Into the Fire Again Alice in Chains
Jerry Cantrell dissects Alice In Chains' self-titled album in this classic 1996 Guitar World interview: "I've never been a large soloist – I but do what fits the office"
The following interview with Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains appeared in the January 1996 issue of Guitar World magazine.
While Seattle has certainly enjoyed its fifteen minutes of fame equally "the capital letter of grunge," the urban center has also paid a heavy price for its stone and curlicue notoriety. A contempo newspaper headline proclaimed it "Drug Town, U.S.A," while a noted music critic estimated that "one in four Seattle musicians is involved with heroin." Rolling Rock even went so far every bit to wryly notation that heroin was "back on the charts," and that Seattle, along with New York and Hollywood, was a hot spot for the drug.
While claims that Seattle is a heroin mecca may be exaggerated, there is more than than a grain of truth to the rumors and media assertions about the drug's prevalence in the urban center. One can simply assume that the high contour overdoses of Mother Dearest Bone'southward Andrew Woods, Vii Year Bitch'due south Stephanie Sargent and Pigsty's Kristen Pfaff are but the virtually visible manifestations of the drug's impact on the local music scene.
Amongst the almost highly publicized long-term drug sagas has been that of Alice In Bondage vocalizer Layne Staley, whose on-again/off-once again interest with heroin has sometimes attracted about as much attention as the band's music. "Alice In Chains' videos are elegant little travelogues of junkie life," wrote Spin magazine in March 1995. "Heroin addicts and struggling former addicts hear something in Layne'south form-school junkie poesy, a kind of siren."
Plagued by persistent reports that they had been torn apart by drug-related internal stress, haunted by morbid decease-pool predictions that consistently choice Staley every bit Seattle'due south "almost likely to O.D.," stymied by Staley's recent collaboration with Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready in Mad Season and hampered by an credible inability to make information technology to prestigious gigs like Woodstock '94 and the Stone And Curlicue Hall Of Fame grand opening, Alice In Chains responded with a self-imposed media silence.
"We made one concluding statement to the printing when we decided to break the lines of advice," says guitarist Jerry Cantrell. "We were a fucking overloaded sponge that needed to be wrung out. We seriously needed the time to sit and start fresh. That's what we did."
He pauses earlier adding, "We're definitely not perfect people, only I'thousand not apologizing for shit. I'k doing the all-time I can with what I got and that's all anybody in my band is doing."
Except for talk specifically related to the new record, the band's vow of silence remains unbroken. Cantrell refuses to discuss any of Alice In Bondage' past or present problems or comment on Staley'south drug use, but is happy to talk almost the group'southward new self-titled album.
Building on the exquisitely sinister, squalid self-loathing that permeated Dirt, which many critics hailed every bit the drug album of the Nineties, Cantrell and company have forged their most darkly introspective work to date.
From the magnificent black walls of guitar riffery that propel Grind and Sludge Factory to the lush, kaleidoscopic harmonies of Heaven Abreast You and Frogs, Alice In Chains finds the band once more scraping the lesser of their psychic barrels to sally at the pinnacle of their musical game. Equally Cantrell enthusiastically remarks, it'south a "fuckin' dangerous record".
Does Alice In Chains plan to tour in support of this album?
"Absolutely. I'k so anxious to become back out on the road. We worked on this record for six months, so completing it was a big monkey to get off our backs. I don't mind proverb that it feels existent good to exist washed with it.
"It was really hard to stay focused with all of the rumors flying effectually. You can say, 'Fuck you, you lot don't know what'south upward' to people as many times as you desire, but it however hurts. We've taken some ragging. It's the 'kids on the playground' thing: 'Those kids are calling me names. What am I gonna exercise? Am I gonna cry? Am I gonna lower myself to their level and fight them? Or am I gonna say "Fuck you" and walk away?'
