Alice in Chains - Music Bank (1999)

In the beginning…before Grunge, before the ‘90’s, at a time when Guns N’ Roses dominated the music scene, there was Diamond Lie and Alice N’ Chains, two struggling bands sharing a lead singer known as Mr. Staley.

Eventually, Layne joined up for good with Diamond Lie’s Jerry Cantrell, Mike Starr and Sean Kinney, and Alice In Chains was born in 1987.

In late 1988 and early 1989, they began to write a new series of songs that would get them a record deal and eventually become the core of their debut album FACELIFT.

The writing of a group of songs which included “Love, Hate, Love” and “I Can’t Remember” seemed to be a turning point. With those songs the band moved away from the songwriting and performing style of the time. The band’s songs of that time started to explore the darker side of life. They also showcased Layne and Jerry’s signature fourth interval harmonies which would come to define the band’s and a whole generation’s sound.

The band became a powerful force in music as they explored the disassociation and angst of Generation X. Their anthems of pain and self-destruction made them the poster children for disaffected youth. But their songs from SAP to JAR OF FLIES explored another side of life, a more self affirming side. For every “Man In The Box” there is a “Would?”

But, Alice In Chains are, if anything, an enigma. If you didn’t know the band, and only judged them by the apparent subject matter of their songs, you would probably think they were very twisted and dark characters. Nothing could be further from the truth. They all possess an acute sense of humor, a healthy dose of sarcasm and a heightened sense of the absurd. In fact, the band’s name came out of an ironic desire to come up with the most over-the-top name for a speed metal band dressed in drag.

From their signing with Columbia in late 1989 through the summer of 1996, the band worked non-stop, playing countless shows and recording 6 albums. It was a 7-year moving train wreck with more excess and insanity than can, or should be, chronicled here.

MUSIC BANK is about the music not the myth of Alice In Chains. It stands as a testament to the incredible talent and power of the band. In these 48 songs, there is incredible growth, incredible insight, incredible pain and in the end there is redemption. Remember, even DIRT, the band’s 1992 masterpiece, a searing portrait of addiction and recovery ends with the promise of the last line of “Would?”

“…If I would, could you?”

THE MUSIC BANK is, to the naked eye, wholly non-descript.

Creeping out from under one of Seattle’s many bridges, 10 minutes from downtown and near a fish import dock, the long single-level warehouse containing 50-odd rooms was typical of many a budget rehearsal space. It was in one of these rooms, during a summer afternoon in 1989, that the members of Alice In Chains awoke to find the Seattle police department standing over their sleeping figures. The cops were in the middle of busting a pot business, and Alice were alarmed to discover that next door to their space had been home to the biggest marijuana operation in the history of Washington State.

The timing of the whole incident couldn’t have been more unfortunate: Alice In Chains were due to record demos the next morning, and here they were, being marched out of their space, under suspicion of conspiracy to cultivate weed they never knew existed.

They managed to talk the cops into letting them wheel out their gear (packed in cases for the ensuing recording session) and even managed to charm beer money from Seattle’s finest before settling down for the night under the bridge, some on top of the cases, others in Layne Staley’s old VW Dasher which hadn’t moved for years.

This brush with disaster perfectly illustrates the sort of wry, ironic humor which has been the backbone for one of the most important bands of the ‘90s. It also shows how Alice In Chains managed to repeatedly laugh in the face of adversity, consistently pulling victory from the jaws of defeat.

Over the next decade there would be many brushes with disaster… but Alice would continue to laugh.

Indeed, Alice In Chains have gone on from this ‘urban camping’ episode to consistently capture the ears and minds of millions with their heartfelt energy and stripped-bare emotions.

Between 1990 and 1996 they recorded four albums, all certified double Platinum or beyond and two EP’s (SAP, certified Gold and JAR OF FLIES, certified Triple Platinum that established Alice In Chains as one of the world’s most unique, and successful bands.

They are a band that came to the front during a generational change in music. They fused hard rock with a variety of eclectic musical elements. This explains clearly why Alice In Chains played such a pivotal role in the street-led alternative music revolution of the ‘90s. By September 1991, the breakthrough cut, ‘Man In The Box’, was part of national radio and MTV’s staple diet.

In all fairness, it would’ve been a stretch for Layne Staley, Sean Kinney, Jerry Cantrell, and Mike Starr to have envisaged such an impact when the hand of fate first drew them together at THE BANK.

Staley, a Seattle native, had already formed a group called Alice N’ Chains (a more glamesque rock ‘n roll project) when he first met Sean Kinney on Alki Beach in 1985. They got on well enough, but as it happens, lost contact. When Layne Staley first met Jerry Cantrell at a party during December 1987, he was the Music Bank’s manager. Cantrell, fresh from Tacoma via Texas, had lost both his mother and grandmother six months earlier, received an insurance settlement and decided to take on Big City Seattle.

“I thought he was the coolest guy I’d ever met,” remembers Cantrell. “He looked cool, chicks liked him and he was just very magnetic. Everyone liked Layne. I’ve rarely met anyone who didn’t like Layne that wasn’t a total fucking dickhead anyway. And as soon as I heard his voice I knew I wanted him writing tunes with me in a band. He heard my story and he invited me to the Music Bank. The dude took care of me, gave me a shot, gave me a place to stay and treated me right, despite the fact I was a total stranger. You don’t fucking forget that.”

