Since Rock and Roll was born, every decade has brought a huge transformation to the genre and in the early 80s, bands like Metallica, fronted by James Hetfield, changed everything by presenting a heavier and faster sound that would later be called Thrash Metal. They started a real revolution during that decade and showed the world that Metal still had room to evolve.
But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, another transformation was coming with Grunge, which brought things back to the basics, emerging especially from Seattle. Alice in Chains was one of the most influential bands from that movement, and over the years Hetfield has shared his opinion on them and their late legendary vocalist Layne Staley.
What is James Hetfield’s opinion on Alice In Chains and Layne Staley
Alice In Chains is James Hetfield’s favorite Grunge band that came out of Seattle and he even listed their late singer Layne Staley as the second greatest vocalist of all time. “I just love hearing those songs. Those songs are awesome and should be heard, you know? They were so unique. So ahead of their time. And out of all the Seattle stuff, that stuff is the most timeless. I wasn’t really close with Layne. But I remember going to see Alice In Chains many times. I remember when we were down in L.A. (In 1991). I left the studio early to see them play on ‘Clash of the Titans’ with Slayer.”
“I was driving like a madman in this rented van, going on the median and scaring the shit out of my friend. ‘We gotta get there!’ And we get there, and they’d just got off. I was like, ‘Aw, man!’ (Laughs) I hung with them a little bit. Always just loved their music. I’d say that Jerry (Cantrell) and I share some life experiences. Like getting a second chance at life and realizing how cool things can be.”
“So we’ve got kind of a kinship that way. (…) Unfortunately, Layne just loved the junk too much, man. That was that. I just read in his lyrics his obsessiveness about it. And he knew where he was goin’! It’s like, in the school of driving, look where you want to go. That’s what he was doing, it seems like,” James Hetfield told Revolver magazine in 2009.
James Hetfield is also a fan of the band’s second incarnation
Layne Staley died in 2002 at the age of 34 due to an overdose. The band was reformed in 2005 by the original members Jerry Cantrell (Guitar, vocals) and Sean Kinney (Drums), alongside the longtime member Mike Inez (Bass) and the singer William DuVall. In 2006, during the “Rock Am Ring” festival in Germany Hetfield sang and played guitar with them on their classic song “Would?”. Still in that year, he performed with them again but in San Francisco, California.
Three years later, when they released “Black Gives Way to Blue”, their first album with the new singer. They were interviewed by Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. During the conversation, the Metallica frontman talked about the record. “It took a while, like for a minute, at least in my mind to figure out what that means (The name of their comeback album ‘Black Gives Way to Blue’). (…) (The song) highlighted the album. I mean, it seems like it captures the feel. The song is amazing, is really cool.”
He continued:
“(This album) is classic sounding Alice in Chains, stuff that people have been waiting for a long time, including myself. To hear it and just go ‘aahh’, I got my Alice (new record), feeling good. (…) The first single ‘Check My Brain’, definitely the hookiest of all the songs, I believe. The song is great and deals… Well, the word ‘California’ in the song, it rolls well, is a cool word to say, even. (…) The next one (we will play in the conversation) is ‘Acid Bubble’. That one to me, dude, the riff. I mean, the riff, dude. I have to rewind that about 20 times, first to learn it and then just to hear it. Because it justs jumps to your face. That as a guitarist it’s like ‘hello!’ James Hetfield said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
To this day, he remains good friends with the members of the band, especially Jerry Cantrell. Alice in Chains were even supposed to be Metallica’s opening act in 1994, but Layne Staley’s addiction at the time prevented the band from touring. Despite that, Cantrell still joined the Thrash Metal band during their tour that year as a special guest to perform “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in Oklahoma.
A few years later, in 1998, when Jerry released his solo debut album “Boggy Depot”, he toured with Metallica as their opening act, with Sean Kinney on drums. He was also one of the guests who appeared on Metallica’s cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone” from their covers album“Garage Inc.” When the bassist Jason Newsted quit the Thrash Metal band in 2001, they considered to invite AIC’s Mike Inez to replace him.
The Metallica song Hetfield wrote inspired by Layne Staley
After Layne Staley died in 2002, Kirk Hammett, who is also an Alice in Chains fan, brought to Metallica’s Bay Area studio, a photograph of the singer. That picture was hanging on their studio for years and he believes it inspired Hetfield during the recording of the album “Death Magnetic” (2008). He ended up writing a song called “Shine” which was not included in the final cut because he didn’t think it was good enough, as he told Rolling Stone.
“I did not know Layne, I met him a few times. I know Jerry Cantrell quite well and learned about Layne through him. And I could see some of the things Jerry went through to keep that band together. After what I went through, I started writing a song based around a Layne Staley type, a rock & roll martyr magnetized by death. Why did he choose that path, someone with such talent? Is it necessary for some people?” That song, tentatively titled “Shine” (“Everything looks the same/In the shine of a midnight revolver”), did not get on ‘Death Magnetic’. But its reverberations did, in songs like ‘The Day That Never Comes’ and ‘Cyanide’.”
James Hetfield continued:
“I remember in an interview with Cliff, when someone asked, ‘What’s Metallica’s mission?’ He said, ‘Conquer the world and self-destruct.’ I’m like, ‘What? What year is this gonna be?’ But that was an interesting answer because it was the way we felt: Burn the candle as hot and long as you can. We never knew we’d be around this long,” James Hetfield said in 2008.
Layne was the voice of Alice in Chains’ first three albums: “Facelift” (1990), “Dirt” (1992), and “Alice in Chains” (1995). Although his view on what happened to Layne and other musicians became more respectful over the years, back in the 1990s both James and Lars made fun of Staley’s addiction and Kurt Cobain’s death while talking to fans during their shows.
With William DuVall as the vocalist, AIC has released three studio albums. They are “Black Gives Way to Blue” (2009), “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” (2013) and “Rainier Fog” (2018).