"We walked away and did our own affair. That'southward what the tape is. Nosotros learned to survive on the playground. You can't lower yourself to their level and you tin't allow them get to you. Because at the end of the day, they'll be the guys working at McDonald's with bald heads and five kids and 3 ex-wives hollering for child support."
When Alice In Chains dropped off the Metallica bout in 1994, it generated a lot of speculation about the band's future.
"Really, the speculation started before that, with the lyrics on Dirt. That was the outset of it all. That's a hard record."
The new i is hard, too.
"Aye, this tape is besides lyrically hard. I tin't say one record is better than the other, but this one is a lot more than tongue-in-cheek. It has a lot more than irony."
The first line on the album is, "In your darkest pigsty, you'd be well-advised not to plan my funeral before the trunk dies." That seems to prepare the tone for the unabridged tape and burn down ane back at the rumor manufacturing plant.
"Yous're right; it pretty much says it all correct there."
Subsequently leaving the Metallica tour, yous also dropped out of Woodstock '94 and then recently canceled your appearance at the Rock And Coil Hall Of Fame grand opening concert.
"The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame concert came in the center of united states of america making this tape. We really didn't have the luxury to go out and do it. Information technology's unfortunate that we missed gigs that people wanted to run across us play. That's the thing that pisses me off the most. I take responsibility for that every bit much as anyone. But shit happens. What are you gonna do?"
Is that the official line and then?
"Expect. People take been saying we're over since Clay. And people will say now that this is our last tape and that we'll never tour again. Become ahead and remember that. We're the kind of band that has ever been able to exercise the contrary of what people look."
The media has a trend to find a weak link and keep hammering on it until it breaks.
The ring sticks together considering we're a tight bunch of friends. We've got that 'in the trenches' vibe
"Totally. They'll option on a sore spot until it'due south an infected scab. Hey, if y'all want to continue licking, that's cool, merely I don't have to let you pick my scabs. I pick my own. [laughs] Information technology's hard not to requite people that power. At the stop of the day, we've done an incredible job, take great fans and awesome people effectually us. The band sticks together because we're a tight bunch of friends. Nosotros've got that 'in the trenches' vibe. Nobody knows what the fuck that'south about except for your buddy right across from yous.
"I'll tell you, the whole experience has been interesting, and I wouldn't have it whatsoever other mode. I've lived some of the most incredible moments and had some of the most insane adventures of my life – and I'm but 29 years old. Information technology blows me away sometimes. I feel and so thankful for my experiences. Agree on – I think I'chiliad gonna cry. [laughs]"
How has your outlook on life evolved since the band took off?
"I think I concluded upwardly correct back where I always was. Sometimes you take to completely lose yourself to detect yourself. In that location were times in the final year and a half when I didn't even want to play anymore.
"Or, at least, I thought I didn't want to play. All of the baggage and bullshit that comes along with information technology didn't seem to exist kickoff by the music we created. I finally slapped some sense into my caput and realized that y'all couldn't enquire for anything better than the piece of work nosotros've washed and the people we've been fortunate enough to play for.
"Our fans are virtually every bit die-hard and tough as we are. To take that for granted would be a sad thing. Merely at the aforementioned fourth dimension yous have to be a homo. When you hurt and information technology's fourth dimension to rest, you have to sit down, chill out, and promise you tin come back swinging."
Overall, has the band's success had a positive or negative bear upon on you?
"Information technology'southward been positive to me, man. I ain my ain home, I can feed myself, I tin can enjoy fourth dimension with my friends..."
Those are certainly the fiscal rewards, but what about artistically?
"Artistically, I'm fine. Success has a lot to exercise with luck, but it also involves a lot of real hard work. The thing about success is y'all really can't gauge things by album sales. Of class, I want to sell as many records every bit I tin can, only that's not why I do it.
"Y'all end a record because you lot think it'due south fucking good. We wouldn't exist putting records out if we didn't call back we were topping ourselves each time. I say that with confidence. I hope I don't come up off sounding like a braggart, but it'south proficient shit. There'south other great shit out there, simply I think we're right upwardly there with the best of them."
