The story of Alice in Chains, while still ongoing, is long and eventful enough to fill a textbook. Along the way Seattle to the moon and back, plenty of little odd stories have unfolded. Did you know that Layne Staley broke his leg and performed on crutches, and at times a wheelchair during 1994? Their tour mates at the time? Ozzie Osbourne. You know every word to “Rooster” and “Man in the Box”, but did you know these little rock and roll nuggets?
1) The name debate
At 21 years old, Layne Staley sang in the Seattle band Sleze, who briefly went by “Alice ‘N Chains” when starting out. Taboo issues of female bondage were a concern for the band with their original name, but in the end, Layne was obviously cool with it by the time he teamed up with Jerry Cantrell, Sean Kinney, and Mike Starr. It certainly is a unique one.
2) Down in a Hole was almost not to be
After writing the the music and words to their 1994 classic, Jerry Cantrell was reluctant to even present it to the band, fearing it was too soft. Tragedy narrowly averted! Cantrell later went on to say the song is in his “top 3.” A similar story even unfolded with “Man in the Box” when the record company thought it was a bit too “slow and dirgey.”
https://youtu.be/QLTFgo2Z1EE
3) Their first EP, Sap, was a bit of a pipe dream
Drummer Sean Kinney had a dream about the band making a sappy acoustic album, appropriately titled Sap. When he woke up and told hid bandmates, they saw it as some sort of fate and decided to make his dream a reality. The four song EP is a soft change of pace from much of their other work, offering an appropriately dreamy 17 minutes of music. One more for ya: Nancy Wilson of Heart provides some additional vocals for this one.
4) Rooster is personal for Jerry Cantrell
It’s not surprising that the powerful music of Alice in Chains is in heavy rotation among our men and women in uniform, but even Jerry knows it. “I’ve talked to vets from Desert Storm and the recent war in Iraq” he said, “and they have a deep affinity for that song. I just got a letter from a guy in Iraq who told me his unit changed their call signal to Rooster.” The beginning of the music video features clips of Cantrell interviewing his father, a Vietnam War veteran before the song kicks in with scenes of both real and acted war footage.
5) The band almost got jumped by Slayer fans
While the opening act for a mega tour with Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax, Alice in Chains were playing a show at Red Rocks just outside of Denver when the crowd became particularly unruly. “They started throwing stuff from the moment we came onstage” Cantrell said. “It was un-fucking-believable.” After a large object made a direct hit on the drum kit, the band put down their instruments and began to return fire, hopping the barricade and getting to face to face with the malicious metalheads. After then getting off the stage and returning to their bus, there were Slayer fans outside waiting presumably to fight. As Cantrell tells it, the encounter took an interesting turn when the fans didn’t want to fight, but rather tell them “you guys are alright” and offer their respect for not backing down.
