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Back in 1991 and 1992 an up and coming Seattle band named Alice in Chains were at the forefront
of an explosion of alternative rock music.
Their debut album 1990's Facelift had been a slow burn but started to gain momentum in
the Spring of 1991 following their hit single “Man in the Box’ blowing up.
I’ve done a whole video on Man in the box.
The link is down below in the description box.
Alice in Chains got some pretty high profile touring slots opening for metal bands Slayer,
Anthrax, and Megadeth in 1991 on the Clash of the Titans Tour despite being poorly received
in some markets.
One of the other high profile touring slots Alice in Chains got offered was to open for
Van Halen.
While thetour had a lot of light hearted moments and would create long lasting friendships
it also was sadly the beginning of the end for the Seattle band.
Stay tuned for the full story.
Following the success of the Man in The Box's music video on MTV, van halen frontman sammy
hagar wanted to have the band open for them from August of 1991 to January of 1992 with
some breaks sprinkled in between.
Hagar would tell the seattle post intelligencer “I Said let’s find a cool new band that
needs exposure.
I was watching MTV and saw man in the box” video.
Layne Staley is one of the greatest new singers today.
“ At the same time however, Hagar would admit that band’s like Alice in Chains also
made him insecure as he would reveal to Sirius XM here:
do you ever do that?
do you ever look back in hindsight and go God i am a little bit freaked out by the new
guy or I am a bit nervous about it or are you in a comfortable place.
Oh I am in a total comfortable place now.
But when you're like in van halen in the 90's when grunge came along you know.
Right.
That was freaky man you know because i was looking at these guys and we were sort of
the glam rock we were dressed up and dressing like girls and stuff you know i mean c'mon
you look pretty fin fabulous.
And Motley Crue Poison and these guys.
More hairspray than me.
It was more fun dressing like that than the way i dress right now.
I'll tell you that but then when grunge came and they were like down and dirty and funky
and Nirvana comes along.
They made me nervous.
These guys are going to disrespect us.
You know they are going to look at you know and say yeah your shit is done buddy, but
it didn't happen.
I was so insecure about it, that i invited Alice in Chains with their first album, their
first single when they had 'Man in the Box' to open for Van Halen.
They came out on the whole tour with us and I've been dear friends with Jerry Cantrell
since then, but that's how insecure I was, I said no let's get them on the damn show
so that way their fans know that we're cool and we're giving them.
Holy shit that's kind of genius, yeah, but it came out of fear.
Yeah it came out of fear, a little bit but not bad fear, but nervousness.
I get it.
It came out of a nervousness, but then also kind of an intelligent one because I bet it
worked.
Oh it did.
Oh, they did really good.
Business was good and i made a friend out of it.
You know Still friends with him?
Oh yeah, Jerry come down to Cabo for my birthday bash every year.
Every friggin year.
Oh I can only imagine.
It was a dream come true for the members of Alice in Chains as according to the book Alice
in Chains the untold story by David DeSola, singer Layne staley saw Van Halen between
the ages of 10 and 12 and according to his stepfather Jim Elmer that was Layne really
took an interest in music.Ready to go on stage opening for his and and he's standing in my
pit with Valirie next to him and Wolfie in her arms and he's got his guitiar on and he's
like just running scales and he's like like hey dude, what's up and I'm like are you fing
kidding me?
Eddie Van Halen standing there with Valerie Bertanli and Wolfie and he's in my pit and
Iam opening for his band and I was so fing nervous so i came over and said hi to him
and he's like oh man you're going to be fine.
I think it was probably the worst show i ever played in my life because i couldn't stop
thinking oh he's right over there.
You know, so i couldn't focus and i just couldn't wait until the gig was over, but after that
i was fine.
First gig was nerve wrecking because i could not get out of my head that eddie van halen
was looking at me and were playing in front of van halen and you know but we ended up
being really good friends.
Bassist Mike Starr also was a huge Van Halen fan writing in his high school year book that
one of his dreams was to open for van Halen.
