alice in chains
The Alice In Chains story is one steeped in darkness and tragedy, but 12 years into their second coming and with a righteous new album, Jerry Ca ntrell and William Duvall prove there’s much to celebrate. We join them at rehearsals to talk about Seatt le’s
Alice In Chains laugh when they’re together. A lot. However mired their story as a band has been in loss and struggle, they’ve maintained and strengthened a bond that’s clear to see spending time with them ahead of their UK live return in Leeds. And they have a big reason to be cheerful; new album Rainier fog validates yet again that their 2006 return with William Duvall began one of the great comebacks of rock history, even though, as Duvall admits to us, 2009’s Black gives way to blue was a band “fighting for our right to exist”. But it was also their new era as a full two-guitar dynamic; Duvall came into the band when his own trio Comes With The Fall backed Cantrell on the tour for his 2002 Degradation tour solo album. While there’s a strong case to be made for Cantrell as the greatest lead player of the 90s alternative scene, Duvall’s achievement in thriving alongside him over their three albums together is easy to take for granted.
For this one, there’s a clue in the title. The 14,000-foot Mount Rainier is a towering landmark for Pacific North West residents and Alice In Chains returned home to Seattle for the initial tracking of the album. A place where ghosts of the past reside, even in the summer climes they spent there. Recording took place at the studio formerly known as Bad Animals where the band laid down what would be their last album with Layne Staley in the fall of ’95. But they carried the legacy of a more recent loss with them too. Duvall reveals to us before we leave that they used an acoustic on the record that formerly belonged to their friend Chris Cornell, and was a songwriting guitar for him. The past is never far away from Alice In Chains, but it’s being carried proudly on into the future…
The album title conjures up the Pacific north west and the band’s roots. Was that on your mind a lot on this record?
William: “We were able to have more fun through the entire process than I think we’ve had before and I think going to Seattle had a little bit to do with that. There’s this thing of let’s try it, it will either be really, really bad in terms of baggage and stuff you’ve got to confront or it will be really, really cool. And it turned out to be really, really cool. Seattle in summertime becomes one of the most beautiful cities on earth during those few months. And going to this studio where they’d had this history and other bands had this history – Superunknown was done there. So there were ghosts but they were benign ghosts. I hesitate to say friendly ghosts but they were. Anytime we felt ourselves confronting that stuff it was positive not negative. It helped fuel instead of restrict.”
Jerry: “It made sense because we made a conscious decision and said, ‘Let’s go home to Seattle and make this record.’ We had history at the studio, we recorded the self-titled record there and that’s when it was Bad Animals – Heart’s studio. It was cool to come back there after many years and still have the place be there and be home in Seattle in the summer, which is fucking amazing – it’s the best time of the year to be there. I had that song [the title track] and it seemed to make sense to me that we should call it that. And that song is an all-encompassing song as well; a life and a community where we come from. It’s important to us, looking back at where you come from and also looking at how far you’ve come. Being proud of that and owning it all.”
William: “And I think we’re getting to a stage, especially with all the things that are going on in the world with all these losses of people that have meant so much, I think just getting to a stage of realising, man, we’re not going to be doing this forever. No matter how you look at it, this is all ephemeral. We have to take our pleasures while we can. We have to not take this for granted. And you’d think that would be very baked into this group anyway, and it kind of is but I do think it takes repeated slaps in the face to really hammer that home. And it was very well hammered home this time.”