Alternative Nation shared a part of the letter penned by Tom Morello for the Chris Cornell retrospective album, in which the guitarist discussed the formation of Audioslave back in 2001.

The piece reads:

“And so Audioslave was born. Songs came quickly. The riffs were huge but the music had nuances and melodic twists and turns not found in our previous bands.

“We went in the studio with Rick Rubin and suspected we had something very special.

“The first single was ‘Cochise,’ a relentless barnburner that announced in no uncertain terms our arrival. Chris’ voice was feral. The video was insane.

“The entire performance, lit only by fireworks, was shot high atop a trestle platform in the San Fernando Valley. Neighbors called the cops suspecting a terrorist attack. Fans suspected we were back with a vengeance.”

You can watch the video below:

As reported, Tom also discussed the band’s initial search for the singer, writing in the same letter:

“In the aftermath of the breakup of Rage Against the Machine in 2000, Tim Commerford, Brad Wilk and I spent a lot of time over at Rick Rubin’s house scheming about what we wanted to do next.

“We listened to and discussed and debated the relative merits of dozens of singers and rappers over the course of a few months. We had been in a world-crushing band and wanted to continue to crush the world. No easy task.

“And then Rick cranked up ‘Slaves and Bulldozers’ by Soundgarden. Chris Cornell’s voice was haunting, beautiful, terrifying. We all looked at each other and unanimously exclaimed, ‘That’s the FUCKING GUY!’

“We had been huge fans of Soundgarden and their drop D riffle was very influential on RATM, but Chris’ VOICE was otherworldly.”