Photo Credit: Mehreen Rizvi

A collection of rock and roll legends have come together to form King Ultramega, a new tribute project to the late and great Chris Cornell. The announcement came alongside the first release for the project, a cover of Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage,” one of Cornell’s most popular songs. A video can be found for the new star-studded cover of the track on King Ultramega’s YouTube channel.

Fans of Cornell’s original might be quick to recognize some familiar imagery in this new cover’s video, especially with the image of a car destroying a wooden cabin for the single art, an idea taken right from that original video. The song itself offers a much heavier and explosive take on the already intense track. The members featured on this first outing for King Ultramega are William Duvall of Alice in Chains, Bill Kelliher of Mastadon, Mark Menghi of Metal Allegiance and Charlie Benate of Anthrax and Pantera fame. Duvall, who provided vocals, stated he wanted to pay heavy respects to Cornell’s performance in his own take on the song. “I just leaned into my love for the song and my immense respect for Chris,” he said. “Since the instrumental track Bill, Charlie, and Mark sent hewed so closely to the original, I thought it best for me to stay in that ballpark as well. Again, my reason for participating was simply taking on an interesting challenge when so much of the world was shut down. I had no thoughts or ambitions for this beyond our posting it on social media five years ago. But if this release can help further the good work done by MusiCares, then I’m all for it.”

Known for his work on Soundgarden and Audioslave, Cornell passed away in 2017 with his death being ruled a suicide. Considered a massively influential force in the rock world, news of Cornell’s passing came as a massive shock to the music world. Tributes came pouring out since his untimely passing, but King Ultramega is set to be the first project of this scale paying tribute to him, including the aforementioned features as well as Cornell’s bandmates from Soundgarden. The group says they are raising funds and awareness for MusicCares, a nonprofit providing mental health and addiction recovery services for the music world.