Everybody Loves Our Town

by Mark Yarm

  I probably spent more time with Mark than any member of the band. We would go on a lot of walks and talk. About his songs, about life, a lot of stuff. He’d send me his lyrics, we’d go through them, talk about them. Having said that, I would always let the Trees pretty much do what they wanted. They’re brilliant. You just let brilliance go, you know what I mean? There’s certain artists that you work with where you push them in certain ways. There’s others—I remember when Ornette Coleman called me up and played a line over the phone to me, and I go, “Why are you doing this? You’re a genius. I have nothing I could possibly contribute other than to say it’s great.” The Trees were kind of in that league.

  JOHNNY BACOLAS (Alice N’ Chains/Second Coming bassist) I grew up in Shoreline, Washington—Richmond Beach was what it was called then. It’s a North Seattle suburb. I got my first guitar at 12, and James Bergstrom and I started a group around 1982. We practiced at his mom’s house, and then at my mom’s house. Back and forth during those early years. We ended up getting some guys together, and by 13, 14, we had a group called Sleze. We were into heavy rock: Slayer, Venom, Mercyful Fate. We were also into some of the glam rock. When Mötley Crüe came out with Shout at the Devil, we thought that was the coolest record and started wearing more makeup.

  There was a guy Ken Elmer, who went with us to Shoreline High School. Ken told us that he had a stepbrother who went to Meadowvale High School. He said, “You know, my stepbrother is a drummer, but he really wants to be a singer. He’s got peroxide-blond hair.” We thought that was really cool, right out of the gate. So we called him up, and his mom drove him out to James’s house—I still remember that day, vividly. We met him for the first time, started playing Armored Saint songs and Slayer songs and Mötley Crüe songs. He was into the exact same stuff we were into. It was literally a match made in heaven. Layne was the new singer.

  Ultimately, when we switched the band name to Alice N’ Chains, it was me, Nick Pollock, James Bergstrom, and Layne Staley. The name? What I recall was we were at a party in North Seattle, probably about 16 years old. I was outside having a cigarette with a guy named Russ Klatt, who was a vocalist. Sleze had made these backstage passes months prior. Again, we’re kids—there was no real backstage. We just thought it was cool to have our own backstage passes. We’d go to Kinko’s and get ’em laminated, so they looked really legit. One of the passes said WELCOME TO WONDERLAND. Somehow we started talking about that being an Alice in Wonderland–type thing. Russ started saying, “What about Alice in Chains? Put her in bondage and stuff like that.” I remember thinking, Wow, that has a cool ring to it.

  We’d outgrown the name Sleze, and we didn’t like it anymore. I brought up that name, Alice in Chains, and everyone liked it. But we changed the name to Alice N’ Chains, because three members of the group had really Christian mothers. Alice N’ Chains made it not sound like a bondage name—we would lose our jamming room, we’d lose all of our rights if we did that.

  NICK POLLOCK (Alice N’ Chains guitarist; My Sister’s Machine singer/guitarist) Layne was totally cocky and ended up being my best friend really quick, and he and I were inseparable. We worked together at a place that made radiation-containment devices. It was a crap job that longhairs could get at the time, out in Kirkland. He and I partied all the time. We would go to parties, we would make parties happen at people’s houses.

  One night, me and Layne and a few other friends were in West Seattle, and we’d imbibed quite a bit that evening. We ended up going down California Avenue, and A Clockwork Orange comes to mind—we were kicking over garbage cans and someone broke a window or the antenna off of a car. The cops got involved. The rest of us got away, but they were chasing Layne. Like I said, Layne was cocky, and he was a smart-ass to the wrong cop, who actually sicced his dogs on him. They chewed up Layne’s legs a little bit. When the rest of us were driving away, by 7-Eleven, there he was, handcuffed in the back of the car, nodding to us. We picked him up from jail the next day.

  MATT VAUGHAN (Gruntruck manager; East Street Records stores owner) My mom was the manager of Queensrÿche their first three records, so that would have been from like ’81 to ’86 or so, right before Operation: Mindcrime. I had a stepdad at the time that was a record collector. They managed Queensrÿche together. My folks would take three months off at a time to go on tour and leave us at the house with a maid or housekeeper. Sometimes that was pretty fun—I lost my virginity to my housekeeper.

  My sister and I were super-tight. She was a good-looking girl, and she was friends with Layne Staley. I remember him comin’ to our house, and he wanted to talk to my mom because he wanted to be a rock star. He was standing in front of the mirror doing his hair and he had his Capezios on, and he was trying to show how he’d make his stage entrance. And I remember him pointing at my mom and saying, “I will be the biggest rock star in town.” My mom just kinda laughed. She walked away and said, “Goddamn, he might just have it, but he’s an egomaniac.”

  JEFF GILBERT The metal guys were very business-savvy, whereas the grunge guys—we didn’t call them grunge, we’d call them “Sub Pop guys”—they clearly weren’t, because Sub Pop didn’t have any money back then. The Sub Pop guys would rely on playing a little circuit of downtown dive shithole clubs. Where the metal guys, they knew where their fanbase was, so they were renting out large grange halls, bingo halls, VFW halls, and putting on their own shows. And doing very well.

  RICK FRIEL Shadow went from playing high schools to these huge shows that were packed with people you didn’t know, and we instantly became really well-known. Some of the attention was because we were so young; my brother Chris was this little kid with a mouthful of braces, playing a giant drum set.

  CHRIS FRIEL (Shadow/Goodness drummer) We were like 14, 15 years old, just tearing the place up with total abandon. Shadow was a five-piece group then: my brother and myself, Mike McCready, Danny Newcomb, and Rob Webber.

