Cornell's battle with drug addiction and alcoholism was a defining factor in the writing and recording process of the debut album. The singer admitted that he was never able to write effectively while drinking,[98] and attended rehab after recording Audioslave. Although Morello stated that Revelations was the first record [Cornell] didn't smoke, drink or take drugs through the recording , he later clarified his statement by saying: Chris was stone sober during the making of our Out of Exile album. Chris was also sober during the making of Revelations and prior to recording he gave up smoking as well. [99]
While Rage Against the Machine's music was politically influenced, Audioslave's originally was not. Cornell stated he did not want to become the new singer of Rage Against the Machine or any political band, but he would play benefits the other band members wanted to play.[100] Despite his reluctance to write political lyrics, he himself never discounted the possibility; he already touched upon political issues in Audioslave's Set It Off —a song inspired by 1999's WTO riots (the Battle of Seattle )[101]—then later wrote an anti-war song, Sound of a Gun , and what Morello called the most political song Audioslave's ever written , Wide Awake for Revelations.[69] Wide Awake was an attack on the Bush administration's failure to act over the consequences of Hurricane Katrina.
During the time of the second album's release several politically-charged Rage Against the Machine songs resurfaced in Audioslave's live set. Although the members committed to not making political statements during their Cuba tour, Commerford stated in an interview that the concert made Audioslave more politically active than Rage Against the Machine ever was.[104] While in Cuba, Cornell said that he takes every aspect of human life into consideration, when it comes to writing lyrics, and that he would write about the experience in a song, or more songs.[53] This culminated in the political influences on Revelations, although he did not write about Cuba specifically. He asserted that he felt Audioslave can be a band like U2, which is not overtly political, but Bono gets a lot done .[53] That year, the band played at two more concerts organized to raise political awareness: Live 8, which aimed to end global poverty, and the Hurricane Katrina benefit concert, ReAct Now: Music & Relief.
Revelations is the third and, with the departure of lead vocalist Chris Cornell in February 2007, final studio album by the American rock supergroup Audioslave. The album was released on September 5, 2006 in the U.S., and a day earlier in the UK (see 2006 in music). Brendan O'Brien, who has produced or mixed the albums of numerous major rock acts of the past twenty years, including Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Stone Temple Pilots, The Offspring, Pearl Jam, Incubus, and Bruce Springsteen, was at the helm for this record.