What are your thoughts on the new Seattle music explosion? A whole crop of bands, notably the Foo Fighters and the Presidents Of The Usa Of America, are all showing up on the charts at the same fourth dimension, just as it happened with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains a few years ago.
"The Foo Fighters are badass, human. I similar The Presidents and the Supersuckers, but my favorites by far are the Foo Fighters. I'chiliad just so blown away by the fact that a drummer tin can play guitar. [laughs] Sorry, Dave!
"It has meaty, powerful, absurd riffs and great vocals, which I totally respect because playing guitar and singing is a bitch. It's like walking on tacks. I can sing fine and I can play guitar fine, but put 'em together and information technology becomes a thoughtful effort. Just the music currently coming out of Seattle has no association with the music that came before. The sound is more pop/punk-oriented, very garage-y."
Do you remember the Seattle music scene changed after Kurt Cobain's suicide?
I actually didn't know Kurt. I ran into him a couple of times and I wish I had known him meliorate. Simply I felt I knew him through his music
"I really didn't know Kurt. I ran into him a couple of times and I wish I had known him better. Only I felt I knew him through his music. Merely the beauty of his songs and how Krist and Kurt and Dave played together was unbelievably cool. I really miss that. Only if you lot're asking if things have become more than serious effectually here since Kurt's death, I don't recall and then."
Permit's talk about your new album. Wasn't this originally intended to exist your solo record?
"No, though in that location are 2 songs, Grind and Over again, that came from the demo project I halfheartedly worked on while Layne did the Mad Season sessions. To be honest, I'thousand too much of a sentimental fuck; I don't want to play with another band. I didn't feel I could put something else out that could top what Alice In Chains could do together."
One of the great things about a new Alice In Bondage record is that y'all never know what information technology's going to audio similar.
"We've been really skilful with the element of surprise. We're a tight bunch of guys. Fifty-fifty now that we alive apart and have our own places, that musical tightness never leaves."
Do you notwithstanding consider Alice In Chains to exist a "heavy metal" band or are you only "rock" at present?
"No, we're function of the metal thing. We're a lot of different things, too. I don't quite know what the mixture is, merely there'southward definitely metal, blues, stone and roll, maybe a touch on of punk... The metallic function volition never leave usa. And I never desire information technology to."
Coming, as y'all practise, from a metal and hard stone groundwork, do you mourn metallic'due south passing?
"No, not at all. One affair I've learned about our band is that you never count anything out, always. Considering when you practise, information technology usually snaps right dorsum up and pops you in the face. As far equally the passing of metal goes, we're function-metal and we're still effectually.
"It's a very cyclical progression; rap had that big cycle, the Seattle bands had that cycle, now the popular-punk affair is having its cycle. Only the fact is there are yet plenty of metal bands out there."
Metal bands today seem in disarray. Many are obsessed with making things heavy, at the expense of creativity or originality.
"I've always been interested in bands that make heavy shit without sounding so obvious. There'due south something about having strength and not flaunting it. Information technology's not virtually coming out and mauling your ass, but easing in. Before y'all know it, you're in a death lock, which y'all didn't see coming because it was so smooth and seductive you didn't know information technology until it had your confront down on the canvas. To me, beingness heavy has nothing to exercise with how many speakers you blow or how many decibels yous play at."
The blazon of fabric you're writing now is light years ahead of where you began, as a riff-based metallic band. Have you thought nearly what contributed to that progression?
"I recollect the longer y'all stick with something the amend y'all're going to get at information technology. I'm going to keep thinking about topping myself every fourth dimension. I can say very confidently that Alice In Bondage have done that on every record. Information technology surprises me. I don't become in at that place expecting that but I do go in there hoping for it."
Does everybody in the ring write?