Cantrell, who previously had a band called Diamond Lie, quickly set about getting a new band together. He already knew a bassist, the charismatic Mike Starr, from a one-week stint together in an outfit called Gypsy Rose…from which they'd been unceremoniously fired. Staley was quick to suggest a drummer, remembering Kinney, and getting the two in contact.

When they did, and Cantrell mentioned Starr’s name, Kinney revealed that not only had he known Mike Starr for years but that he was currently dating his sister. Coincidence perhaps, but if so, certainly an eerie one.

The threesome started to find a good groove. Staley often helped fill in on vocals during rehearsals, with Cantrell returning the favor on one of Staley’s projects. It took a month of plotting to get Staley to agree to join forces during early 1987. The quartet called themselves both Mothra and Fuck (the latter memorably earmarked by condoms with the words ‘FUCK – THE BAND’ stamped on them) before setting on the name ALICE IN CHAINS, a name Staley had originally conjured when trying to create a name for a speed metal band that dressed in drag.

Within a week, the band had been offered a 45-minute set which they eagerly took despite having only 15 minutes worth of material, and shows kept on coming. It was in early 1987 that the quartet dug deep into shallow pockets, borrowed a van belonging to local band Coffin Break, and rumbled up a dusty trail to the mountainous ski-resort area of Issaquah. There they availed themselves of a friend-of-a-friend’s recording equipment: an 8-track studio in a treehouse. Between moving their gear up and down the trunk on a wooden platform and pulley-system, they recorded The Treehouse demos which included the early songs, ‘I Can’t Have You Blues’, ‘Social Parasite’, ‘Queen Of The Rodeo’ and ‘Whatcha Gonna Do’, as well as Hanoi Rocks and David Bowie covers.

The Treehouse tapes gave Alice a tangible platform from which to build their sound, both in rehearsals and live.

With no all-age clubs in Seattle, a series of events were staged at various town halls during ‘87 and ‘88 at roller skating rinks and anywhere the band could do a show. Both the talent and crowds steadily improved, and it wasn’t long before Alice in Chains were taking on Seattle strongholds such as The Vogue and The Central Tavern. With Staley the only member not over 21, there were many times he would have to wait outside the venue until right before show time and leave immediately after the last note. Not that it mattered: there were always friends with beer in the parking lot.

Despite their steadily growing popularity, Kinney remembers, “We were always a little on the outside and we were always a little too young to hang-out with ‘the scene’, so I don’t know that we were ever big press favorites or anything. But it didn’t seem to matter, people kept on showing up anyway. ”

A local promoter, Randy Hauser, who liked the band offered to pay for the recording of the demos. The band headed to London Bridge Studios where they recorded a series of demos on 24-track tape during 1987 and 1988 with Rick Parashar. These sessions produced a series of tapes and eventually bootlegs that made the rounds of publishers, agents and record companies. The demos on DISC 1 of this box were taken from those sessions. They have been available on many different bootlegs over the years, but all suffer from the fact that the original bootlegger had a machine that ran slow, thus all those bootlegs run at the wrong speed. A history between the band and studio had been established when Staley and Cantrell’s previous projects had been recorded there.

That demo, basically a 24-track re-recording of The Treehouse tapes with a bit of new material added, was the one that caused high interest. Local managers Kelly Curtis and Susan Silver started managing the band.

Alice started to think seriously about making their own independent release. But it was during a rehearsal that fate again spun it’s wheels Alice’s way. Nick Terzo and Ron Sobel, who was working for the performance rights society ASCAP, happened across the band while doing business with another group in The Bank. He quickly felt Alice’s atmosphere and potential, but it was a little while before Terzo could return to them as an A&R man. In the meantime, other labels were sniffing their trail and Alice nearly signed with Island Records.

Just as music was undergoing a generational change, so was Columbia Records. The label had many established superstars, but few emerging new bands. That was about to change with the appointment of Don Ienner as President. At 36, Ienner became the youngest President in the label’s history.

When he saw that the recording plans for the company included new projects with members of Loverboy and Toto he acted quickly. Those projects were shelved and he began his search for bands that would lead Columbia into the 1990s.

Soon after, Terzo surfaced at Columbia. Feeling loyal to Terzo, and impressed by Ienner’s unflinching appreciation for the group, Alice In Chains, and their attorneys Peter Paterno and Michele Anthony, began to negotiate with the label. They signed in late 1989. Anthony’s strong negotiating style so impressed Sony that she was hired, and has risen to the job of Executive VP of Sony Music Entertainment.

The Music Bank closed down by the time the band began making their debut album FACELIFT with producer Dave Jerden. The group moved into a house, rented at a cheap price to them by Mike Starr’s mom. The Music Bank spirit, however, followed them.

“We supported each other, we fed each other, we scored together and we jammed together” remembers Cantrell. “If somebody had an ‘in’ with a girl that had money or food we were all in on it. We were the Four Musketeers.

For their debut album, the tough, non-compromising production talents of Jerden (Rolling Stones, Jane’s Addiction) were suggested, and on meeting him, Alice were immediately impressed, finding a man who also believed in doing things ‘my’ way. A slight delay ensued when Kinney broke his hand during an altercation at a party one evening. The band considered all the options, including recording the album with a replacement for Sean. At the last minute, however, Kinney cut the cast off his hand three weeks early to do the job himself.

