Alice in Chains
Essay Preview: Alice in Chains
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Layne met Jerry in 1987 at a party in Seattle, and invited him to stay at the Music Bank with him. After a while, Jerry asked Layne to be in his band, called Diamond Lie. They added Jerrys friend Mike Starr on bass, and Sean Kinney on drums, who was dating Mikes sister at the time. They started out writing and playing original material at clubs in Seattle, basically as a glam/rock and roll type band. The name Alice in Chains came from one of Laynes former high school bands which was called Alice N Chainz. (They used to dress in drags and cover Slayer songs).
They released a demo EP entitled “Sweet Alice” in 1989, which were just demos from the up and coming Facelift album. They signed with Columbia Records in 1989, and in July 1990, they released their first official EP entitled We Die Young. The title track became a big hit on radio stations in Seattle. Ironically the song was about all the gang violence that was going on in Seattle at the time.
“We Die Young is about gang violence. That was something that was happening in Seattle, something that kinda opened our eyes. It just seemed like things were getting out of hand. Incidents where kids were getting shot, and getting their tennis shoes ripped off their dead bodies. It just seems like these kids are dying at younger and younger ages and getting involved in gang activity.”
Layne Staley, 1991
They released their first full-length album on August 20, 1990, entitled “Facelift”. The video for the track Man in the Box became a huge hit on MTV. They quickly became recognized as one of the “big four” of the Seattle grunge music scene, alongside Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam.
To support this album, AiC toured with and opened for Van Halen and Iggy Pop. Facelift went gold by the end of the year.
Their first EP entitled “Sap” was released March 21, 1992. It was an acoustic one. It featured Ann Wilson of Heart on the chorus of Brother, Am I Inside, and Love Song. It also featured Mark Arm of Mudhoney, and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden on the track Right Turn. (Alice Mudgarden) Chris also sang backing vocals on “Brother”. The name for the album came to be during the process of working on the songs, when crazy Sean had a dream that they recorded the songs, and since they were acoustic, they called it sap because it was sappy.
They released their second full-length album “Dirt” on September 12, 1992. The dark lyrics on this album, which dealt mostly with addiction and isolation, created many rumours that Layne was addicted to heroin. They didnt know how right they were. In a 1996 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Layne spoke about how drug use influenced some of his lyrics:
“I wrote about drugs, and I didnt think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them,” he told the magazine. “Heres how my thinking pattern went: When I tried drugs, they were great, and they worked for me for years, and now theyre turning against me – and now Im walking through hell, and this sucks.”
Alice in Chains received a lot of exposure in 1992 due to the fact that their song “Would?” appeared on the soundtrack for Singles, which is a movie based on the lives of Seattle singles. They appeared on the movie performing the songs “Would?” and “It Aint Like That”.
Unfortunately, while the band was touring to promote Dirt, Mike Starr suddenly left the group because of the bands non-stop schedule, and joined a band called Sun Red Sun. Mike was soon replaced by Mike Inez, former bassist for Ozzy Osbourne. The band got together in 1992 to record two new songs, “What the Hell Have I” and “A Little Bitter”, for the soundtrack of the movie “Last Action Hero”.
They joined bands such as Tool, Rage, Primus, and Babes in Toyland on the Lollapalooza tour in the summer of 1993. They were very successful on this tour and they were very well received. Sadly, this would be the last time Alice in Chains would headline a tour.
By this time, everyone was anticipating another loud, angry album from the boys, considering how well they did on Lollapalooza. Surprisingly, they came out with another EP called Jar of Flies. Although more mellow than their earlier work, Jar of Flies was the first EP EVER to debut as number one on album sales charts! Considering all the songs were written and recorded in a week, some critics called it a “mini-masterpiece”. The name from this album came from Jerrys grade three science experiment, where they put a bunch of flies in two different glass jars, one jar was overfed, the other underfed. To make a long story short, the ones that were underfed survived the longest. This seemed to have some sort of long-lasting impact on Jerry.
The boys did not tour for this album, which created even more rumours about Laynes addiction. Even still, Layne performed a couple shows with the Gacy Bunch, a side project with Pearl Jams guitarist Mike McCready and Screaming Trees drummer Barret Martin. They renamed themselves as Mad Season, and released an LP entitled “Above” in 1995.
AiC got together again from April to August 1995, at Bad Animals in Seattle. They wrote and recorded 12 new songs. The album evolved the groups sound yet again, now relying more on melody and textured arrangements than before. This album also debuted as number one. Sadly, this would be the last official album that AiC produced.
Like before, they failed to support it with a tour, which, ONCE AGAIN, sparked further curiosity on Laynes addiction, and rumours such as Layne having aids, missing fingers, and something as far-fetched as being dead:
“I found out through the Internet that I have AIDS. I learned that I was dead. Where else would I find these things? I dont see a doctor regularly. I was in San Francisco at Lollapalooza, and this girl walked up to me and stopped like she had seen a ghost. And she said, youre not dead. and I said No, youre right, Wow.”
In 1996, the group resurfaced once again to perform their first show in two and a half years, on MTV. They did an Unplugged set of 12 of their songs, including a new song “Killer Is Me”, which they kind of put together before the show. Some of their heavier songs they reworked with fresh acoustics, and had Scott Olson of Heart play rhythm guitar. Layne was in visibly poor health, but still played an amazing, fun set. He wasnt completely gone though, because he still had his sense of humour, and