When it comes to the history of the band called Alice in Chains, and especially of how the band first formed and worked their way up to this stage of their career, the writing and release of their debut album “Facelift”, what I will offer you here is the merest snapshot. For anyone who is even remotely interested in the real, true story, I formerly encourage you to seek out and listen to the podcast called “And Volume for All”. In Season 2 of that podcast in 2024, Quinn does a deep dive like no one else could on the history of Alice in Chains and the ins and outs of everything that happened over the course of their career. It is a remarkable series of episodes that everyone should listen to at least once. For the true, remarkable story that I will touch on here, you should definitely go and seek out that podcast. You will not regret it.
Layne Staley first appeared on the music scene when he auditioned to sing for a local glam metal band known as Sleaze, after receiving some encouragement from his stepbrother Ken Elmer. Prior to this Layne had been playing drums, but this opportunity as a lead vocalist changed the course of his life. This band went through several lineup changes, as most new bands do, and eventually also decided to change their name to Alice in Chains. However, apparently over concerns that the reference to female bondage may prove to be a problem, they chose to spell it as Alice N' Chains to offset any perceived notions of this type. It was claimed that this had nothing to do with the way another up and coming band called Guns N’ Roses spelt their name, as this was a year prior to that band’s debut album being released, and they were as relatively unknown at that point as Alice ‘N Chains was.
Guitarist Jerry Cantrell saw the band perform in early-to-mid 1987 and had been captured by Layne’s voice. A few months later they met at a party, and as Cantrell was currently homeless, Staley invited him to move in with him at the rehearsal studio Music Bank. It was the start of an amazing partnership. In fact, the actual formation of the band that made them both famous was set with such amazing coincidences that it seemed as though fate was moving to make it come to pass.
Alice N' Chains had disbanded with Staley then joining another band., while Cantrell's band, Diamond Lie, broke up as well, and he went about trying to form a new band on his own. Staley gave him the phone number of Melinda Starr, the girlfriend of drummer Sean Kinney, so that Cantrell could set up a meeting with him. The two of them went to the Music Bank to listen to Cantrell's demos which they were enamoured with. Cantrell mentioned a bass guitarist he had once played with in a band called Gypsy Rose by the name of Mike Starr that might also fit what he was looking to create – at which point Kinney said that his girlfriend was actually Mike’s sister, and that he had played in bands with Mike since they had been kids. The connection between the three drew them all together, and the core of the band was complete.
One part remained unfilled, but the three had a plan to deal with that. They all wanted Layne to be their lead vocalist, and so they began to audition terrible singers in front of Staley to encourage him to come with them. It wasn’t until they auditioned a male stripper that Layne finally threw his hands in the air and said “OK, I’ll do it!”. The new band played a couple of gigs calling themselves Diamond Lie, the name of Cantrell's previous band, and also "Fuck", before eventually adopting Alice in Chains, the name Staley’s band had originally thought of. Staley apparently contacted his former bandmates and asked for permission to use the name, which ultimately, they gave their blessing to.
Local promoter Randy Hauser became aware of the band at a concert and offered to pay for demo recordings. The final demo, completed in 1988, was named “The Treehouse Tapes” and found its way to music managers Kelly Curtis and Susan Silver, who also managed the Seattle-based band Soundgarden. Curtis and Silver passed the demo on, and the band was signed to Columbia Records in 1989. They released the promotional EP “We Die Young” in mid-1990, with the title track becoming a hit on metal radio. On the back of its success, the album, which had been recorded in the early months of 1990, was released quickly afterwards. Producer Dave Jerden recalled sometime later, "I told Jerry Cantrell, 'Metallica took Tony Iommi and sped him up. What you've done is you've slowed him down again. He looked at me and said, 'You got it.' That's how I got the gig”.
That wonderful guitar riff to open the album, followed by Layne’s Ooooooooohhhhh down into the first burst of lyrics is just fantastic. Cantrell’s stinging lyrics such as “Down, down, down, you're rollin', watch the blood float in the muddy sewer, take another hit and bury your brother”, describing the scene he saw travelling on the bus to rehearsals one day are gruesomely fascinating, beautifully expressed by Staley as only he can, along with the combination of Jerry’s accompanied vocal on the chorus. Cantrell’s lead licks flesh out the track with squeals and rumbling riffs, while Kinney’s drum hitting expresses and heavy tone that was almost missing because he had broken his hand just prior to the recording. As he explained: “I almost didn't play on the record - they started rehearsing with the drummer from Mother Love Bone, Greg Gilmore. I was sitting there playing with one hand, guiding him through it. Dave Jerden came in and they started to try to do it. He was like, 'Screw it - pull the plug. This is not going to be the same.' Luckily, we took a tiny bit of time off. I had that cast on for a while, and was like, 'I can't miss this.' I cut my cast off in the studio and kept a bucket of ice by the drum set. Kept my hand iced down and played with a broken hand. I tried not to do that again - your first big break, and you fuck it up”.