It was, in many ways, the signal for a new era to begin.

With an agreement between band and label that they would be left alone to create their music, Facelift was recorded at sessions at London Bridge Studios and Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, with Jerden proving more than capable of handling the unharnessed, curveball energy of Alice. That energy, however, was being spent on far more than just partying: Cantrell and Staley were the core writing team. Cantrell, Staley and Kinney took charge of supervising the more visual and artistic affairs, whilst Starr’s infectious enthusiasm proved a spur for all.

By the time of the Alice In Chains album, Kinney took over more responsibility for the artistic affairs.

In June 1990, the We Die Young EP was released. In an innovative move, Columbia gave all 15,000 copies of the EP to record stores to be given or sold to fans of hard rock music. All this set the table for FACELIFT to be served in August 1990. FACELIFT made it clear that Alice In Chains’ music had extra dimensions beyond its contemporaries of the time.

Although there were certainly some solid hard rock flavors, both ‘We Die Young’ and ‘Love, Hate, Love’ illustrated a band who were not afraid to explore life’s darker tapestries, the latter also showcasing the Cantrell/Staley songwriting harmonies that would shape and define a generation’s sound. “If they can relate to it and maybe take a line, and make it their own—their own point of view of what the line means, and it does something good for them, or gets some aggression out, that’s great too,” said Staley. “We’re not preaching, it’s our own shit.”

“We went out for dinner with some Columbia Records people who were vegetarians. They told me how veal was made from calves raised in these small boxes, and the image stuck in my head. So I went home and wrote ‘Main In The Box’ about government censorship and eating meat as seen through the eyes of a doomed calf.”

Even its metallic colorized cover, featuring Mike Starr’s doubled face, signaled a fresh way of presenting themselves. The band instantly found a connection with the off-kilter eye of photographer Rocky Schenck, and they would subsequently work on all but the UNPLUGGED cover and many of the band’s videos, making sure the group’s unique visions continued to be illustrated. The original idea for the cover was to have the band’s four faces superimposed into one startling expression. That photograph is the cover of disc 1 in this set.

‘We Die Young’ became a top 5 metal track, but didn’t dent commercial radio. Album Oriented Rock radio stations nationwide would wait until the release of ‘Man In The Box’ in early 1991 before joining long-time local supporters KISW in getting behind what they knew would become a phenomenon.

By the time they embarked upon their first-ever national tour in September of 1990, Alice In Chains quickly discovered how to cram 48 hours into 24 on a daily basis. Alice found their career quickly breaking into a 200 meter sprint. A friendship between Kelly Curtis and Seattle-based filmmaker and former journalist, Cameron Crowe, saw Alice invited to demo some songs for Crowe’s movie project on the exploding Seattle scene, ‘Singles’. They ended up being the sleazy bar band when the film itself came out, performing the song ‘Would?’ that significantly reverberated two years later. Those demos turned into the EP SAP and several songs that would find their way onto DIRT.

In a significant hometown event, Alice In Chains headlined The Moore Theater during December, the performance filmed by director Josh Taft for $9,000. Kelly Curtis and Susan Silver asked the label to fund the filming, but were turned down by Columbia’s West Coast head of Marketing. Subsequently, the band’s product manager, Peter Fletcher, contacted Don Ienner who immediately agreed to fund the filming. The film from that Moore performance would play an important role in the band’s future.

January 1991 started with an American Music Awards nomination for favorite Heavy Metal Artist (the band lost) but it was quick to become perhaps the most significant month of the band’s career. ‘Man In The Box’ was chosen as a single, and thanks to an incredible 16 weeks of video play by MTV that would begin in the spring, ‘Man In the Box’ stomped into the Top 20 on rock radio stations.

Columbia released the song as a commercial cassette single, thus becoming the only Alice In Chains song ever released commercially in the United States. “The whole beat and grind of that is when we started to find ourselves,” says Cantrell. “It helped Alice become what it was.”

February saw the first of four consecutive Grammy nominations (this one for Best Heavy Metal Performance, and the winner was not Alice) and by the time they joined Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax for the Clash Of The Titans tour in the summer, days off had become a myth as word of Alice spread faster than a common cold.

The band’s first album had sold a modest 40,000 units in six months, but a turning point came with the release of the single ‘Man In The Box’ and the packaging of the Moore Theatre video with the album.

FACELIFT was re-released with the LIVE FACELIFT video in May just as the Clash Of The Titans tour was beginning. With the track taking off at radio and video play on MTV, FACELIFT went Gold within six weeks. This was followed by a 6 month tour with Van Halen, by which time everybody was starting to love their off-kilter energy and dynamic sound.

In September 1991, FACELIFT was certified gold, one year to the day after its release. In November, the band went into London Bridge Studios again with Rick Parashar to add another dimension to their sound. The SAP EP’s largely acoustic sensibility showed a whole other expression of the band and featured guest appearances from Heart’s Ann Wilson, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and Mudhoney’s Mark Arm. “We were continually bashing out the heavy stuff and there was this whole other thing to get worked out,” says Kinney. “Both SAP and JAR OF FLIES were two of the easiest recordings we ever made.” The title came from one of Kinney’s dreams, where during a press conference the EP’s title was announced. In deference to deja vu, the name stuck.

