W hen Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley died on April 5, 2002, it seemingly marked the end of the road for one of the greatest and most influential bands of the previous decade.
Alice In Chains rose from the ashes of a bunch of local big-haired hard rock outfits to become grunge’s first true breakout band. Their 1990 debut album, Facelift, sold half a million copies in the US, cracking open the door for the likes of Soundgarden and Nirvana to step through into the mainstream, while 1992’s monumental if harrowing Dirt remains not just AIC’s finest hour, but one of the decade’s landmark albums.
But the demons that haunted the band, and Layne in particular, were their undoing. They managed just a handful of further releases – the acclaimed, largely acoustic Sap and Jar Of Flies EPs, 1995’s claustrophobic self-titled third album, and the following year’s darkly powerful MTV Unplugged live album – before the singer retreated into his addictions. By the time of his death from an overdose of heroin and cocaine, he hadn’t been seen publicly in five years.
But the story didn’t end with Layne’s death. Unexpectedly, guitarist Jerry Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Inez reunited in 2006 with new singer William DuVall, subsequently releasing three albums that underlined their legacy without attempting to replicate the past.
Today, the band’s influence can be heard across the rock and metal spectrum. To mark the 30th anniversary of Dirt, we asked some of music’s biggest names to choose the Alice In Chains song that influenced them the most. This is what they had to say.
THEM B ONES
Chosen by Kerry King
Existential bleakness meets black humour on Dirt’s classic open ng song
“Them is such a great song – super-short, heavy, great video and these really haunting vocal melodies. Those dudes were untouchable on their first two records, they were really vibing as a band and
