I’ve covered a lot of Alice in CHains videos
on my channel including their glam days, the making
of facelift, jar of flies, sap and rooster. Links to those videos are down below. But
today let’s take a look at a frontman Layne Staley’s final days with the band in the
studio. Alice in Chains would establish themselves
as the first band out of seattles so called grunge movement to have a gold record with
facelift. They would be release several big records including 1992’s Dirt, 1994’s
EP Jar of Flies and 1995’s Self titled record that would prove to be their final studio
album of original recordings. Addiction and in-fighting led to the band stop touring in
any major capacity by 1993. Frontman Layne Staley’s addiction to heroin would be the
group’s achiles heel and it wasn’t something the singer hid. A lot of their sophomore release
1992’s Dirt captured Layne’s struggle as did their self titled record.
The band’s last major appearance on the
road would be 1996, a year that saw the band briefly open for kiss that summer and make
a few live tv appearances in addition to cutting
an unplugged album for mtv. It was obvious from layen;’s
changing physical appearance by 1996 that he was still struggling with addiction. Following
that summer alice in chains camp would lie dormant. Layne was hit with devastating news
in October of that year when he learned his ex-fiance Demri Parrot had died. It was said
by those close to him that he never fully
recovered from her death. . It was during this time There’d
be the odd news story about some running into Layne a lot of which is captured in the books
everybody loves our town and grunge is dead. Even MTV reported in August 1997 that there were
rumors circulating online and on radio stations that Layne had lost several fingers to gangrene.
The rumors likely stemmed from a 1996 profile
that rolling stone did on the band that highlighted
his personal problems with drugs A rep for the band
would issue a statement to mtv that read "I
visited Layne the other day, and he's fine... and he's got all his fingers."
In October of 1997 the band’s manager Susan Silver would appear at the north by northwest music
and media conference and the seattle times would report that and i quote “she
also hinted with a sigh that alice is about to self destruct.” It was during this time
Silver closed her management business as well. A few months after the report came out in
late 1997 reports would surface that guitarist Jerry Cantrell was now turning his attention
to putting out a solo record. It’s important
to note that some of the tracks on Cantrell's solo record boggy depot consisted of ¾ of
alice in chains minus layne staley. Of course as Cantrell started doing press for his solo
effort , which would be released in february of 1998
the question of alice in chains' inactivity
continually came up in addition to questions about layne's healh. He would be asked about the band’s
inactivity in February of 1998 telling mtv Well, there's really nothing's up with Alice
in Chains. We've been together for 11 years now, and we've done a lot of great music together
and accomplished a lot of things and that's very special to me. We're a part of a group
of fans that really put their stamp on the map, actually, on the world for that matter,
and far surpassed where we probably initially thought we'd get to. So that's cool. That's
in the books, and that's something we did and something to be proud of. But there also
comes a point in the life of any band, I think, that it's time to change, and time to try
new things. Here’s another interview jerry did with muchmusic and you can tell he's pretty
annoyed with questions about layne’s
health come up. Is layne staley okay. He's fine. He is?.Yeah,
good. He's fine Right on i had to you know might as well say it upfront. It's very funny everytime
i get that particular question like i'm supposed to give some status report he's doing fine he's
probably at home recording a song. Cool. Yeah, so he's better than ever.
Ugh, actually he's conditioning himself for the nagano olympics
According to MTV News it was around this time that
Columbia records the band's label had taken out an ad in billboard
magazine touting a new box set from the band titled ‘men in the box.’ but the band
denied anything new was on the horizon calling the ad 'premature.'
Jerry would assemble a solo band that included alice drumm sean kinney and tour during the
summer of 1998 including opening for metallica and playing alongside days of the new. Side
note guys i’ve done a whole video on days of the new. The link is down below.
Cantrell would reveal to popmatters that it
was during his time on the road that he started writing music for his second
solo album degradation trip and that included a track called get born again but his alice in
chains bandmate took a liking to the song. In August of 1998 producer Dave Jerden who
produced both facelift and dirt got a call that Alice in Chains wanted some studio time
to record a few new songs for an upcoming box set the Music Bank. Jerden at the time
was working in his El Dorado studio with The Offspring recording their record Americana.
The Offspring who were signed to the same label as Alice at the time. Due to the tight
scheduling Alice was only able to come in for one weekend during August 22 & 23. There
was foreshadowing of what would happen. Jerden had had a falling out with Alice in Chains
during the making of Dirt confronting Layne about his escalating drug use, hence why he didn’t
work on their follow up release 'Jar of Flies' or their
self titled album with the job going to Tobi Wright. Wright would also work with jerry
on his solo record. In addition to seeing a familair face with Jerden Engineer
Bryan Carlstrom was also in the studio at the time,
but he was exhausted from pulling long days with the offspring. Based on Jerden’s
conversations with Alice’s manager the idea was that each of the two days in the studio
would be used to record, overdub and mix one song. Things didn’t exactly go to plan.
