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Tagging along with the first rock band to perform in Cuba since Billy Joel and Bonnie Raitt visited in 1979 is a pretty cool thing to do, and most everyone invited to accompany Audioslave on their history-making journey seems to have jumped at the opportunity. There's about forty people in the band's entourage when they board the Miami Heat's resplendent private plane for Havana on the morning of May 4th, including three band wives, Tom Morello's mother Mary, four Beverly Hills managers, publicists galore, one bodyguard per band member, an MTV crew and a bunch of British guys contracted for the band's DVD at the last minute because American banks won't insure equipment in Cuba.
"We couldn't believe it when we saw the number of people coming along with the band," says Natacha Perez, the Cuban government "specialist" assigned to chaperone Audioslave on their stay in the country. "It's incredible -- all this for four musicians!"
Rock stars are an alien concept in Cuba, a communist country since the Fidel Castro and Che Guevara-led revolution of 1959 and under U.S. economic embargo since 1960, thereby prevented from conducting any business with the U.S. Cubans are strict Leninists. High school education is mandatory, and healthcare is free. Television, radio stations and newspapers are state-owned, with alternative music available only in the form of pirated CDs passed amongst friends (the Internet is available only to tourists, state officials and particularly resourceful comrades). There are some rock fans, to be sure, but Audioslave are a bit contemporary for them. "It takes a really, really long time for music to reach here -- we listen to Slayer and Metallica like they are new," says Ali Bautista, an engineering student. They like their rock harder anyway. "Young Cubans like death metal," he continues. "Venom is the favorite band."
So when the jet touches down at the tiny, predominantly orange Havana airport, there's not much hubbub -- the band is received as if they were minor diplomats, met by one state television camera and a few government well-wishers fanning themselves in the heat. "There's curiosity about us," sums up Morello. "But it's a mild curiosity."
The television reporter asks the obvious question: Why are they in Cuba? "It's all about the music," says Tim Commerford. The CIA and FBI did background checks on the band members, and Morello committed to not making political statements while on the island. "It doesn't take a third-grade education to realize that the criteria for doing business with the U.S. is not one based on ideological principles that go beyond economics" is as much as Morello, an outspoken socialist, will say about the embargo, and that not for the cameras. Though this particular trip was proposed by Audioslave's managers at the Firm -- the record industry publicity-stunt masters who also brought you Puddle of Mudd in Tikrit -- playing Cuba has been a longtime dream for Commerford, Morello and Brad Wilk (frontman Chris Cornell says he's never thought about Cuba much). Cuba was something the ex-Ragers were supposed to do with Rage Against the Machine in the late Nineties, but singer Zack de la Rocha axed it at the last minute. "He was the reason we didn't do it; he was the reason we didn't do everything," says Commerford, who has not spoken to de la Rocha since he called to say he was leaving the band.
The guys board a white tourist van and head towards downtown Havana. A lime '55 Cadillac passes by, then a Jawa with two people stuffed in the sidecar. Some people are pushing a truck on the side of the road. No commercial advertising is allowed in Cuba, and instead block-lettered billboards announce slogans like "Cuba Will Prove That This World Can Be Saved." Everything is ruined, the Spanish colonial houses and the drab communist buildings too. The average teacher here makes $10 a month and can afford only the basics at the market. Taxi drivers make ten times that much and buy the best Cuba has to offer on the black market. "Globalism sucks," says Wilk. "But this is not the solution."
Tourism has flourished in Cuba, just not amongst Americans, and Audioslave join the Canadians and Europeans exploring a different way of life and enjoying the Carribean weather. Just because they're rock stars doesn't mean that they get special treatment here, and a lot of time is spent at bad restaurants and buying trinkets like Che Guevara T-shirts and back scratchers decorated with the Cuban provinces. They visit John Lennon Park, and Cornell tries on the glasses sitting on the Lennon statue's nose -- "They're prescription," he says. They go to Revolution Square, the Capitol Hill of the Communist party, and Morello makes a speech, "People of Cuba, we are Audioslave, and we are here to rock you." They walk the cobblestone streets of Old Havana, and Morello buys his wife the biography of Tanya, the nom de guerre of Argentinian revolutionary Haydee Tamara Burke. "Tanya has a distinct resemblance to my Sweet Dee," says Morello. "She's the quintessential revolutionary fox." They even stop to talk to a bearded guy dressed as a solider from Che's army, and listen solemnly to his description of the revolution. Later, he is seen running down the street talking furiously into a walkie-talkie, then ducking behind a bus.
Throughout it all, the band, all decent, honest guys now hovering around forty, remain open-minded and engaged in whatever activity is at hand, with only a few angry outbursts from Commerford (the freight company busted his amp; the bus has heat on instead of A/C). They throw around the word "love" freely when talking about each other. "We're not the Monkees, but I cherish my friendship with all these guys," says Wilk.
Cornell, who still has extremely hot rocker looks, is just one of the guys. He got remarried a couple years ago, to a Parisian publicist, and now lives in Paris with her family, a new seven-month old and another baby on the way. He says she's the only audience of one he's ever played acoustic guitar for, and that these days he's dropped a lot of his "enigmatic and misunderstood artist act." Cornell entered rehab for alcohol and Oxycontin abuse after the release of Audioslave's first album, and the band supported him through it (two months ago, he quit smoking as well). "This band, whom I didn't know that well at that point, didn't have animosity towards me; they weren't concerned with their careers; they seemed to have actual concern about me and my personal health, and that was motivating," says Cornell. "It kind of still is, and makes me want to stay really involved in the band and to give back to those guys."
Bumping through Havana's streets on a bus, Cornell spies a postman with some pens in his breast pocket. "He has a blue pen, he has another blue pen, and he has a red pen, which he rarely uses and you don't want to be around when he does, because that's when shit goes down," he jokes. The bus is driving nearer to the sea, and the houses are getting larger and nicer. "There are some absolute pimp houses in this area," exclaims Cornell. "Look, this one even gets paint."
"They're embassies," says the chaperone.
"Oh," says Cornell. A purple and yellow circus tent appears on the right. "That's where the Cubans have their space program."
The night of the concert, Castro is making an hours-long speech about suspected anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, now seeking refuge in the U.S., but by the time the crowds appear he's done. The stage is set up in La Tribuna Anti-Imperialista plaza, where many of the rallies to bring home Elian Gonzalez took place; the U.S. Special Interests offices are next door, surrounded by several armed guards, a ten-foot fence and a Cuban poster that reads, "Imperalists, We Have No Fear of You!"
Cornell swaggers onstage to chants of "Audioslave!" from a riled-up crowd of tens of thousands -- at least amongst the few hundred Cubans crammed near the stage. Further off, people stand with arms crossed, waiting to be impressed. "We're going to play a lot of songs no one has heard before," says Cornell, and the Cubans scream appreciatively, like it's a privilege. They play twenty-six songs, at two and a half hours, their longest set ever. Cornell does his former band Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" on acoustic guitar, and gamely sings along with Rage's "Killing in the Name." It's a hit: People crawl on the stage and even the guards start bopping their heads up and down.
On the windswept patio of the Hotel Nacional, Cornell assesses the experience. "I'm more shocked than I thought I would be," he says of the visit. "You can't come here and not look at Cuba strictly on a human level and feel some nervousness and some shame and some anger at being American." He thinks about what he'll take home from all this. "When it comes to writing lyrics, every aspect of human life is going to be part of the palette for me," he says. "This experience would be something that I would write about in a song, or some songs. You can look at a band like U2, which is not overtly political, but Bono gets a lot done. I think we can be that way, too."