The pace and ferocity of both Alice’s schedule and their ascendant career was producing a range of side-effects which were rooted in innocence but manifesting into darker affairs altogether. Drugs and alcohol were all part of the mix which the band had indulged in for over 18 months, and by the time Alice headed for One On One and Eldorado Studos with Jerden in April 1992 to record DIRT, they carried with them a clutch of visceral and brutally honest material. The day the DIRT sessions began, the L.A. riots broke out and the sessions were postponed for two weeks as the band retreated to their beachfront digs in Venice. Several of the members headed up to Joshua Tree for the break instead.

As the DIRT album came together, the band shot a video with Crowe and Taft for ‘Would?’ which went on to become a huge radio hit, its thundering altered-state grabbing radio stations from the Carolinas to California, its tearse sentiments a hint of what was to come. ‘Would?’ was initially released as part of the SINGLES soundtrack. The video became Alice’s first ‘Buzz Bin’ video on MTV.

“I was thinking a lot of Andrew Wood (the Mother Love Bone frontman) at the time,” says Cantrell. “Andy was a fucking hilarious guy, full of life and it was really sad to lose him. But I always hate people who judge the decisions others make, it’s like ‘hey, fuck you, man, you didn’t walk in his shoes.’ I personally don’t believe he wanted to die, I think he made a mistake. But what, you can’t die? So it was also directed towards people who had some judgments to pass.”

The video was to gather an MTV Award in 1993.

Kinney quickly discovered that the Moon Man trophy made a great toilet paper dispenser.

When DIRT was released in April 1992, it bluntly documented everything about anything dark the quartet had experienced. Childhood trauma, lost love, heroin, alcohol, depression and anger were all ruthlessly discussed. “Anyone can write songs about going out on a Saturday night, ‘drinking and I got in a fight’, you know,” says Staley. “I’ve written these songs. It’s a little harder to tap into darker feelings and memories. You know, pain can bring that on. A lot of people won’t dare to do that. They just stuff it deep inside until they EXPLODE and we’re just trying to deal with our demons before that happens.”

Songs like ‘Angry Chair’ and ‘Sickman’ were blunt accounts of Staley’s bleak battles, whilst ‘Rooster’ saw Cantrell openly using music to cure old familial wounds. “It was the start of the healing process between my dad and I from all the damage that Vietnam caused,” says Cantrell. “They were all my perceptions of his experiences out there, we never talked about it until I wrote the song. I asked him if I captured where he was and he said ‘You got too close.’”

“He always comes up with something I would never think of,” says Cantrell of Staley. “And I always come up with something he’d never think of, and they always blend together. But you’ve gotta have balls and belief in your shit, any guy that’s worth their salt has that and that’s where the tension comes from. That’s why the music ends up coming from somewhere deeper than your mouth.”

“That was the album where we just laid everything out,” says Kinney. “It’s all there, no holding back, no hiding, it’s a bare and honest look at what we’d experienced.”

Dirt found immediate empathy not only with their core metal audience, but with the bewildered Gen X who were indulging themselves in the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden and REM. It all meant a #6 debut on the billboard charts for DIRT, signifying the band’s unique position as spokespersons for both the rock and alternative audiences. Alice In Chains had with Dirt become a significant voice for the troubled generation.

As the Alice train picked up a further, more furious pace, a mini-disaster struck during their September Ozzy Osbourne support slot when Staley ran over himself whilst popping a wheelie on a four-wheel ATV. Undaunted, the group’s wry humor was merely given more room to express itself publicly. When Staley wasn’t on crutches or in a wheelchair performing the set, he could be seen lounging on various dressing room sofas, which would be placed by the rest of the band and their tireless tour manager Kevan Wilkins onstage prior to performance.

With Pearl Jam’s rise, Kelly Curtis decided to focus on just one band and Susan Silver took over as Alice’s sole manager, guiding their career from the end of 1992 on.

In January 1993, and after, the band played in Rio De Janeiro at the Hollywood Rock Festival.

Starr and the band decided it was best to part ways. The whole affair was upsetting for everyone, Starr having provided an enormous boost to the band’s live performances with his boundless energy, stellar rhythms and goofy humor, but it was obvious to everyone that the situation could bear no more strain.

Mike Inez was the best possible replacement Alice could’ve found. The former Ozzy Osbourne bassist flew to Europe to meet the band for three days of rehearsals, seemingly undaunted and impervious to problems, allowing Alice to complete the rest of the DIRT World Tour.

They recorded ‘A Little Bitter’ and ‘What The Hell Have I’ for the soundtrack to the movie LAST ACTION HERO. It was during this time they met Toby Wright, who had previously engineered such bands as AC/DC and Queensryche, and again they found a producer who shared their same independent artistic vision.

It was also Inez’s first recording work with the band. After a few months off for the first time in nearly three years, the band headlined 1993’s Lollapalooza tour, which also featured Fishbone, Primus, Tool and Rage Against The Machine.

Staley, however, was becoming increasingly disenchanted with everything outside the writing, and performing of music..

“Originally I wanted to be famous, rich, making music and playing it for tens of thousands of people,” said Staley, who had taken to wearing suits on stage. “This is what I wanted to do, but I’m no fucking rock star, I’m a human.”

With Lollapalooza successfully completed, Alice headed into London Bridge Studios during September ‘93 with Wright engineering to see what would happen. The seven day in-write-record-and-out session would eventually be released in January 1994, titled Jar of Flies.

