MAN IN THE BOX
Chosen by Anthrax’s Scott Ian The song that landed Alice In Chains on MTV and opened the door for grunge Scott:
“We were putting together the Clash Of The Titans tour with Anthrax and Slayer and Megadeth, and we had a meeting to talk about support bands. Dave Mustaine said, ‘Hey, check this out!’ and handed me a CD of Alice In Chains’ first record. I hadn’t even heard of them; I thought it was some hair band. Then I put it on in the car on the way home and I was blown away. I could not believe how fucking good it was. It was not thrash and it was not
80s hard rock. They had the riffs, the hooks, the vocals, but there was this pop thing to it – I mean, Man In The Box is a straight-up pop song in terms of arrangement, but it’s so fucking heavy. Like, Black Sabbath heavy.
“That was thing about them. They had this darkness and brutality, but there was a beauty to it. There were so many dichotomies to what they did, and to them as people as well. I remember the first show they played on the Clash Of The Titans tour, and I expected them to just be up there shoegazing, but they were jumping around, headbanging – Layne was in the crowd’s faces. He’d jump in the crowd and fight people.
“There’s this myth of darkness around them, but those guys were just fucking goofballs. We stayed in the same hotels every day and there were many, many nights spent drinking with them. We’d go fishing with them. But when it came to facing down thousands of Slayer and Megadeth and Anthrax fans, they would not back down. I had such respect for that then, and I still do today.”
“THOSE GUYS WERE JUST FUCKING GOOFBALLS”
SCOTT IAN