While Jerry, Sean and Mike from Alice showed up in the
morning of August 22nd and recorded their
parts fairly quickly, Layne wouldn’t show
up until sometime after midnight. Carlstrom was shocked
at Layne’s appearance recalling in the book Alice in Chains the untold story. “Layne
showed up at the studio & I didn’t recognize him. HE looked likean eighty year old man.
He didn’t have any teeth. I was shocked, t say the least.” A studio runner and assistant
engineer named Elan Trujillo shared a similar sentiment recalling
“when layne came in we were all shocked because layne definitely didn’t look like
how he used to. He had obviously been really affected by his substance abuse at that point…it
was really sad, i was really heartbroken. Despite layne’s change in appearance his
humor and wit was still there according to those who were part of the recording session.
Layne would spend time in and out of the bathroom, nodding off on the couch and August 22nd
happened to be his 31st birthday, Trujillo arranged for a cake to be in the studio and
every sang layne happy birthday and gave him a card. It was
now 5am in the morning and layne wanted to continue to work, but the studio staff and
the band were exhausted and wanted to come back the following day, but Layne claimed
he had to go back home to seattle for his sisters wedding. Author David De Sola who wrote alice in
chains the untold story did a check for Layne’s
sister’s marriage certificate and found that there was
no license for that weekend as his sister had gotten married earlier
in the year and layne wasn’t present at the
ceremony Jerden
suspected that Layne wanted to go back to seattle to score. De Sola would write in his
book what happened next between JErry and
Layne with Jerry yelling Layne's name in an exasperated voice
with him writing Layne turned into this little kid that had been reprimanded severely by his
parents. It was one of the strangest things i ever saw how jerry wasn’t putting up with
layne’s bs anymore and layne who had such a strong personality had completely turned
into nothing. He wasn’t crying but he looked like he was about to cry. Layne acted like he was
afraid, terrified of jerry. The studio sessions
would be suspended for the time being with no vocals being recorded. The tension in the
studio soon leaked to Rolling Stone magazine who wrote up an article called
“malice in chains." The article mostly citing jerden created
some bad blood between the producer and alice’s camp. Jerden would recall to rolling stone
how layne and i quote weighted eighty pounds and was white as a ghost. with Jerden adding
“It’s one o’clock in the morning and
Jerry and Layne were having problems on one song because Jerry was mad
because Layne was changing the melody and lyrics,”. “So,
in the middle of this mess I’m supposed to go, ‘let’s
stay here all fing night?'”
According to Jerden, Staley told Cantrell, “‘I’ve never fucking
used your lyrics and I’m not about to.'” Cantrell shot back against at
Jerden’s recollection telling rollingstone: “If you look at any of our discs, I mean,
Layne sang a lot of my lyrics [such as “Would?,” “Rooster” and
“Grind”] and I sang a lot of his. It’s not like one guy’s writing
all this s—.” In the same article susan silver would slam
jerden for leaking details of the session to the magazine stating
“I’m sickened by the fact that [Dave] would … try and lay blame
on everyone around him for something that was he was so clearly
responsible for. All this from a ‘professional’ who has received many
benefits from his previous association with Alice in Chains. He
should be ashamed — his lack of respect is disgraceful.”
Following the failed sessions, Jerden tried to setup some studio time in seattle for early
september for layne to finish up his vocals
but would soon be informed by silver that layne didnt’
want to work with the producer anymore. Layne
would book studio time with Jar of flies and Alice in Chains LP producer tobi wright. And due
to the tensions between jerry and layne they had to be in teh studio at different times
with Wright recalling to david de sola “those
two songs required a lot of pro tool editing..because
layne would do something, he’d go home, jerry would come in and hear what he did and
he’d chage it again. So it was a lot of digital manipulation.” Wright would attribute
the heavy use of pro tools to the fact that layne was missing teeth, something which affected
his singing ability. According to Wright he tried to encourage layne not to write lyrics
that highlighted the singer’s lisp. The two resulting songs would be Get Born Again
and Died, which would be the final two songs layne recorded with the band. Both songs would
be included as part of the Alice in Chains Music Bank Boxset with Get Born Again being released
as a single and a video would be shot for the song as well. The video for get born
again wouldn't use any footage of the band due to layne's appearance and instead
used a compilation of the band's old videos. The single would peak at number 4 on the billboard
mainstream rock charts and layne would reveal to rockline that the song was about religious
hypocricy. The song died meanwhile would be written about Layne’s former fiance Demri.
In the liner notes of the music bank boxset jerry would write I wish we'd have got a bit
more work on that one. It's more "Alice In A Jam Room", it's not as finished as "Born
Again". It's vicious, it's got teeth, it doesn't have many overdubs and it's maybe a purer,
rawer form of what Alice is. It isn't pretty and that's not a bad thing at all he'd write.
Layne would continue to be in seclusion in the years that followed and he would pass
away in april of 2002 due to a drug overdose. He was only 34 years old
That does it for today’s video guys thanks for
watching and we’ll see you again on rock n roll true stories take care.