It is one of the most poignant Alice recordings available, proof proper of the band’s ability to turn ugliness into beauty. It consequently debuted in the US Billboard charts at #1, became the only EP in history to reach #1 on the Billboard chart, and, of course, lose the Grammy.

By the time of the JAR OF FLIES recording, Nick Terzo had departed Columbia Records. The band never had a new A&R man appointed. From that day to the present, the only connection to the record company was with Ienner directly or with their Product Manager, Peter Fletcher.

“We didn’t plan to release anything,” says Kinney. “We just went in to continue getting that other side out, relax a little and see what happened. I dig that stuff a lot, I think it really shows what the band can do.” “The whole JAR OF FLIES EP proved to both us and the fans what a talented and valid part of the band Mike was,” says Cantrell. “He plays the nastiest, darkest stuff but he’s got the sweetest heart in the world.”

1994 proved to be the most emphatic to date in terms of establishing their place in the alternative rock world. FACELIFT moved beyond platinum, DIRT was certified US double-platinum, SAP had turned US gold, and JAR OF FLIES debuted at #1 on the Billboard top 200 album chart.

Tour-wise, Alice decided against going on the road after years of straight touring. An invitation to play summer shows with Metallica was canceled at the very last minute due to the delicate and volatile nature of the band’s inner-relationships, and each member decided to pursue other projects during an agreed period of time-off. Kinney recorded with Johnny Cash on a tribute record, Inez drifted off and played on ex-Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash’s solo album, Staley recorded and performed with Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, Barrett Martin and John Baker Saunders on the Mad Season album project, and Cantrell worked on his own solo album material.

So when ALICE IN CHAINS surfaced from a stint at Bad Animals Studio in Seattle during 1995, it was a welcome and unexpected surprise. Working with Wright as a producer, the album often referred to as ‘Tripod’, (the album art features a three-legged dog which was officially in memory of a dog which chased Kinney during boyhood paper-route duty) when their self-titled third album was released in November of 1995, it debuted straight at #1 on the Billboard charts and unveiled the hardest, darkest and richest collection of Alice songs yet, during which no expense was spared.

“We went to demo some stuff at this place called Bear Creek,” said Cantrell. “By the lake there were these really cool, loud fucking frogs, so we put the mic outside and recorded them. It cost us $10,000 for the week, we got nothing out of it other than these frogs, so we made sure that when we recorded the song we got those frogs in there.”

In 1995, the label asked the now interview-shy band to do a video press kit. The band contacted their friend Rocky Schenck, who came to Seattle to make something a little different. They mailed in their quirky home-movie, titled THE NONA TAPES featuring Cantrell in drag as a female interviewer who tracks down the band. By the year’s end, Alice In Chains had once more proven their place in the heart of rock history by again passing the Platinum mark.

In 1996, the Grammys this time chose ‘Grind’ as the loser for Best Hard Rock Performance, and in April the band went to New York for an MTV UNPLUGGED session. It was the passionate distillation of all their emotive material, making for an unforgettable performance. It was released in July and debuted on the Billboard charts at #3. They also snapped up the chance to play the first four shows on the Kiss Reunion tour supporting their childhood heroes at Detroit’s Tiger Stadium. But these shows were, sadly, to signal the last time anyone has seen Alice perform live, although they did all get together for 1997’s Annual Grammy defeat to announce themselves ‘the Susan Lucci of rock’ in tribute to the soap queen whose awards career had so mirrored theirs. It was the last time, until now, that Alice in Chains has surfaced…

Stoicism aside, no one in Alice In Chains really understands the boundaries of their relationship any more than affectionate families ever truly understand theirs. Everyone wants to knock down the WALLS but nobody’s sure which tool to use, afraid that the wrong one could cause irreversible damage.

To this day, as was when they started, Alice In Chains refuse to be anything BUT loyal to each other. They refuse to call it quits on childhood dreams that started in Seattle and Tacoma and took them around the world. Alice In Chains remain a name that is synonymous with passionate honesty. Their fan base runs the gamut from The Smiths to Slayer, and their sound therefore remains immortally universal, an emotional reference point that supercedes the era.

“We’ve always taken a lot of pride in the fact that Alice does its own thing,” says Kinney. “It’s always been honest. Whether it was people talking internally or whatever, we’ve always honestly tried to lay things down.” “There’s a lot of love between us,” says Cantrell. “You never know what the fuck’s going to happen. The adventure continues and its still goin’ on, and as long as we’re walking and breathing there’s still an Alice In Chains.”

We must certainly hope so. After all, Lucci’s since won herself an award, which must surely suggest that Alice have at least one more bit of history left to write…

DISC 1

1. GET BORN AGAIN (5:26) L. Staley–J. Cantrell • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

We tried to work with Dave Jerden again and that didn’t work out for various uncomfortable reasons. We had tracked with him in L.A., and then we went up to Seattle with Toby Wright. So considering it was done in different states with different producers, I think it turned out to be pretty classic Alice.

2. I CAN’T HAVE YOU BLUES (1988 DEMO) (4:01) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

That was a song I had before Alice started, from the time when Layne took me in at The Music Bank. It was one of the first songs I wrote on my little four-track.

