Alice In Chains
Drugs and death couldn’t stop them, and for their new album Alice In Chains headed back to Seattle for the first time in more than two decades, where they faced their old ghosts head-on.
For their new album they headed back to Seattle for the first time in more than 20 years, and faced their old ghosts head-on.
The afternoon sun glints brightly off the candelabra of the grand London hotel where Alice In Chains are discussing Rainier Fog, the band’s third album since William DuVall replaced their late frontman Layne Staley in 2005. It’s as confidently optimistic-sounding as you could possibly conceive from the band who once seemed to soundtrack Seattle’s decline.
Their mood as lunch is served discretely is as bullish and buoyant as lead-off single The One You Know, which, over a hammering, martial beat, asks this defiant question: ‘Tell me does it matter/ If I’m still here or I’m gone?’ It’s a rock calling card you can’t refuse.
“Reminds me of the Psycho scene where Janet Leigh’s getting stabbed in the shower!” Jerry Cantrell says with a chuckle. “Reeh-reeh-reeh! It’s pretty fierce, for sure.”
With his black baseball cap, wispy blond-white beard, ponytail and Northwestern drawl, in these chintzy surroundings Alice In Chains’ guitarist/ singer looks like a trucker at a tea party. Although in an equable mood, he’s unconvinced by the notion his own label are pushing hopefully that this is a bright new dawn for grunge’s darkest band.
“It’s good that it comes across that way,” he allows. “There’s just as dark shit on this record, lyrically, just so you know, as on any record that we ever did. There’s some real deep emotional turf on it. To translate it as new and bright – maybe, I don’t know, man. We’re making this journey together, and we’re not going to hold any of it back.”
Indeed, pre-interview entreaties to avoid talking about the fatal overdoses of Staley in 2002 and original bassist Mike Starr in 2011 are rendered redundant by Rainier Fog’s surging title track, with its chorus straight from grunge’s golden age. ‘Some things last, some times you never get over,’ it begins.