And While the tour with Van Halen was a dream come true, it would introduce the greatest
villain in Alice in Chains tragic story as a band and that was the drug heroin.
According to David De Sola’s book and several of Layne’s friends t was believed that the
Van Halen tour is where the singer first was introduced to the drug.
Alice in Chains producer David Jerden who worked on the band’s first and second records
Facelift and Dirt recalled seeing Alice in Chains on the Van Halen tour revealing to
De Sola: i went to arizona and saw them play with van halen and layne was definitely acting
different at that point Layne was usually gregarious and cracking jokes all the time
and i went to their tour bus and saw the band before the concert and layne was really quiet.
I didn’t know whta was up with him.
Jerden would ask Layne “how does it feel to be famous” to which Layne replied it’s
freaking me out.
People treat me like an object I’m not a person anymore i’m just a commodity to be
sold People don’t really know who i am.
People grab things from me"he'd say.
It was also during this same tour that bassist Mike Starr was found by Van Halen’s security
to be scalping tickets to the shows to make extra money to get drugs.
It’s possible this also led to his dismissal from the band in early 1993.
Now not everything that happened during the van halen tour was bad as both bands became
close.
Eddie Van Halen spent a lot of time hanging out on Alice in Chains tour bus with guitarist
Jerry Cantrell claiming that the guitarist hung out more in room than he hung out with
his own band.”
Cantrell and Van Halen would remain good friends up until the Van Halen guitarist’s death
a couple weeks ago.
Even following the tour, the members of Van Halen were pretty gracious with Alice in Chains.
At one point during the tour Jerry offered to buy one of Eddie’s guitars, but he declined.
And following the tour Cantrell found himself living in the basement of Pearl Jam manager
Kelly Curtis when one day he discovered that Eddie Van Halen had sent him a garageful of
amplifers and guitars.
And Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony would send Mike Starr several bass guitars and amps
as well.
The tour with Van Halen was also notable because it was the scene of an ongoing prank war between
both bands.
Cantrell would recall how Van Halen pranked Alice in Chains four times in one night revealing
to interviewer Jim Dunlop
lot of pranks get pulled on stage, it’s kind of a tradition to f--- with each other
at the end of the tour, especially the opening bands," describes Cantrell.
"I remember the Van Halen guys got us like four times in one set, back in ’91, at the
end of that tour.
When we came out on stage, they had taken a bunch of three-foot strips of duct tape
and put them all over the stage face-up, so we walked out and within the couple seconds
we were all dragging around huge wads of duct tape on stage.
They sent out some strippers, not very attractive ones, who stayed out there for a whole song.
Then they sent out one of their techs, I think he was a guy named Zeke, in a Little Bo Peep
outfit with some live sheep.
And at the very end of our set, we were playing “Man In The Box,” and their crew came
out and started dismantling our entire set around us—they left Sean with a kick and
snare, left me with one cab, they just unplugged Mike Starr.
And that was all in one set!
I don’t think anyone has ever topped that commitment to fing with the opening act.”
But Alice didn’t take it lying down as the band got back at Van Halen with the guitarist
revealing in the same interview
On the flip side of that, there’s a photo [above], which I think some people have seen,
but I don’t think is necessarily public knowledge…
So Van Halen used to do this signature walk across the stage, and at the time they had
these skimpy panties that they would sell to the chicks in the audience.
Really skimpy panties.
So we took some of these panties and put them on—of course they weren’t big enough keep
our junk in, so we had to turn them around with the butt parts in front to keep our stuff
together—and put on some combat boots, and we made ourselves up as strippers and did
that Van Halen signature walk across the stage behind them, and they didn’t know it was
happening, except for Alex.
There’s a great photo of it, taken right as Eddie turns around and realizes what’s
going on, and he’s totally losing it.
He’s one of those guys who never fucks up.
I’ve seen him play in so many different states, and he’s always on, but hearing
him miss a couple notes while getting a laugh out of us was great.”
That does it for today's video guys.Thanks for watching.
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