3. WHATCHA GONNA DO (1988 DEMO) (2:54) J. Cantrell--L. Staley • Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

The same era, and I guess with all those songs we were “discovering” ourselves. It was around this time, and the song “I Can’t Remember”, that we found out sound. Before then, it was all about the end of the ‘80s rock, hair, spandex, stuff like that. So any of that era’s music carries some of the influences of the time, Guns N’Roses, stuff like that.

4. SOCIAL PARASITE (1988 DEMO) (4:22) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

I think that was just a reaction from me to people always flipping me shit for what I was doing. Anything negative your parents and friends were saying was material for reaction. You’ve gotta fight through a lot of stuff to do what you wanna do until you make it, and then of course suddenly everyone’s your best friend.

5. QUEEN OF THE RODEO (LIVE) (4:39) L. Staley--J. Silver • Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)/Climactic Independent Artists

That song always went over big, people in Seattle would wait for that one. It was actually written by Jett Silver, who was a friend of Layne’s, with Layne and was from the early days when Layne had the band as Alice N’ Chains with those other dudes. It was also the first time we got played on the radio by local station KISW.

6. BLEED THE FREAK (1988 DEMO) (3:32) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

The song is us against the world, those people who put you down: “I put up with many years of you putting us down and watching us bleed, now I’d like to see you bleed some back.”

7. KILLING YOURSELF (1988 DEMO) (2:38) J. Cantrell–L. Staley • Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

The demo’s better than the version on the WE DIE YOUNG EP and there’s some great guitar parts here that did not end up on the finished version.

8. WE DIE YOUNG (2:32) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

I’d just temporarily moved in with Susan Silver because Sean and I had just had a fight. So I was riding the bus to rehearsal and I saw all these 9, 10, 11 year old kids with beepers dealing drugs. The sight of a 10 year old kid with a beeper and a cell phone dealing drugs equalled “We Die Young” to me.

9. MAN IN THE BOX (4:46) L. Staley–J. Cantrell--M. Starr--S. Kinney • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing/Phlembot Music/Lungclam Music (ASCAP)

That whole beat and grind of that is when we started to find ourselves, it helped Alice become what it was.

10. SEA OF SORROW (1988 DEMO) (5:20) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP) Recorded and Mixed by Rick Parashar / Additional Engineering by David Wilson / Previously unreleased

11. I CAN’T REMEMBER (3:43) L. Staley–J. Cantrell • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

As I said earlier, another example of us really finding our sound.

12. LOVE, HATE, LOVE (6:26) L. Staley–J. Cantrell • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

A really powerful tune…that was the masterpiece of that record and it really gave me chills. Layne’s vocals are amazing on that one, and it has one of my favorite solos I’ve ever done.

13. IT AIN’T LIKE THAT (4:38) J. Cantrell–M. Starr–S. Kinney • Buttnugget Publishing/Phlembot Music/Lungclam Music (ASCAP)

A great dinosaur riff that was actually a mistake. I whipped out this stupid, huge riff and the guys loved it and told me to play it again. I said “what? I was jerkin’ off!” but they insisted, so me and Mike (Starr) made it into something. Mike (Starr) had the metal part, I had to bendy deal and I wrote the lyrics. A cool mistake.

14. CONFUSION (5:44) L. Staley–J. Cantrell–M. Starr • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing/Phlembot Music (ASCAP)

It always reminds me of the ocean for some reason. Jerden found some waves crashing and he threw them on there.

15. ROOSTER (1991 DEMO) (5:47) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

It was the start of the healing process between my Dad and I from all the damage that Vietnam caused. This was all my perceptions of his experiences out there. The first time I ever heard him talk about it was when we made the video and he did a 45 minute interview with Mark Pellington and I was amazed he did it. He was totally cool, totally calm, accepted it all and had a good time doing it. It even brought him to the point of tears. It was beautiful. He said it was a weird experience, a sad experience and he hoped that nobody else ever had to go through it.

16. RIGHT TURN (3:14) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

That song was part of a demo we did for the “Singles” movie, and it’s really special to me. The whole SAP EP is special. Sean came into a meeting one day and said he’d dreamt we released an EP called SAP and that people had been freaking out. So we listened to him and did put out the SAP EP, and we did it without any fuss or fanfare so as the real Alice fans could find it. On this song we had our friends come in and play, two guys I totally respect and admire greatly, Chris Cornell and Mark Arm. I’ve never gotten to play with either of them since, which adds to its specialness.

17. GOT ME WRONG (4:10) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

That’s about a girl I was dating in between one of the times I broke up with my true love. A lot of times you’ll tell someone how you don’t want to be in a relationship and why, and what kind of person you are, and they hear all that but think that they can change you. That’s what the song’s about, getting me wrong and the different ways that men and women see each other.

DISC 2

1. RAIN WHEN I DIE (6:02) J. Cantrell–L. Staley–S. Kinney–M. Starr • Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music/Phlembot Music (ASCAP)

It’s one of the few songs Layne and I wrote together. Usually it’s one or the other, or one of us takes over from the other at a point. He had something but I came up with something first which was equally as good, and the result was that we were pissed at each other for a day. Then we sat and listened to each other and realized it was all good and found a way to blend them.

2. FEAR THE VOICES (4:58) M. Starr–J. Cantrell–L. Staley–Phlembot Music/Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

Another cool song from that demo for the Crowe movie. Thinking about it now, that was a fruitful tape! We got “Would?” for the movie, part of SAP and we got started on the DIRT, so the tune itself was a good song, but we were just turning to the height of our blackness.

