The Big Four
Although Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax jammed together for the first time last year, it was in 2011 they made it their calling card. Beginning with their performance of Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?” in April to their jams in Europe (which also featured members of Diamond Head, Exodus, and Sepultura), to their U.S. final performance of Motörhead’s “Overkill” in New York City, these bands have made history at each performance.

The Metal Masters
The night before the Big Four concert in New York City, members of Megadeth and Anthrax along with drummer Mike Portnoy gathered to give instrument tips to fans and musicians a like. What the audience didn’t expect was the closing jam, which featured Anthrax’s Scott Ian, Frank Bello, and Charlie Benante, Megadeth’s David Ellefson, Mike Portnoy, and special guests Kerry King of Slayer and…Phil Anselmo of Pantera and Down fame, who sang “Fucking Hostile” and “A New Level.”

Temple of the Dog
For Pearl Jam’s 20th Anniversary concert, Chris Cornell joined the band for a four-song set of the songs he recorded with the nascent band under the name Temple of the Dog in 2011.

The Revolver Golden Gods Awards
We may be tooting our own horns here, but even we were floored by the collaborations of Avenged Sevenfold with Vinnie Paul on Pantera’s “Mouth for War” and Duff McKagan on GN’R’s “It’s So Easy,” as well as Duff, Corey Taylor, and Steve Jones’ take on Judas Priest’s “Electric Eye,” Volbeat’s take on Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Wanna Be With You,” and Asking Alexandria and Sebastian Bach’s electrifying take on “Youth Gone Wild.”

Guns N’ Roses and Zakk Wylde’s “Whole Lotta Rosie”
At a recent Indiana gig, Guns N’ Roses invited Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde to join them on guitar for an electrifying rendition of AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

Mötley Crüe with Cee-Lo
Cee-Lo Green the Soul Machine, who had a massive hit last year with “Fuck You,” joined the Sunset Strip’s Kings of “Fuck You”—Mötley Crüe—at an L.A. gig in June for a rendition of his hit and the Crüe’s “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away).”

Drop in the Bucket Charity Event
At the Drop in the Bucket Charity Event, Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor played a set highlighted by all of his famous friends. Together they played some of hard rock and metal’s greatest hits. Two highlights were Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”—performed by Taylor, Jane’s Addiction’s Dave Navarro, Rob Zombie guitarist John 5, and Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo—and AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”—played by Taylor, Anthrax’s Scott Ian, John 5, and Rob Zombie bassist Piggy D and drummer Ginger Fish. For more from that night, click here.

Metallica 30th Anniversary
Nobody has ever thrown an anniversary party quite like Metallica’s 30th Anniversary shows, which wrapped up on December 10 in San Francisco. Over the course of four nights, they played with artists who influenced them, their peers, and past members of the band. These include everyone from Diamond Head to Mercyful Fate, Marianne Faithfull to Rob Halford, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell to Kid Rock, and, most impressive, original guitarists Dave Mustaine and Lloyd Grant alongside original bassist Ron McGovney for the first song the band ever recorded, “Hit the Lights.”

REVOLVER What inspired you to do the Songbook album?
CHRIS CORNELL Well, the album came from the tour. I’ve probably had the thought of doing an acoustic album in the back of my mind since when I wrote

I did an acoustic show in Stockholm a few years back, and that encouraged me to go in that direction with my solo music. I decided I need to go out and do real touring for this probably after the first five shows, it started to become what it wanted to be, which is something that’s really unexpected. It’s very churchy, people are very quiet when I’m performing and very vocal in between songs. I don’t follow set lists. It’s become more and more the opposite of what Soundgarden has always felt like to me. Soundgarden has always felt like this giant, sonic wall, and there’s definitely a connection with the audience, but there’s also this punishing onslaught that is our live music. Performing acoustically opens up a completely different window for me in terms of being a performer and interacting with people.

Was it odd to put your Soundgarden songs in an acoustic setting?
Well, songs like “Blow Up the Outside World,” “Fell on Black Days,” and “Black Hole Sun” were written initially sitting down with an acoustic guitar. And “Spoonman,” the original demos were just acoustic guitars and pots and pans. And that’s often true with rock bands, certainly was with us. Everyone in in Soundgarden that has written songs, even really aggressive ones, they’ve often initially come up with ideas on acoustic guitar. There are certainly Soundgarden songs or Audioslave songs that wouldn’t make any sense to do acoustically, ’cause they’re really entirely riff-based, unless I wanted to just reapproach it entirely. But I suppose I started with songs that more readily lend themselves to acoustic versions.

Speaking of Soundgarden, you’re working on a new record. How is it sounding?
It’s a really, to me, organic sounding, kind of a next-phase Soundgarden album. It definitely isn’t retro, definitely isn’t nostalgic. It sounds to me like—I don’t want to say the next logical step because I don’t think logic has anything to do with it—but it sounds like we’ve picked up where we left off really.

Kind of like the next one after Down on the Upside?
Yeah, you know, there’s musical moods we’ve never done before, and that was always the case with every previous album. Every time we wrote a new album, we would sort of test the boundaries of what we’ve done before. Because we’re band of four songwriters, everyone’s involved in the arranging. That means there’s always a really big palette, which means it’s very unpredictable as to where it’s gonna go. The record’s take on their own lives. And right before Soundgarden went on our little summer leg of our tour, I heard all of the roughs of the songs we were working on together on one CD and that was the first time I sort of kind of got a glimpse of what the personality of the album was gonna be. And it’s very exciting. It’s very eclectic; it’s very Soundgarden. That’s very evident and it feels very forward to me.

Black and White photo: Deena Cavallo; Color: Jen Cash

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