Hi,
I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.
Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has probably only increased over the last four or five years. It’s my major stress release, a way for me to either tap out of things completely, or process emotions I didn’t even know I had to deal with.
This weekend we tried the first ever live Flightless Bird, recording the podcast in a theatre of about 700 people in Seattle. It was fun, stressful, chaotic and hilarious. I got to meet a bunch of Webworm readers after (thanks for saying hi), and I like to think people walked out happy.
And I got to something that was just deeply special for me: I played a short two minute clip of an interview I’d done with my favourite musician, Chris Cornell.
Cornell was, of course, from Seattle — and the room fell silent as we watched a much younger me stutter and stammer his way through a question to my hero.
I’d done the interview a decade ago. I was still working for TV3 news and living in New Zealand, but had found myself in LA, working on the final stages of Tickled. I knew Cornell had an upcoming solo show back in New Zealand, so I’d reached out to the promoter to see if I could get an interview.
He said yes.
So on a Sunday morning, on his day off, Chris Cornell drove across town to my hotel and sat down for a 30 minute interview.
There was no promoter, no label people — just a musician driving out of their way to meet some idiot from a tiny TV station in tiny New Zealand. He had no need to — his upcoming show had already sold out. I’m not quite sure why he did it. But I’m glad he did.
I played a few minutes of that clip in Seattle, but I wanted to make the whole thing available for Webworm readers today. I’d found it last year — the unaired long edit — on a digibeta tape I’d saved in a box in New Zealand.
I paid some man called Barry $75 to digitize it, and here we are.
Look, I know it’s fairly niche — and it’s not like there are any giant revelations in our chat. But for me, it was one of the most special half hours of my life. And, perhaps, it’s taken on extra weight and importance for me considering Chris is no longer around. I don’t get to do this again.
Cornell had dealt with depression for most of his life and he didn’t hide it. He shared it loudly — songs like “Fell on Black Days”, “Black Hole Sun”, “The Day I Tried to Live” and a very pointed “Like Suicide”
He was found dead in his Detroit hotel room not long after wrapping a Soundgarden show in May of 2017. There had been this temptation to think this now elder-statesman of rock with a family and friends had become immune from the problems he’d sung about for so, so long — but when it comes to depression immunity isn’t really a thing.
On stage, after playing the short clip, I read an excerpt from a tribute written by music critic Frank Guan. It’s called “Reckoning With the Weight of Chris Cornell’s Lyrics”, and I choked up while reading it.
I never knew Chris, but I got to meet him briefly (a meeting I’m glad I finally get to share with you) — and years on, this all still fucking wrecks me:
Part of grieving is trying to reconcile the new fact of death with what one knew of a person’s life, and if the deceased often sang about demises, that hard process becomes a little less agonizing. You can evade the fact that Chris Cornell has just died by thinking that he was, in some way, according to his own words, already dead.
This kind of thinking has to happen, but it shouldn’t be the only way to read Cornell’s death. What made him a great vocalist and Soundgarden a great band wasn’t just technical accomplishment, though they certainly didn’t lack for that; greatness implies complexity, and Soundgarden’s greatness lay in its ability to convey not only bleakness and the will to death, but the dogged will to live that opposed it. Life isn’t death, but living and dying are, actually, the same process. Far from being a monument to despair and abjection, Soundgarden’s music plays out the struggle against them. Cornell was too honest to be merely sullen, and the voice with which he delivered his impressions, and the guitars and drums behind them, were too beautiful to simply amount to a document of doom. Heavy as death but dynamic as life, Soundgarden struck a balance between the two, and it was this realness that made their songs a resource for countless desperate individuals too smart to cheer up yet too strong to give in.
How many lives were pulled, even temporarily, out of the abyss by his words? Too many to count, and no doubt more will be with each passing day. It’s absolutely terrible that Chris Cornell is dead. There is no way around that. But can anyone whose songs keep saving people, even after his death, truly pass out of this world? “It doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t, either.”
I hope there are a few Soundgarden fans here on Webworm, or maybe some of his other bands like Temple of the Dog or Audioslave. Maybe you’re a ‘Euphoria Mourning’ person. Or maybe you just want to hear what a guy from Seattle sounds like.
The largely unedited conversation you’ll find at the top of this newsletter never went to air. You’re the first to see it (besides me, editor Dave Walker, and cameraperson Grant Findlay).
Thanks to all of you who came to the show in Seattle, by the way. Here is the episode:
I also wanted to share some photos taken by photographer Sydney Paulsen.
Our guests at this particular show were acid jazz band Real Don Music, a former Seattle homicide detective and true crime writer, and the man behind the Rain City Jacks — a “jackoff club” for men that’s been running for 20 years.
Their last meet saw 100 men all masturbating at the same time. “It’s really friendly. It’s oddly warm and friendly and communal and positive. And that’s what has kept me doing this for 20 years. It’s enormously gratifying. And it’s community,” is how the club’s manager Paul Rosenberg described it to us.
Me and Rob want to hit some more US cities later this year, and all things going well, hope to take it out beyond America someday.
Before I go, another update on Fake Seizure Guy
Last week I reported that an arrest had been made in this case. Just for some clarity, this news didn’t come from Victoria Police (despite their comms person telling me they’d keep me updated) — but from the latest victim.
After they provided their statement and some emails from police, I felt satisfied to publish.
When I first heard of the arrest last week, I’d asked Victoria police if they could confirm the details. They replied with an incredibly unhelpful, “Hi David! No update at this stage!”
So — I wrote my report about the arrest, then followed up with a more direct email specifying the charges that I knew had been laid.
It was only then that the Victoria police — for the first time since October last year — got back to me with some real information, revealing they have been deeply aware of this man and his behaviour for years.
This is what the Victoria police released to Webworm:
Attributable to a Victoria Police spokesperson:
Victoria Police has charged a man following a sexual assault in Port Melbourne.
Police allege the 43-year-old man sexually assaulted a 40-year-old male while on the Bay Trail at Sandridge Beach in Port Melbourne at about 6pm on Monday 3 February 2025.
The man, from Macedon, has been charged with sexual assault by compelling sexual touching and public nuisance.
He has been bailed to appear before the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 24 April 2025.
It’s alleged the man also committed the same offence the following day on a victim in Cairnlea and verbally-threatened a passer-by who attempted to intervene.
The investigation into this offence remains ongoing.
Police have spoken to this man about his behaviour on numerous occasions and have previously laid criminal charges.
We treat incidents of this nature with the utmost seriousness and urge anyone subjected to such behaviour to come forward and make an official report to police.
Reports can also be made via the Crime Stoppers Victoria website.
In an emergency, always call Triple Zero (000).
I will attempt to stay across what happens, considering this has been going on for at least 12 years.
Finally, I wanted to point out something Webworm reader Kath had this to say in the comments last week, which I pinned and I think is worth highlighting:
“I am sure I am not the only autistic person who is royally sick of men, and it's always men, blaming their inappropriate and/or illegal behaviour on autism. Chuck a fake seizure to get strangers to touch you in ways they would not otherwise be consenting to - autism. Sexually assault your employees, fans and other vulnerable women - autism. Rant about Hitler and somehow compel your clearly uncomfortable partner to appear naked in public - autism. Throw a Nazi salute on a stage being watched by most of the world - autism. It's all lies.
Hands up if you're an autistic person who has never done any of the above problematic behaviours. Hands up if you're an autistic person who has been shunned, bullied or abused for the TINIEST of habits you have to cope with overstimulation. You'll find most of the same hands in the air for both.”
Stay safe and stay sane,
David.
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