Alice in Chains

Of all the bands that came out of Seattle in the late eighties, Alice in Chains was the one that least resembled grunge. Theirs was slower, denser and more closely related to metal, and on top of those leaden riffs came what really set them apart: two voices, Layne Staley's and Jerry Cantrell's, braided into harmonies nobody else on the scene attempted. The deaths of Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell turned that city into a story of losses, and Alice in Chains holds a place of its own in that story which is almost never told in full. The band buried two members for the same cause, and the second was the last person to see the first alive. That story tends to be reduced to a sentence about addiction, and it deserves the dates.

Seattle, 1987, and four names

Alice in Chains formed in Seattle in 1987 with Layne Staley on vocals, Jerry Cantrell on guitar and second vocals, Mike Starr on bass and Sean Kinney on drums. Those are the four, and it is worth saying all four names, because the usual account keeps only two. Facelift, released in 1990, brought "Man in the Box" and opened the door to radio and MTV before grunge was a commercial phenomenon.

Cantrell was the main songwriter and the author of those slow riffs, closer to Black Sabbath than to the Stooges. But the band's signature was in the crossing of voices: Staley sang from below, with a vibrato that sounded like a complaint, and Cantrell stuck a third above him instead of singing backing vocals. The result resembled none of their neighbours, and it is the reason they are recognised in two seconds almost forty years later. That sound earned them eleven Grammy nominations over the course of their career, and no award.

An EP that reached number one before any other

The acoustic detour did not arrive when it is usually said to have. Sap, from 4 February 1992, predates Dirt and already showed the band turning the volume down. Dirt, released that same year, is their major work: it reached number six on the Billboard 200 and ended up certified five times platinum, and there are "Them Bones", "Down in a Hole", "Would?" and "Rooster", which Cantrell wrote about his father, a Vietnam veteran. It is a record that talks about using and deterioration without a single kind metaphor.

Sixteen months later came Jar of Flies, on 25 January 1994, and with it a genuine first: it was the first EP in history to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. The self-titled Alice in Chains, the one with the three-legged dog, came out on 7 November 1995, also reached number one and was the last record with Staley. MTV's Unplugged was recorded on 10 April 1996.

And then, silence. The band's last concert with Staley was on 3 July 1996 in Kansas City, on a tour with KISS. They went into a studio only once more, in October 1998, to record "Get Born Again" and "Died", the two new tracks on the Music Bank box set. Between 1996 and 2002 Alice in Chains was not drifting apart little by little: it was inactive.

The last one to see him alive

Mike Starr was a founder in 1987 and plays bass on Facelift and on Dirt, the two records everyone celebrates. He left the band in January 1993 and was replaced by Mike Inez. Starr died on 8 March 2011 in Salt Lake City, aged forty-four, of a prescription drug overdose.

There is a direct thread between those two deaths. Starr was the last person to see Layne Staley alive, on 4 April 2002, the day of his own birthday. He told it years later on television, on Celebrity Rehab: they argued because Staley refused to let him call 911, Starr left, and Staley shouted at him not to leave like that. He said he regretted not having called for help anyway.

The coroner estimated Staley's death as 5 April 2002. The body was found fourteen days later, on the nineteenth, when his mother went back to the flat with the police because the family's accountants noticed he had stopped withdrawing money. He weighed thirty-nine kilos and was identified from his dental records. The autopsy found a mixture of heroin and cocaine —what is known as a speedball— and ruled the death accidental.

Kinney called, and the band came back

The reunion was not Cantrell's decision. It was put together by Sean Kinney, who called Cantrell and Inez for a benefit concert for the Indian Ocean tsunami, on 18 February 2005, with Pat Lachman on vocals. William DuVall joined in 2006, after VH1's Decades Rock Live! of 10 March that year, and has held the post for twenty years: Black Gives Way to Blue (2009), The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here (2013) and Rainier Fog (2018). He is not a new singer.

Since Rainier Fog there has been no new record. In May 2025, Kinney suffered a medical emergency during a soundcheck and the band cancelled all its dates for that year; it played again at the farewell of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. These are four decades in which the band existed, stopped existing, existed again and learned to carry on without half of its sonic signature.

What to remember

Alice in Chains is the Seattle band whose music aged best because it never depended on a fashion: it depended on two voices and a slow pulse. Dirt remains one of the hardest records of the nineties and Jar of Flies was the first EP to debut at the top of the Billboard 200, but the sound is not explained by Staley and Cantrell's records alone. It is held up from below by Kinney and Inez, and before them it was held up by Mike Starr.

The rest is neither a romantic tragedy nor a lesson: they are two preventable deaths nine years apart, with the same underlying cause and a witness who was also the second victim. If you or someone you know is facing problem drug or alcohol use, in Chile you can call SENDA's Fono Drogas y Alcohol free and confidentially on 1412, twenty-four hours a day.

---

Sources

Alice in Chains is an American band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1987 by Layne Staley (vocals), Jerry Cantrell (guitar and vocals), Mike Starr (bass) and Sean Kinney (drums). Their debut album "Facelift" (1990) included "Man in the Box". They released the acoustic EP "Sap" on 4 February 1992 and the album "Dirt" in September 1992, which reached number six on the Billboard 200 and was certified five times platinum by the RIAA, with "Them Bones", "Down in a Hole", "Would?" and "Rooster", the last of these written by Jerry Cantrell about his father, a Vietnam War veteran. Mike Starr left the band in January 1993 and was replaced by Mike Inez. The EP "Jar of Flies", released on 25 January 1994, was the first EP to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. The self-titled album "Alice in Chains" was released on 7 November 1995, reached number one on the Billboard 200 and was the last with Layne Staley. The band's "MTV Unplugged" was recorded on 10 April 1996. Their last concert with Staley was on 3 July 1996 in Kansas City, during a tour with KISS; the last recordings with him, "Get Born Again" and "Died", were made in October 1998 and released on the box set "Music Bank". The band remained inactive between 1996 and 2002. Layne Staley died in Seattle on a date estimated by the coroner as 5 April 2002; his body was found on 19 April, he weighed 39 kilos and was identified through dental records. The autopsy determined the cause to be a mixture of heroin and cocaine, known as a speedball, and ruled the death accidental. Mike Starr died on 8 March 2011 in Salt Lake City, Utah, aged 44, of a prescription drug overdose; he had been the last person to see Staley alive, on 4 April 2002, which he recounted on the programme "Celebrity Rehab". The band came back together at Sean Kinney's initiative for a benefit concert for the Indian Ocean tsunami on 18 February 2005, with Pat Lachman on vocals; William DuVall joined in 2006 after VH1's programme "Decades Rock Live!", broadcast on 10 March 2006. With DuVall it released "Black Gives Way to Blue" (2009), "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here" (2013) and "Rainier Fog" (2018), its latest album to date. In May 2025, Sean Kinney suffered a medical emergency during a soundcheck and the band cancelled all its dates for that year; it subsequently performed again at the farewell concert of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. Alice in Chains has eleven Grammy nominations without winning any award. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Billboard, Wikipedia and other press coverage.