After Zack de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine, the remaining members of the band began to look for a new vocalist.

Producer and friend Rick Rubin suggested they contact Chris Cornell and played them the Soundgarden song "Slaves & Bulldozers" to showcase his ability.

Cornell was in the process of writing material for a second solo album when Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk approached him, but he decided to shelve that and pursue the opportunity to work with them.

[11] In an interview with Metal Sludge that July, Morello blamed "some jackass intern at Bad Animal Studios in Seattle" for stealing some demos and putting them on the internet without the band's permission.

The cover was designed by Storm Thorgerson (with Peter Curzon and Rupert Truman) – who, as leader of Hipgnosis, was best known for work for Pink Floyd.

"The music of Audioslave struck us as brooding and sultry, carrying a sense of threat as if about to burst asunder or erupt in fury, much like a volcano.

They described Cornell's lyrics as "complete gibberish" and called producer Rick Rubin's work "a synthesized rock-like product that emits no heat".

[3] Jon Monks from Stylus Magazine also considered Rubin's production over-polished and wrote that, "lacking individuality, distinction and imagination this album is over-produced, overlong and over-indulgent".

[35] All lyrics are written by Chris Cornell; all music is composed by AudioslaveThe album was included among a group of 15 DualDisc releases that were test-marketed in two cities: Boston and Seattle.

The DVD side of the Audioslave DualDisc featured the entire album in higher resolution 48 kHz sound, as well as some videos.