What's going on everybody and welcome to Rock N' Roll True Stories and we're back
with another Alice in Chains story You guys seem to love these
stories and I love doing them So let's talk about at least
what I refer to as Alice in Chains' lost year and that I want to refer to as 1994
So 1994 should have really been a huge year for Alice in Chains
The band completed a pretty extensive tour in late '93 to support their ' 92 album Dirt which
was a huge hit and the band would assemble in Seattle to finish up an EP that took
about a week to write and record called Jar of Flies and basically no rest for the wicked
Alice in Chains were set to tour with Metallica in the summer of '94 as well
So Alice in Chains would release Jar of Flies in late January and
it would go to number one on the Billboard charts
Now the band also kicked off 1994 with a benefit show at the Hollywood Palladium
where they played some of the tracks off of their latest EP as well as some songs from SAP as well
Now it was believed around this time when Layne had relapsed and he had started using heroin again
So the entire show (cut out) did at the fishbone benefit in January of '94 is up on YouTube
It's a pretty short set They played about four songs total
They played Am I Inside Brother Nutshell and No Excuses
Now looking at some of the people whose friends had attended the show and even from listening
to it the fans who attended the show were a little disappointed because it was a pretty short set and
the band didn't really play any of their big hits You know these songs off of Jar of Flies had just
come out so they didn't have time to really go up the charts and a lot of stuff was new to them
and according to one poster they said I had a friend who went to the show
The show was filled with heavy hitters like Primus and Porno for Pyro's and the crowd he said was
expecting a mosh filled set including some of the Dirt material Damn That River Them Bones etc
Instead in the middle of this they came out and played this in preview of Jar of Flies
The crowd wasn't too pleased and he said they even chucked some ice and cups at them at the end
Apparently Jerry himself on Rockline pretty much said that it was not a very good show for them
and it was rather badly booked and it was one of course Layne's final performances in that
period between '94 and '96 Now you can look at some
photos of Layne around this time He's wearing those leather gloves covering
his hands which he wore a lot during '95 and '96 If you guys have read the Rolling Stone piece
that was done on Layne a lot of heroin addicts will sometimes inject their hands so that's why
maybe some people think he was wearing gloves to hide any kind of puncture marks on his hands
Now during this time in 1994 between January up until the point they
cancelled their tour with Metallica Layne did make some appearances during that time
He appeared on stage with Tool at the KISW FM's Rock Stock concert where he performed
the song Opiate with Tool and now according to one person who was at the show they said that
Layne looked sickly and he wore a wool ski mask to hide his face during the performance
and according to Rolling Stone they also said in July of '94 Staley along with Chris Cornell
of Soundgarden and Peter Klat of Candlebox were elected to Playgirl Magazine's Rock N'
Roll Hall of Hunkdom but Staley's appearance had already begun to deteriorate at that point
So in the summer of '94 the day before the start of the tour of Metallica Alice nearly
reached the end of their chain At that time Staley was in his
throes of heroin addiction and Sean Kinney was struggling with the bottle
So according to Rolling Stone they said we've just been going full force just running at
top speed with our eyes closed says Cantrell peering through half an empty glass of beer
We had been way too close for too long and we were suffocating
We were like four plants trying to grow in the same pot and things got worse when Staley
who according to Kinney had just returned from drug rehab came to practice high and
in response Kenney threw down his sticks and vowed to never play again with Staley
Cantrell concurred and the tour was canceled and the band parted ways for about six months
Now sadly for those fans wanting to see Alice in Chains open for Metallica the band would
end up being replaced by Candlebox instead but James Hetfield of Metallica would actually go
on to mock Layne Staley in a 1994 performance because of him having to withdraw due to his
drug issues at the time Here's the clip
You wanna hear a new song This song is one that Jason wrote
Been alright This scares me
It's a Jason song so he's gonna have to sing it Is that okay
I don't get it Haha
I [---] get it anyway Anyway
I didn't know Jason wrote that one [---] he's cooler than we all thought everyone
Why did you throw that at me I have a question why did you
throw that at me Why
You guys wanna throw [---] we'll walk off the stage you can throw all the [---] you want
We're here to play some music not to look out for crap like this man
I know you guys are getting naked and all that [---] having some fun out there but
we play a lot better when we don't have to look at [---] flying at us okay but if you
guys want us to play pretty good don't you (Inaudible) here so this here is Jason's song
I don't make According to Sean Kinney he said
nobody was being honest with each other back then Seconds after exhaling a cloud of marijuana
smoke he gave during the interview He said if we kept going there was
a good chance we would have self-destructed on the road and we definitely didn't want things to
happen in public and it's kind of ironic because you look at some bounds like Guns N' Roses back
in the 80s when they were first starting out their manager was encouraged to actually put them on the
road because even though they had their own drug problems he figured that if they were all on the
same tour bus together they were all sharing the same space as a manager it would be a lot easier
to keep a handle on these guys and stop them from doing harm in themselves but in this case Alice
in Chains' management decided hey we got to keep these guys off the road and they got to get better
Now there was even an instance that probably a lot of Alice and Shane's fans haven't heard of
So back in 1994 when Layne was in rehab Guns N' Roses' former drummer Steven Adler wrote
a book and he talked about going to the same rehab as Layne and actually running into him
So according to Rolling Stone magazine in the months that followed the band's
breakup the band members of course went their separate ways and they went through their
stages of grief that accompany loss You know denial anger depression
and finally acceptance Staley recalled at first I
was dumbfounded mumbling like someone awakened by a late-night phone call
He said I just sat on my couch staring at the TV and getting drunk every day
He said when we first got together as a band we were all brothers
We lived in the same house and we partied together and drink as much as each other but
then we started to split apart and went different ways and we felt like we were betraying each other
and Layne also commented all the crazy rumors that were going around the mid-90s when people
became more aware of his heroin use and basically as he said I found out through the internet that
I have AIDS say Staley I learned I was dead
Where else would I find out these things I don't see a doctor regularly and I was in
San Francisco at Lollapalooza and this girl walked up to me and said stop like she's seen a ghost she
said you're not dead and I said no you're right Wow
So during their time apart of course Staley would go record a record with
Mad Season which was his side-project with Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready
and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin Now Layne would also take some time to work
with another group that maybe you guys aren't familiar with
There was a band called Second Coming and Layne performed with them on stage
at Seattle's Colorbox in 1994 The videos up on YouTube if
you want to go check it out There's also the music video
featuring Layne Staley as well The song is called It's Coming
After and you guys can also go check that out and of course Layne wasn't
the only guy to go do some stuff on the side We also had the other members joining other
bands and performing other records too and Mike Inez did some scuba diving did a little bit of
vacationing and he of course worked with Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash on his first Snakebit record
It's 5 O'clock Somewhere but he wouldn't end up touring with Snakebit and Sean Kinney basically
snowboarded and recorded a track with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic Kim tall and Johnny Cash
for the Willie Nelson tribute record Twisted Willy and Jerry who writes most of the band's
music hold himself up at his rural home outside of Seattle and wrote riffs initially intended for
a solo record but by January of '95 things seem to be moving again with Alice in Chains as camp
He was working on some material with Sean Kinney and Mike Inez and four months later
they would eventually invite Layne Staley back into the fold and the band would begin working
on their self-titled record Alice in Chains So that concludes today's video guys
Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below
Were you guys following Alice in Chains back in 1994 and did the year kind of break down
for you when you find out they weren't opening for Metallica on that summer tour
Put your comments down below and let me know which stories you'd like to see explored on future
episodes of Rock N' Roll True Stories Take Care