However the hell he did it, Kinney’s performance on this album is just superb.
“Man in the Box” is the song that broke the band, coming some months after the album was released, when the video for the second single was released and found itself on constant rotation on MTV and other music video platforms at the time. In the first six months after its release “Facelift” apparently sold around 40,000 in the US. Following the release of “Man in the Box” and its MTV rotation, the album sold another 400,000 copies in a six-week period. That is a lot of albums to sell based on one track, but “Man in the Box” has always had those qualities about it. The slow tempo simple rhythm backing of drum beat and bass riff bely the qualities of the track, which comes from the vocal playoff between Layne and Jerry, firstly with the voice box that Jerry uses while Layne wails the same tune on his own, and then the trade-off in the chorus, with Jerry’s almost beautiful backing vocal quality holding the traditional ground while Layne gets to those other heights and tones that become almost the entire focus of the song. If you take out the vocals, and Jerry’s wonderful soling through the middle of the track, and the song itself is almost five minutes of a ponderous plodding journey through the main street of an old western fil, an abandoned town with tumbleweeds blowing along. There is just not anything there beyond the slow tempo. But my word those vocal exchanges and Jerry’s guitar turn this into a masterpiece of joy.
And then comes “Sea of Sorrow”. The unexpected piano opening along with guitar, the almost melancholic yet gritty moaning of Layne’s opening vocal entreaty drags you in. What I love about this song is the way that we transfer from verse to chorus through the song by way of Sean Kinney’s drum rolls, and empowering part of the track that brings a powerful note to the chorus each time, one that drives into each chapter of the track. Once again Layne and Jerry’s mutual combination vocally plays off perfectly, and then into the final pre chorus bridge into the chorus where Layne goes to a higher level – its just shivers down the spine stuff. Another terrific song.
Following on comes the moody opening of “Bleed the Freak”, which after Layne’s opening two almost spoken lines the song opens with... the chorus. Another amazing combination of the two voices of the band, one leading the other and then both combining into the chorus again. And again, as was the case in “Sea of Sorrow”, the song almost stops, leading you to believe that it has ended, before ramping up again for a final curtain call to complete the song on a high again, which also segues into “I Can’t Remember”, which for its opening combines three styles of guitar into its space, the clear electric, the thick strum of the bass strings and the final rise of the acoustic guitar before the burst into Layne’s opening vocal delivery. And then, through the verses, that amazingly heavy riff from Jerry just dominates, even as Layne’s vocals rise to the heavens as he explains his predicament in song, and that last high note he sings before Jerry’s second solo burst... far out, this is just an amazing song, with so much a part of it that sometimes feels as though it is all out of sequence but is actually amazingly crafted together. And then - “Love, Hate, Love”. If you want to talk about tracks you can draw a lineage from, then this song and Black Sabbath’s eponymous title track on their opening album is the one here. The spooky-type intro guitar riff is a mood setter, the soft rolling drums rather than hard hitting beat, the bass guttural but slowly strummed, and then the rise of Layne’s vocal into the bridge, before settling back into the moodiness of the opening. There are similarities – in my mind at least – to the song “Black Sabbath” here. This goes with much darker thoughts, and once we have the second bridge, the build into Jerry’s amazing solo, so very Iommi-like with the mood it creates to back what has come before it during the song. And then Layne begins his long scream of anguish and pain of “Love Hate Love” for the next 90 seconds or so... honestly, this song is a masterpiece, and again comes to what you think is the close before extending out again into another 30 seconds of angst. My word, those first six songs still stand on a pedestal when it comes to truly amazing music of any genre.
