Alice in Chains
The heaviest and bleakest of Seattle's big four, built around the interplay of Layne Staley's and Jerry Cantrell's voices, and shadowed for years by Staley's addiction and eventual death.
- Formed
- Seattle, Washington, 1987
- Members
- Layne Staley (vocals, d. 2002), Jerry Cantrell (guitar, vocals), Mike Inez (bass, from 1993, replacing Mike Starr), Sean Kinney (drums); William DuVall (vocals, guitar) since the band's mid-2000s return
- Key albums
- Facelift (1990), Dirt (1992), Alice in Chains (1995)
- Status
- Active, with William DuVall as co-vocalist since 2006
Alice in Chains leaned harder into metal than any of Seattle's other major bands, pairing Jerry Cantrell's downtuned, sludgy riffing with the close, haunting vocal harmonies he and Layne Staley built together. Their 1990 debut Facelift already showed the blend, but it was 1992's Dirt, written and recorded as Staley's heroin addiction was worsening, that became their defining statement: a bleak, unflinching record that dealt directly with addiction and remains one of the most acclaimed albums of the era.
The band also stood out for its acoustic side: the Sap (1992) and Jar of Flies (1994) EPs showed a quieter, still dark register that pulled in listeners who found the metal side too heavy. Staley's addiction increasingly kept the band from touring through the mid-to-late 1990s, and their last recordings with him, the 1995 self-titled album (often called "Tripod" for its three-legged-dog cover art), reflect that same weight. Layne Staley died in April 2002; his body was not discovered for roughly two weeks.
The surviving members eventually reformed with William DuVall taking over vocal duties alongside Cantrell starting in 2006, and the band has released several albums with that lineup since, continuing to tour today.
#grunge.