American musician, multi-instrumentalist and also vocalist, lyrisist of the iconic rock band Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, was the latest interview guest of The Howard Stern Show and unveiled the reaction he’s made after learning Chris Cornell’s death.

As you might already remember, the legendary frontman of Soundgarden, Chris Cornell, has lost his wife in May 2017 in Detroit when he was just 52-years-old. The coroner ruled Chris’ death a suicide by hanging. According to his toxicology tests, Chris had Ativan along with barbiturates, the anti-opioid drug naloxonecaffeine and a decongestant.

In the interview Eddie Vedder remembered his long-time friendship with Chris Cornell and tells Howard Stern about the grief he still has for the Soundgarden frontman. According to Eddie, he was just terrified when he heard the news and could not decide what to do or how to feel.

Howard Stern asked this:

“What was going through your head that you got taken away?”

Here is what he said as an answer:

“You know I was saying – I grew up with three brothers and about a year before what happened with Chris, we got a call at four in the morning.

And it was my other brother and he was telling me that our third youngest brother, named Chris, he had been spending a lot of time in Africa kind of going back and forth but he was almost nine months a year in Africa – he was doing some good work and environmental stuff.

He had a decent job and was part of a cool community and then he was doing something a bit risky and had a bit of a climbing accident and he was no longer with us…

And that one took me down so hard – and my brothers, and my mom – and I seriously didn’t know if I was gonna get out of that one. It really hurt me to think of what my daughters were witnessing but there was no hiding it and it was a dark place and I just couldn’t deal with the reality.”

He continued:

“And when it happened with Chris [Cornell]… I gotta say, I don’t – I still don’t think… I’ve had to be somewhat in denial.

And one way, I was even able to do it and it’s not – I don’t even feel like I had a choice, I just, I was terrified where I would go if I allowed myself to feel what I needed to feel or what I was instinctively wanting to feel or how dark I felt like I was gonna go.

And because I didn’t see him that often in the last 10 years – probably only like four or five times and usually at a gig or something, you know – I just kind of, I still haven’t quite dealt with it or, you know…

I’ll get stronger as time goes on and, you know… But I… We were close and it wasn’t just because we were playing music or that we were neighbors. I would hang out with him outside of the band more than even the other band guys.”

You can watch the whole interview below.

You can click here for the source of the interview.