Whenever I think of this album, I always think of it as being a faster tempo than it actually is. Because all of the songs here are mid-tempo at best, many at slow-mid-tempo, and yet in my mind when I am singing the songs when not actually listening to the album, I sing them faster and hear the music faster. That is one of the genius parts of the album to me. It made me believe it is a faster album than it actually is, but that’s because the structure of the entire album gives it the impression that it could, or should, be that way. Point of fact is “It Ain’t Like That”, which is an almost morbidly slow tempo track, indeed for me the only real grunge track of the whole album, that is still a great song but if feels as though it should be faster, and yet it certainly is not. “Sunshine” follows, written by Cantrell as a tribute to his mother Gloria, who passed away in 1987. The band had just moved from Seattle to L.A. after the death of their friend Andrew Wood, lead vocalist of Mother Love Bone, to record the album. In an interview with Spin Magazine Cantrell was quoted as saying: “When I was a little kid, I’d always tell her, “I’ll be famous and buy you a house and you’ll never have to work again. I’ll take care of you like you took care of me.‘ When she passed away, it was a really shitty time for me. I didn’t know how to deal with it then, and I still don’t. But it gave me the impetus to do what I’m doing”.
“Put You Down” is the rockiest song on the album, and also probably the fastest tempo. It lifts your head as soon as it comes on and the vibe is the most upbeat on the album. “Confusion” that follows definitely is not, but my word it once again showcases the amazing vocal talent of Layne Staley. The differing platitudes that he reaches throughout this song are just amazing, the build in the vocals as he sings “Now there's time to give it all, I put my fears behind again, On skinned knees, we'll crawl, I want to set you free, ah, Yeah, recognize my disease, ah”. This then moves into “I Know Something (Bout You)”, again mixing up the style of song that has come in the first half of the album. The faster tempo again surprises after what has come before it. And finally into the closing track, that again repeats this tempo, “Real Thing”, where Layne vocally sounds like he is having a ball, singing about things that he is probably very familiar with.
I didn’t get this album on its release. I mean, to be honest, is there anyone out there who can honestly say they did? It was a new band, their debut album. In Australia they were basically unknown. Like most, it wasn’t until the release of the second single “Man in the Box” at the start of 1991 that this began to gain traction in my friend group. My heavy metal music dealer, still even 6 years after he began this role, was the first to mention the band and this album to me, and from there it was my friends that I was in a band with at the time who also started to push the track and eventually the album with me. I was the only one of those in that band who actually had a job at the time, so they obviously had more time in their schedules to do such things as checking out new albums.
My own discovery of the album began with those initial discussions and moved forward even further when the girl I had just started dating mentioned that she had heard that single on Rage one night and she thought it was an interesting song, and that the guy singing had an amazing voice. That girl became my now wife, so the qualities of both wife and band were there from the start. So I bought the album, and the magic began from that moment.
There has always been some question as to how to classify the band and this album. Having come from Seattle, as did several bands that then got roped in to the genre of grunge music, Alice in Chains were generally classified as the same. I would contest that if it came to a discussion on the subject. For me there is only one grunge-genre song on this album, that being “It Ain’t Like That”. The rest is far more in the metal category than grunge. A few years later and there was a move to suggest that they should be backdated to an alternative band, which they also certainly were not. I guess in the long run, to try and class this as you will – heavy metal, grunge, alternative – it doesn’t really matter. Appealing to a multitude of masses, this album brought a new face to the music scene and made its mark immediately. Combining riffs and breaks that on the surface seem so simple, and yet are quite brilliant, and the magical quality of the diverse vocals of Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell, “Facelift” is a blending of anger, sorrow, frustration and determination that combines to produce an album that constantly drags you back for more. I could sit here all day and discuss Jerry Cantrell’s amazing riffs but more impressively his guitar solo’s slotted in that enhance each song with their influence. I could marvel at Layne Staley’s vocals, the way he squeezes the exact right amount of angst or emotion or anger out of each line he sings, and the way he and Jerry combine so fantastically throughout. I could talk about the tone of Mike Starr’s bass guitar, and how its influence on the songs is subtle and yet so important to each. And marvel at Sean Kinney’s drumming, where he inserts pieces at different places on songs that sometimes gets missed, unless you hear the songs without them, and then realise how much he enriches each track with his presence.
While for most episodes I have the albums I’m reviewing out for a couple of days in order to get the right feel for what needs to be said, with “Facelift” I have been listening to this for about two weeks. And this is another of those episodes that has been so difficult to script and record, because it is an album that deserves to have its complete existence implored upon the listener, to impress upon everyone just how seismic this album is. I don’t think I have achieved that even given the extra time I have taken to get to this point. But I can assure you I have tried, because this album stands amongst the giants, an album that was breaking new ground without even considering that it was going to do so. These four just somehow found each other through the workings of the universe, and then just created music history. And, more to the point, as amazing as this album is, it is arguably not even the best that the band managed to produce. But as much as I would like to talk about that more now, it truly is a conversation that I will be having with all of you a little further down the track.
