pearl Jam. The band was formed as a tribute to Cornell's late friend and Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood, who died of a heroin overdose.

Soundgarden disbanded in 1997 – before reuniting in 2010 – and in 2001, Cornell formed Audioslave and recruited Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello as a collaborator. Audioslave had moderate success, but never came close to the influence that either of these two bands had in the '90s.

Cornell struggled with depression and drug problems from a young age. In 1994 he said Rolling Stone He was “a daily drug user by the age of 13,” but had stopped the following year. He was also a “pioneer,” as he once said The Guardianwhen using the opiate OxyContin.