I had previously covered Alice in Chains EP Sap and I've linked to the video down below.
Today Iwant to expore the band's best known EP Jar of Flies in addition to the turmoil
that happened after they released the record.
Stay tuned for the first storey.
Alice in Chains spent the better part of 1993 on the road promoting their sophomore LP Dirt.
While the album was a huge success selling over 6 million copies worldwide, it was also
a tulumultous time for the group as original bassist Mike Starr was fired from the band
in early 1993 and frontman Layne Staley's drug dependency grew worse.
During the summer of 1993, the band was part of the traveling tour known as Lollapalooza
It was during that tour jerry cantrell called producer Tobi Wright to help the band write
new music.
Wright asked if the band had written any music and the guitarist claimed that they had in
fact written music, but in reality, they hadn't written anything new.
Cantrell wouldn't admit this to Wright until they had met in person in the studio September
of 1993.The band would assemble at London Bridge Studios and the plan was to spend a
week together and jam and see what the group came up with.
According to the album's liner notes, the whole EP was written, recorded and mixed in
just five days from September 17 to the 22nd with the band and the production team working
14-18 hour days.
According to producer Tobi Wright, the band was efficient in recording their parts with
him revealing to author David De Sola in the book Alice in Chains The Untold story how
most songs were recorded in one or two takes.
One of the singles and standout tracks from the album was the song "I Stay Away." the
band would bring in a 4 piece orchestra to add strings to the tracks.
Typically when an orchestra are brought it in they are given sheet music to play.
But David Hill who worked at London Bridge Studios, but didn't work on the album remembered
seeing guitarist Jerry Cantrell show the orchestra what he wanted played recalling to De Sola.
What I've learned from other sessions is that you have a conductor and everything is written
out musically speaking on paper.
I remember Jerry being fearless and going in there with a guitar in the mainroom where
the orchestra was sitting and showing them the parts on his guitar and what he was hearing
and what he wanted, which is not something you normally do because orchestra musicians
usually don't work that way.
I Stay Away was an important song for 2 other reasons.
According to guitarist Jerry Cantrell it would be the first song the band would write with
new bassist Mike Inez, saying in the band's 1999 music bank box set collection "that was
the first time we had written with mike inez, which made this another special song.
The whole jar of flies EP proved to both of us and the fans what a talented and valid
part of the band Mike was.
He plays the nastiest darkest [], but he's got the sweetest heart in the world" he'd
say.
While the band would release two music videos for the EP, one for 'No Excuses" and one for
'I Stay Away.' "i stay away''s video was particularly notable because it was entirely shot using
stop motion animation and it included the band members in puppet form.
In fact those puppets you see in the video are at display at the rock and roll hall of
fame museum in cleveland, ohio.
According to Layne's mother Nancy, it was around this time in Staley's life that he
really got into claymation and it was likely his idea to make the video.
When it came time to record the song 'Don't follow' the group brought in an older guy
to record the harmonica parts, but he kept grunting so the band didn't use his part and
instead got a friend of Chris Cornell to fill in.
While not released as a single, the track Nutshell soon became one of Alice in Chains
best known and favourite songs among fans.
Bassist Mike Inez would tell Revolver magazine that the track is the first song that comes
to his mind when he thinks about Layne revealing I think the No. 1 for me is "Nutshell."
Layne was very honest with his songwriting.
And in "Nutshell," he really put everything in a nutshell for everybody.
That song still gets me choked up whenever I play it.
I get a little teary-eyed, and sometimes when we're doing the arena runs especially, they'll
have some video footage of Layne.
And I look and see me and Jerry [Cantrell, vocals and guitar] and Sean [Kinney, drums]
looking the wrong way.
We're not looking at the audience, we're looking back at Layne, and it's pretty cool that there's
still that song for us.
Yeah, it's just a sad song" he'd say.
The idea for the album name came from a science experiment Cantrell did as a kid.
The cover of the album was shot by Rocky Schneck who had previously worked with Alice in Chains
& he would shot the cover in his dining room.
The band had come up with the idea for the title and wanted the album cover to be a young
boy looking into a jar filled with flies.
I remember they asked me to use crazy colours in the shots so i utilitzed lots of of different
colour gels over the lights to achieve the final look.
Schneck's assistant would make multiple trips to a nearby stable up the road to trap flies
using a butterfly net.
On the EP's 25th anniversary, Schneck posted some outtakes not previously seen from the
jar of flies cover shoot as you can see here.
He would reveal on instagram that he still in fact has the jars that were used for the
cover shoot.
The EP would be released on January 14th, 1994 and it would make history being the first
EP to reach number 1 on the billboard charts.
Alice in Chains had big plans in 1994 following the album's release.
They started off January of 1994 performing at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles
for a benefit show . The band showcased some of their new songs from their latest EP, which
was scheduled to come out in a few weeks.
The set though was a somber affair and the LA Times wrote a disappointing review of the
performance saying Alice in Chains was the most somber and serious of the bunch with
its acoustic set bringing the mood and pace down between the other bands electric momentum
with a fedora sporting bongo beating Staley leading the unplugged quartet two new songs
and two older numbers sounded intriguingly like the Gregorian interpretation of 2000
light years away from home, but that was all the band played leaving the crowd booing the
stinginess it would read.
Following the success of Jar of Flies, which went Triple Platinum the band planned a huge
summer tour opening for Metallica and even an appearance at Woodstock 94, which celebrated
the 25th anniversary of the Festival.
Instead, the previous year's dirt tour would represent the last major tour the band would
embark on with singer Layne Staley.
His drug addiction had become all consuming and in the runup to the band's planned summer
tour, Staley made an appearance at the KISW rock stock concert at the Kistap County Fairgrounds
in late May of 1994 in which he appeared on stage with Tool to perform the song Opiate.
According to the seattle post intillegencer Layne looked sickly and wore a ski mask to
hide his face.
According to Rolling Stone magazine at the band's first rehearsal for the metallica tour,
Layne returned from a stint to rehab and showed up to practice high, while at the same, while
at the same time drummer Sean Kinney was struggling with alcohol.
It was at that practice that Kinney and Cantrell vowed never to play with Layne again.
Mike Inez would tell author Mark Yarm in the book "Everybody Loves our Town" "we had a
meeting and it was really really apparent we shouldn't go out on tour with Metallica.
A poigniant moment for me was after that meeting it was raining outside and i was walking down
the alley one way and Layne was walking the other way I turned around and looked at Layne
and that's when I had a really big flash like wow, we're not healthy here."
The band's manager Susan Silver would release a statement that the band was withdrawing
from their Metallica Tour and their Woodstock Appearance due to health issues with the band.
The statement would also claim that Alice in Chains would head back into the studio
in the fall of 1994.
Candlebox would end up picking up Alice in Chains touring slots and i've done a whole
video on that.
The link is down below.
The band would breakup for 6 months and Layne would try to kick his addiction and take up
other musical projects including mad season with pearl jam's mike mcready and screaming
trees barrett martin.
I've done a whole video on that as well.
the link is down below in the description box.
Layne was also spoted around town performing with the group Second Coming creating some
controversy in the Alice in Chains camp as questions started coming up as to why the
band had cancelled their tour.
Sean Kinney recall to Rolling Stone this difficult period in the band's history recalling "nobody
was being honest with each other back then.
If we had kept going there was a good chance we would have self-destructed on the road.
We didn't want that to happen in public."
he'd say.
The band would reassemble in early 95 to start work on what would be there final studio album
with Layne Staley.
I'll be talking more about that in a future video.
That does it for today's topic and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories.
Take care.