3. THEM BONES (2:29) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

I was just thinking about mortality, that one of these days we’ll end up a pile of bones. It’s a thought for every human being, whether you believe in an after-life or that when we die, that’s it. The thought that all the beautiful things and knowledge and experiences you’ve been through just end when you end scares me, the thought that when you close your eyes for good, it’s gone forever.

4. DAM THAT RIVER (3:09) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

It’s about that fight I had with Sean. I wrote it about him. “…I kicked you in the face” which, of course, I didn’t because I couldn’t. I was being an immature prick and I basically deserved what I got. It was over a ride, I kept on bugging for a ride until he got so mad he picked up a coffee table and broke it over my head! My retaliation was writing this song.

5. SICKMAN (5:30) J. Cantrell-L. Staley • Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

Layne came to me one day and asked me to write him the sickest tune, the sickest, darkest, most fucked up and heaviest thing I could write, and that’s what I did. I wrote the music, gave it to him and he wrote the lyrics.

6. ROOSTER (6:14) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

I think there’s some vibe on the demo that maybe we didn’t get here, but this has something all of its own… quality for one thing.

7. JUNKHEAD (1992 DEMO) (5:11) J. Cantrell–L. Staley • Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

I don’t really have anything to say about that one.

8. DIRT (5:17) J. Cantrell–L. Staley • Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

Another special one for me. That “bendy” thing is just part of who I am as a player, but this one accentuates that. The words Layne put to it were so heavy, I’ve never given him something and not thought it was gonna be the most bad-assed thing I was ever going to hear. Whether I showed it or not, I always knew it was going to be great and I was always excited. Anytime that he goes up to the mic, anytime he puts his mind to it, there’s not a guy who can touch him.

9. GOD SMACK (3:51) J. Cantrell–L. Staley • Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

It was the height of the heroin period. It was the most openly honest – this song and “Junkhead” particularly – translations of the craziness going on then. But they were magical, unstoppable times.

10. IRON GLAND (0:44) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

The riff at the end of it was a riff I played for years to annoy the guys. They cringed every time I played it. So I figured I’d do this thing with “Iron Man”, get the riff in there and put it to bed, which made the guys very happy. Tom Araya (Slayer) did a vocal on that. At first he thought it was stupid, but I told him that is exactly why he had to do it. I’m so glad he did it because jamming with friends is always very special. And I never played the riff again, as promised.

11. ANGRY CHAIR (4:47) L. Staley • Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

Such a brilliant song. I’m very proud of Layne for writing it. When I’ve stepped up vocally in the past he’s been so supportive, and here was a fine example of him stepping up with the guitar and writing a masterpiece.

12. LYING SEASON (3:21) L. Staley–J. Cantrell • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

That was off the “Singles” demo. Even back then when we were playing stupid cheesy tunes, you could still hear the talent and hear something shining through that was to develop into us.

13. WOULD? (3:28) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

I was thinking a lot of Andrew Wood (Mother Love Bone frontman) at the time. We always had a great time when we did hang out, much like Chris Cornell and I do. There was never really a serious moment or conversation, it was all fun. Andy was a hilarious guy, full of life and it was really sad to lose him. But I always hate people who judge the decisions others make. So it was directed towards people who pass judgements.

14. BROTHER (4:27) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

Ours was a divorced family, I was the older brother and we had a sister Cheri in the middle. As you know, when you’re a kid there’s no way you wanna hang out with your four-year-younger brother. You’ll take care of the guy if someone’s trying to kick his ass, but other than that you don’t wanna know. I think I was really hard on him, especially without my father around. David had nobody, he split to live with my Dad and we didn’t see much of each other for a good 6 or 7 years. That song was about the time we were apart, and like “Rooster” was my Dad, it was a way of trying to build a bridge.

15. AM I INSIDE (5:08) J. Cantrell–L. Staley • Buttnugget Publishing/Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)
Taken from SAP (CK 67059) / Produced by Alice In Chains and Rick Parashar / Recorded and Mixed by Rick Parashar / Released 1992

16. I STAY AWAY (4:14) L. Staley–M. Inez–J. Cantrell • Jack Lord Music/Michael Inez Music/Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

That was the first time we’d written with Mike Inez, which makes this another special song. The whole JAR OF FLIES EP proved to both us and the fans what a talented and valid part of the band Mike was. He plays the nastiest, darkest shit but he’s got the sweetest heart in the world.

17. NO EXCUSES (4:16) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

It’s a great song but I don’t have anything to say…and I have no excuses for that, incidentally.

DISC 3

1. DOWN IN A HOLE (5:38) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

That’s in my top three, personally. It’s to my long-time love. It’s the reality of my life, the path I’ve chosen and in a weird way it kind of foretold where we are right now. It’s hard for us both to understand…that this life is not conducive to much success with long-term relationships.

2. HATE TO FEEL (5:16) L. Staley • Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

Again, a lot of pride in seeing Layne grow as a guitarist and songwriter to create something so heavy. He’s always been so honest in his songs, which is like all of us. We don’t bullshit in our music, we always pushed each other to say it as it needed to be said. We’ve always been fully for letting it all out.

