In November of 1995 Alice in Chains would release their final studio album with frontman
Layne Staley. Nearly six months after the album came out the band hadn’t played a single date to
support the record. In fact Alice in Chains hadn’t played a live show since early 1994,
which was an acoustic set for a benefit show. It would be ironic
their first show in two years would be another acoustic show
this time for MTV’s unplugged program which took place in New York City in April of 1996.
According to guitarist Jerry Cantrell, the band had been asked numerous times by MTV to record
an unplugged set. By this point Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots had already done the show
with Cantrell telling Kerrang “We were thinking: ‘No disrespect, but hasn’t this been done by
everyone? We don’t need to do that!’” Eventually though, the band gave in to MTV’s request.
Alice in chains by this point in their career were no strangers to performing acoustically
having put out the SAP and Jar of Flies EP. For the band the prospect of playing a live acoustic
set was both scary and an opportunity to show the world just how good the band’s songs were
with Cantrell recalling to Kerrang “There’s no safety net, so your songs better be pretty good,”
“Boiling it down reveals the heart of the song, without all the bells and whistles,
and if it still hits in that environment then you did good
While Layne worked with the supergroup Mad Season in 1995,
his appearance had drastically changed since the last time Alice in Chains were touring.
The years of drug abuse had clearly taken their toll. Looking noticably thin and the colour gone
from his face, the frontman would emerge last on stage wearing sunglasses to cover his sunken eyes,
a long sleeve t-shirt and gloves to hide his years of drug use. It was said by this point in time
Layne had already lost several of his teeth to drug addiciton with some pointing ot a noticeable
lisp during the show. Even though the band had accepted mtv’s offer to appear on the program,
whether the performance would happen was another question. Drummer Sean kinney telling greg prato
“up to the moment it was just a nail-biter. Barely any rehearsing at all,
guys not showing up - the same shit. Rolled out there and everything worked.”
Alex Coletti who was a producer at MTV had long worked on mtv’s unplugged series since
it’s inception in 1989 and would tell author david de sola in the book alice in chains the
untold story that since the band wasn’t touring at the time it actually worked
in their favour recalling “if you’re on tour playing arenas and big rock venues every night
to unplug when you’re in that headspace is really hard, to kind of turn down. But coming from
a resting period, they were able to approach it as if they were rehearsing this one thing.
The band would rehearse in Seattle before flying to new york.
Coletti would recall to De Sola flying to rehearsals to discuss instruments,
stage setups and gear. The band would work with producer Tobi Wright who did the band’s
last two released including 1994's jar of flies and the following year's self titled record.
Colletti would recall getting a last minute request for lava lamps from the band recalling
in the same book ‘i was getting them so late. Apparently lava lamps need to be heated and turned
on for quite a while before they do what theyre meant to do. So if you watch the show, they’re
kind of sluggish and not at full potential. So the lava lamps themselves were kind of grungy and just
barely moving around. It was kind of fitting, but we didn’t do it on purpose." he'd recall
Randy Biro who served as the band’s stage manager and guitar and bass tech
recalled Layne bringing his own drug supply ahead of the MTV gig which he put in a glass
pill bottle recalling “he hadn’t done enough where he was nodding off and drooling,:
The MTV unplugged performance was also notable
because the band debuted a new song called ‘The Killer is me’
As for Cantrell he was sick during the performance. Whlie it’s been reported
extensively over years that Jerry got food poisoning from eating a hotdog telling kerrang
“Oh yeah, I had ‘food poisoning’,”. “But when the lights went green, the cameras started rolling,
my body gave me some adrenaline and dopamine I needed to get through it
adding As soon as it was over, I went back to feeling crappy again.”
Metallica who were friends with the band were in attendance at the show
were poked fun at my bassist Mike Inez who wrote on his bass friends don’t let friends
get friends haircuts, while the band also jammed on a bit of Enter Sandman
and Battery. This was the Load era of Metallica when the members had cut their hair and according
to Cantrell were looking like GQ models. Cantrell would tell Kerrang “Having Metallica watching the
gig helped,” reflects upon their game-raising presence. “Those guys have always been in our
inner circle of rock’n’roll brothers, so to have the whole band there meant a lot.”
The band would joke around a lot with each other and the audience. The band had to restart the
song ‘Sludge Factory’ several times something you can see a bit of on the unplugged vhs.
Since Layne had written the song as a shot at the band’s record label and two of their label’s
heads were sitting at the front row, it was thought that maybe Layne was nervous about that.
Coletti would credit kinney with being and i quote the unsung hero of that unplugged’
adding to david de sola “because the thing about unplugged, especially with rock bands
is you live or die by the drummer. If the drummer gets it and tempers
his playing then everyone can kind of play at a lower volume and play acoustically.
When the drummer just plays like a rock show, everyone turns up their monitors
and then what’s meant to be this pretty acoustic thing just sounds like shitty electric guitars.’
Released in July of 1996 the album would peak at number three on the Billboard 200 charts,
and would go platinum while the video release on VHS went gold. The initial reviews were mixed, but
following Staley’s death in 2002 people seemed to have a greater appreciation for the performance.
Cantrell would look back at the unplugged album recalling to REvolver “People say
it’s their favourite Alice In Chains record all the time – and that’s cool! Every single record
I’ve put out is somebody’s favourite. While there are groups of folks who dig our f****
heavier shit, there are those who prefer our more acoustic side.”Unplugged means a lot to
so many people,” “And it means a lot to me too. Cantrell would appear on Lars Ulrich’s Beats
1 podcast and talk about how Unplugged and 1996 in general represented the end of the
band with Layne Staley as the frontman as he stated here. Get friends haircuts yeah
so all joking aside that was the back of mike's bass the night you guys played your unplugged gig
i think it was the front it was the front of the bass. Was it the front? Bleep. I think
that was the front of the bass. Was it in 1996? That was metallica haircut era. Yes.
But that night the unpluggedn ight that was apart from one show where you guys
did a kiss thing you opened for kiss that was the end. That was a one off. That unplugged session is
one of the most legendary yeah of those unplugged sets at that time everybody was doing them and you
guys were along with nirvana and one or two other bands ahd the very cream of those sessions from
mtv. What do you remember about that night about playing and just being together and giving those
songs the acousticc treatment in front of people. Iremember being surrounded by friends like you
guys. You guys were all there. and we had a lot of other friends there too and you're right that and
the kiss shows i think that was it so. Was there a sense of that? yeah absolutely for a period of
time knowing that my band is probably over and that one of my friends is committed to going out
that way. That's a tough thing to live with and still try to keep that thing internal and support
the group and none of us really wanted to control one other, we just wanted to exist and if that's
where somebody is going to go then that's what their going to do and we all went through that to
some degree and i don't think i was in great shape either i think i wasn't feeling too hot either by
my own hand for that gig. I think that's why all that was in there because all of that background I
just described we were all living in that knowing that we are coming to the end of that in here.
Unless something really drastically changes we are coming to the end really quick and i
think part of that is in that performance. As an outsider there is it a celebration of the strength
of the songs yeah for sure cause when they are stripped down because as you know and musicians
know they'd better be there when you're playing an acoustic instrument there better be a song there
and a vocal melody and a lyric. That's right that can stand on it's own without the volume and
the weight of the electric instuments and i just remember seeing every one of those songs was just
so moving in their simplest form. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure
to hit the like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.
That does it for today’s video guys thanks for
watching. Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe.