Chris Cornell reflects on Soundgarden, the Beatles and why he loves/hates the Internet

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As the world waits patiently for Soundgarden's imminent return to the stage after fading away in 1997, frontman and grunge-era poster boy Chris Cornell comes to town toting nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a songbook covering his entire career. That means old-school Soundgarden jams and solo material, and probably even a song or two by Audioslave that other band he was in for a minute are on the set list. You might hear a few Beatles covers as well. William Elliot Whitmore also performs. Tonight. $30-$35 Sold out. Center Stage. 1374 West Peachtree St. 404-885-1365.

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Chad Radford: On your current tour, you’re playing acoustic versions of songs that cover your entire career. It seems to me like you’re in a reflective mood.

Chris Cornell: It’s an interesting thing because on the one hand the show can be a combination of anything I’ve ever done, and it can go really far back. But also, I’ve never done anything like this as a tour before so it feels very fresh and new to me. The first show I ever did like this was in Seattle in the late ‘80s and I really liked it, but I never went back. I did some acoustic songs here and there — a song called “Seasons” for the Singles soundtrack, and an acoustic version of “Suicide” for another movie soundtrack — but I’ve never done it like this. So as a career retrospective it does look all the way back, but as a tour it feels very new.

Is it difficult to play these songs with just you and a guitar on stage? There’s no team to pick up the slack.

I haven’t done it night after night, but the very first time I sat down in Stockholm and committed to doing a whole show like this, I felt like ‘is it possible for me to entertain a room full of people with just me and a guitar? Entertain a room full of people for over an hour? 'That was a threshold that I had to step over and once I did that it was a great experience, and it led me to want to do it. That was a few years ago.