3. WHAT THE HELL HAVE I (REMIX) (3:57) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

This and “A Little Bitter” were mixed by Andy Wallace because Toby had a previous commitment, and they always bothered me because they were too “tinny” compared to our other stuff. So I was happy to see Toby finish his work off with the remixes. That’s not to disrespect Andy, it’s just he wasn’t there when they were being created. Toby’s like a brother, he knows all our shit, all our personalities and we don’t trust anybody unless we’ve got something on them.

4. A LITTLE BITTER (REMIX) (3:52) L. Staley–J. Cantrell–M. Inez–S. Kinney • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing/Michael Inez Music/Lungclam Music (ASCAP)
Original version available on Music From The Original Motion Picture – LAST ACTION HERO (CK 57127) / Produced by Alice In Chains / Recorded by Toby Wright / Original Mix by Andy Wallace / Remixed by Toby Wright / Soundtrack released 1993

5. GRIND (4:45) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

That was pretty much at the height of publicity about canceled tours, heroin, amputations', everything, thus it was another “FUCK YOU for saying something about my life” song. Any single rumor you can image, I’ve heard. I’ve been dead a few times, Layne’s been dead countless times and lost limbs. I get on the phone every time I hear a new one, “Hey Layne, radio in New York says you lost two more fingers.” “Oh really? Cool.” I’d spoof “The Six Million Dollar Man”; “Since technology’s moved on it only cost us 2 million to put Layne back together and we got better parts.”

6. AGAIN (TATTOO OF PAIN MIX) (4:02) L. Staley–S. Kinney–J. Cantrell • Jack Lord Music/Lungclam Music/Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

This guy, Praga Khan, did three different mixes. One I didn’t like, the second had horns and strings without too many guitars or drums, which I kinda liked. Then there was this one, which was cool too. We put a couple out as ‘B’ sides in Europe. Personally, I never got used to the idea that you had to give some places extra songs and not others, it should be the same for everybody as far as I’m concerned.

7. HEAD CREEPS (6:27) L. Staley • Jack Lord Music (ASCAP)

It sounds like head creeps. Whatever that conjures up in your head, that’s it.

8. GOD AM (4:07) Lyrics by L.Staley–Music by J. Cantrell–S. Kinney–M. Inez • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing/Lungclam Music/Michael Inez Music

It’s one I really think could’ve gone somewhere and we never really got to it on that record. I always wish we’d done a video to that and released it as a single because I think it’s a brilliant song.

9. FROGS (8:17) Lyrics by L.Staley–Music by J. Cantrell–S. Kinney–M. Inez • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing/Lungclam Music/Michael Inez Music

We went to demo some stuff for the “dog” record at this place Bear Creek, which for all intents and purposes was a barn. We were there to work on songs for a week and we didn’t get one thing out of it. But by the lake there were these really cool, loud frogs. So we put the mic outside, recorded them and that’s what you can hear in the background of this song.

10. HEAVEN BESIDE YOU (5:29) Lyrics by J. Cantrell–Music by J. Cantrell–M. Inez • Buttnugget Publishing/Michael Inez Music (ASCAP)

Another attempt to reconcile the fact that my life and paths are tearing me apart from the person I love. All the songs I write about her are a way for me to maybe speak to her, express things I could never express.

11. NUTSHELL (UNPLUGGED) (4:29) Lyrics by L. Staley–Music by J. Cantrell–M. Inez–S. Kinney • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing/Michael Inez Music/Lungclam Music (ASCAP)

The whole “Unplugged” show was great. I think my favorite part of that was that all of Metallica were there. We have a lot of respect for those guys, and it meant a lot to all of us that they were able to show up and see that performance.

12. THE KILLER IS ME (UNPLUGGED) (5:18) J. Cantrell • Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

I’d had the chorus and riff for about a year, Layne wanted to put something to it so I said “please do.” So I kept asking him and asking him until Sean said we should just do the thing immediately. So right there, on the spot, I ended up taking it back on, Layne was actually a little relieved I think and so I wrote it a few hours before the show.

13. OVER NOW (UNPLUGGED) (5:53) Lyrics by J. Cantrell–Music by J. Cantrell–S. Kinney • Buttnugget Publishing/Lungclam Music (ASCAP)

A lot of deep shit in there, a big epic number. Plus you can get away with a hugely long tune near the end of a record.

14. DIED (6:06) L. Staley–J. Cantrell • Jack Lord Music/Buttnugget Publishing (ASCAP)

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.

Track-by-Track Notes by Jerry Cantrell

Technical Notes:

The music contained in this set was digitally transferred from the original non-EQed master tapes. The 1988 demos were transferred from the original analog masters and processed with Sonic Solutions to remove noise and tape hiss. The demos from FACELIFT and DIRT were transferred from DAT with no additional processing. “Queen Of The Rodeo” was transferred from a DAT of a live board mix from November 1990. The songs from the SAP sessions were transferred from the original DAT masters.

All the masters are the original album versions with the following exceptions: “What The Hell Have I” and “A Little Bitter”, which were remixed in July of 1999 by Toby Wright from the original multi-track masters. “Again” was remixed in 1996 for release outside the U.S. “Get Born Again” and “Died” were recorded by the band specifically for this release in September and October of 1998 by Toby Wright and Dave Jerden. “Get Born Again” was previously released on NOTHING SAFE–THE BEST OF THE BOX in June of 1999. “Died” is being released for the first time in this set.

To all of our fans, friends, families, partners and champions – Thank you for believing in us and for being part of our story. This is for you.

Alice In Chains