CRAIG WEDREN Shares Chris Cornell-Inspired Track from ‘Adult Desire Expanded’

Acclaimed songwriter, singer, film & television composer and Shudder To Think frontman Craig Wedren will release an expanded version of his most recent albumAdult Desire on November 16. Today, he reveals a new single from Adult Desire Expanded, “Into The Blue Sky (Acoustic Demo),” which was penned with Chris Cornell in mind as a possible collaboration between the two friends.

Read more about the single and Wedren’s inspiration for it via FLOOD and LISTEN TO “INTO THE BLUE SKY (ACOUSTIC DEMO)”  HERE: https://soundcloud.com/craigwedren/into-the-blue-sky-acoustic-demo

Of the track, Wedren says:

“As with many of the songs on Adult Desire, “Into The Blue Sky” began as a movie assignment. A few years ago I was composing the score for ‘Lucky Them’, a film about the mysterious disappearance of a fictional ’90s-era singer from Seattle, and his former lover-and current rock journalist (Toni Collette)-who seeks to unravel the mystery of his disappearance.

If memory serves, we needed an original song for one scene, where a present-day Seattle band is playing a cover of one of the legendary singer’s songs. I wanted to write a slightly grizzled, Classic Rock-meets-Grunge acoustic ballad, and had Chris Cornell in my mind’s eye.

It so happened that Chris -a friend with whom I’d recently done an acoustic tour- was in Miami writing and recording demos. I sent him a version of the song, and he graciously sang the first verse and chorus, which I presented to Megan Griffiths, the director. She loved it, but ultimately went a different direction with the scene. I shelved the song and completely forgot about it.

When Chris died, I was heartbroken. Although we really only knew each other in that backstage, no-time/no-place kind of way, I loved him and considered him a pal. Spookily, our mutual friend Jeff Buckley first introduced us in the mid-’90s. Another weird nocturnal ghost-memory.

About a day or two after receiving the crushing news about Chris, I had this little tickle in my brain, like ‘wait: wasn’t there a song…?’ At the time, I was nearing completion of Adult Desire, but felt the album needed one more song, something relatively traditional (a song-y song, nothing too experimental) to balance out the album.

That’s when I remembered ‘Into The Blue Sky.’ I dug out all the various different versions from ‘Lucky Them’, including the one with Chris, and then rearranged and re-recorded the whole thing.

Included in Adult Desire Expanded is the original demo I wrote for the movie and sent to Chris.”