"Yeah, everybody. Nosotros have shared tastes as well as shared dislikes. It'southward an unspoken language that we accept. That's not to say that we don't sometimes disagree on stuff. There take been enough of times where I think something is completely horrid and the other guys will brand me check it out once more. For weeks I'll exist similar, 'God, that sucks!' Then one day it's like, 'Ohhh, I get it. Okay. That's skillful!' [laughs]"
Did that happen to you while you were putting the new anthology together?
"I thought the solo on Hate To Experience was a piece of shit. And the solo on Grind, for that thing, which is lifted off the ADAT demo I did for the album, works fine. That was the first have I did when I recorded the song. I didn't think it was that stiff, but I never got around to fixing it. Toby [Wright, the ring's producer] kept trying to sell me on information technology. I kept telling him I wanted to exercise it meliorate because information technology merely didn't seem to work for me. In the end, it'due south perfect for the record, simply it took me a long time to feel comfortable with it."
So yous practise the bulk of the songwriting?
"[tentatively] Yeah, but that's a pretty misleading statement."
Are you the catalyst, then?
"I wouldn't say that either. [Bassist] Mike Inez adds a whole lot to the mix, as well. But I'd say the place where 70 percent of the songs start is with me and Sean [Kinney, drummer]. I'll first a riff, he'll showtime banging away, and earlier you know it we're somewhere we didn't expect to be.
"Without him to bounce shit off of and lead me – and me to lead him when we're both unconscious [laughs] – it'd be existent hard for me to play. Nobody plays like him. I remember the dandy thing almost Sean is that he 's got a great sense of humor and isn't full of himself. The fact is he'due south just a fuckin' Class A, monster player."
You lot've developed your songwriting skills into a sturdy popular arts and crafts without sacrificing the heaviness. Was that the issue of touring with and becoming friends with Van Halen, a band that evolved similarly?
On this tape I did something that started to scare me for a while. I started to really hear a lot of other influences from my youth. They really started to menstruation freely
"I wouldn't necessarily option Van Halen. Merely on this record I did something that started to scare me for a while. I started to really hear a lot of other influences from my youth. They really started to menstruum freely. I'd become, 'Okay, that sounds like Brian May,' or 'that sounds like Eddie.'
"There's a riff on the end of Frogs that, cheers to that Rotovibe, reminds me of [Robin Trower'south] Bridge of Sighs. To date, this record probably offers the clearest view of my influences. I could point out 50 of them, from Brian May to Lindsey Buckingham, Davey Johnstone to Hendrix, Iommi to Page; at that place's all kinds of shit in there. There's some riffs that are pretty obvious. I accept to admit that I started to feel really weird when that began happening."
It freaked you out?
"It did, but it felt so natural that I didn't let myself worry about it. Nosotros're pretty self-correcting as far equally what is right for usa goes. At that place's not a lot of fucking around."
The guitar solos on this anthology are shorter and more abstruse than your by piece of work, as if you lot're reaching for something other than the standard "been in that location, washed that, bought a shirt" lead pause.
"I've never been a large soloist; I just put in what needs to be at that place. I'm more of a rhythm thespian who plays lead – or tries to play atomic number 82. I'chiliad not saying I do bad shit, but I just do what fits the part. I'm more interested in what the whole picture is instead of creating a big vehicle for Cantrell to wank off all over everybody."
Your guitar tone on this anthology is huge. What's your recipe for monster tone?
"My guitar tech, Darrell Peters, is my correct-hand man. He's the brains of the outfit, and I'm just the body! I have a basic tone, and if fifty tin verbalize to Darrell what changes I desire, he'll go it. Fifty-fifty if what I'm maxim makes no sense, he normally knows what I mean and volition find what I'm looking for.
"My basic setup, which we used on almost every song, consists of a Bogner Fish preamp and my main K&L Rampage guitar. I as well used a Les Paul through a Peavey 5150 amp.
Ed Van Halen gave me 3 stacks after we did the tour with him a few years ago… When I came back home, they were waiting for me in the fucking garage!
"Ed [Van Halen] gave me 3 stacks after we did the tour with him a few years ago. He'd just come up out with his new Music Homo guitar and the 5150 heads, and I asked him if I could maybe buy one off him. When I came back habitation after the bout, there were three stacks waiting for me in the fucking garage! [laughs] The guy was totally fucking cool! Plus, he gave me a couple of his guitars, too."
Nice guy.
"Super-kind. And at the fourth dimension, I was living in the basement of our manager Kelly Curtis's house, so it was completely full of gear! By the time I got back in that location, there wasn't even room for me in in that location!"
How many tracks of rhythm guitar do you usually stack upward on a given runway?
"I always record 1 rhythm guitar on the left, one on the right, and a lead runway up the middle. I've been difficult-panning the rhythm guitars similar that for a long time."
Do you lot ever overdub additional guitar parts just to add incidental sounds and textures?
"No, I pretty much merely stick to two rhythm guitars panned hard left and right, with a solo track up the center. Whatsoever additional feedback noises or guitar sounds come up from those 3 guitars. People always ask me, 'How practice you recreate all of the different guitar parts live?' Well, information technology's never actually a problem, because I always make sure the get-go guitar function can stand on its own when I play the vocal live.
"Every bit far as the 2d track of guitars goes, I'll record a single consummate track from the beginning of the song to the end, and for that I'll go by feel: I'll go feedback here, or some harmonics there, and that way it'll be dissimilar from any other track I'll put downward. When we put the tracks together, they normally fit and so well that nosotros can fade either one in and out. I cut each new rails without thinking about the other one."
Practise you piece of work out any of your solos?
"I used to; I'd sit down and really work out something for each tune. Now, I don't remember about it at all, and I feel that arroyo works a lot better for me. Generally, I can't tell people exactly what I played because I don't even know myself!"
Would yous say that part of your overall approach to recording is to have chances while the tape is rolling, just to run into what will happen?
"That's definitely the Alice In Chains way. It'southward a whole lot of not thinking about it, and a whole lot of just doing information technology – and making certain the tape is always rolling. We had tape running constantly. Even if we didn't have two-inch tape running, nosotros had DATs running constantly. We accept and then many DATs of so much shit that didn't get used; we have bibles total of outtakes! Maybe we'll release some of the stuff some mean solar day.
"When I was a kid, I always liked outtake records and bootlegs where you could hear footling fuckups and the guys in the bands talking between the tunes. I thought that was the coolest stuff; information technology let you lot in on their vibe. You felt like yous were in with the club."
I've oft heard yous talk about Layne's studio prowess.
Layne is amazing. We'd go in the back and play football while he was doing vocal tracks. We'd come up back and he'd have 5 awesome-sounding vocal tracks cut
"Layne is amazing. We'd go in the back and play football while he was doing song tracks. We'd come back and he'd have five crawly-sounding song tracks cut. Toby would listen to it and say, 'I couldn't have told y'all to do annihilation differently.'"
Speaking of Layne, what do you recollect of Higher up , the Mad Season album?
"I think it'due south fucking bully. I totally have to 'fess up: I was jealous as shit when I first heard information technology. It'due south similar somebody taking your girlfriend out. [laughs] Only subsequently that initial reaction, I went and saw them play at the Moore Theater and I was so proud, I was effulgent for them. I almost started crying while I was watching them considering it was and so cool. So I felt pissed over again because I wasn't up there playing! [laughs]
"I talked to Layne a lot most the record. It was good for him considering it blew a bunch of shit out of his head. I've been credited for existence a writer and putting out a lot of fabric with this ring and stuff, and so I recollect it was real salubrious for him to exist able to exercise that. I have nothing just the greatest respect for the guy. And that record'due south very soulful. There are some real low, cobwebby passages on that fucker that are cool as fuck. Layne has the most cute way of proverb something horrible I've always heard."
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Source: https://www.guitarworld.com/features/jerry-cantrell-alice-in-chains-1996
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