  RICK FRIEL There weren’t really a lot of places to play back in ’82, but they were doing concerts at Lake Hills Roller Rink. What was genius about it was they had a stage on each end of the rink. The minute one band would be done, all the kids ran down to the other end, so there was no downtime.

  We were pretty much the only band there from Seattle; all the other bands were from the Eastside. There was a band called Myth, which eventually became Queensrÿche. There was Wild Dogs from Portland, and Overlord and Culprit, who we became really good friends with. Everyone was super into metal and dressing up in spandex.

  CHRIS FRIEL Eventually, we became a three-piece—just Rick and Mike and myself—and we started practicing at this rehearsal space called the Music Bank, where we met Sleze, who became Alice N’ Chains.

  JEFF GILBERT “Queen of the Rodeo” was one of Alice N’ Chains’ glam hits, about a gay rodeo guy. It’s actually a very good song. It’s funny as hell. They looked like Seattle’s answer to Poison, to be real honest. Just Aqua Netted hair, eyeliner, rouge on the cheeks. But it was all very tongue-in-cheek. They’d bring a mirror out onstage and primp in between songs. So funny. I remember they did a show at the University of Washington. Sold out. The first 30 rows were nothing but women.

  JOHNNY BACOLAS The mirror? I’d totally forgotten about that. There was a movie that Prince came out with, Purple Rain. And the guy, Jerome, would hold up a mirror so Morris Day could fix his hair. When we did it, I think it was one of our roadies that would come out on cue and hold up a mirror for us. Between each song, we had little skits. Layne would come out on a tricycle or we’d do “Queen of the Rodeo” and he’d put his cowboy hat on and tuck his jeans into his cowboy boots and play the part of the cowboy. We really planned this stuff, almost like a Las Vegas production.

  NICK POLLOCK Layne’s mom kicked him out of the house. Let’s just say that he and his mother did not see eye to eye. I was trying to get Layne to come live at my house, but my folks wouldn’t do it, so he ended up living down at the Music Bank.

  TIM BRANOM (Gypsy Rose singer) I had
nowhere to go, too, so that’s how Layne and I ended up sharing a room at the Music Bank, which was a warehouse with 60 band rooms. He was so quiet, he wouldn’t really tell you what was going on in his mind at all. He would sleep on the couch, and I would sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. Right above the couch, he had a picture of his family, but apparently he wasn’t able to make the family photo session so they had superimposed Layne into the photo—they’d taken a picture of Layne, put it on top, and took a picture of that. It was hilarious, because he was too big and he looks like this giant in the photo, like this super-Layne.

  MIKE STARR (Alice in Chains bassist) I moved to Seattle, from Florida, when I was in the fourth grade. I got a job at IHOP as a dishwasher when I was 11, 12, and I saved up my money and I bought a bass off of the brother of this drummer named Dave Jensen for 50 bucks. Yeah, I was 12 years old and working at IHOP. When I was 12 or 13, I was going into bars in Atlantic City, because I had a start of a mustache and my dad was the bartender. I spent the summers in Atlantic City with my dad. I swear to God, I looked 18, and you only had to be 18 to drink in Atlantic City.

  By the time I was 13, I had that drummer Dave Jensen in my band. It was called Cyprus; I found the name in the Bible. All I wanted to do 24 hours a day was play music. Eventually we needed a new drummer, so we found this guy Sean Kinney, who’d put an ad in the paper. He was cool as hell, and he was a smart-ass. Then me and Sean got kicked out of the band because we were too young. I didn’t see Sean again until I was 18.

  Six months or a year later, I had rejoined that band, and when I was like 16, we won the Battle of the Bands at the Crossroads Skate Center in Bellevue. We were called Sato then, after an Ozzy song. Because we won, we got to record one of our songs called “Leather Warrior” for this album called Northwest Metalfest. “Leather Warrior,” man, gayest freakin’ song in the world, but it’s a song. And then I got kicked out of that band for some reason. I don’t know why.

  I saw Sean again at the Southcenter mall. He said, “Man, I’ve been keeping up on you. You’re Mike Starr. Remember me? Sean? We were jamming when we were young?” He had just gotten kicked out of his house. I don’t know why. He came over to my house, and he started living there with my mom and my sister Melinda. He started going out with my sister and became part of the family.

  TIM BRANOM I played in a band called Gypsy Rose. For about six months, Mike Starr played in the band. Jerry Cantrell played in the band for about three weeks. Jerry had a little bit different style; we were kind of going for the metal speed-demon, Yngwie Malmsteen–type players, and he was more song-oriented, so it didn’t work out. Mike Starr got kicked out of the band because he and the drummer were fighting over a girl. Then Jerry called up Mike Starr and started a new band.

  JERRY CANTRELL (Alice in Chains guitarist/singer; solo artist) I wasn’t really close to my dad, so that affected me heavily. I lived with my grandmother and my mother until they died. Right after my grandmother died—and that was a big enough shock—my mom came home one day and told me that she had about six months to live. And that was so heavy. My mother died of pancreatic cancer at 43.

  NICK POLLOCK I introduced Layne to Jerry. I’d met Jerry out in Tacoma. Alice N’ Chains played a show at the Tacoma Little Theatre. I remember I was out in the back of the place and he came out and said hi and was a really enthusiastic guy. We traded numbers and he started coming up into my neck of the woods and started hangin’ out with me. Since Layne and I went out all the time, we’d all go out and go to parties.

  DAVE HILLIS (producer/engineer/mixer; Mace guitarist) When I first met him, Jerry was just moody and always ready to start a fight. I got to know Jerry quite well over the years, but at that time he was just a dude I didn’t really want to know. He had a hard upbringing, I think. He had a chip on his shoulder, but he was incredibly determined.

  JERRY CANTRELL I never had a whole lot of money and stuff. But when my mom passed away, I got a little money that she left to keep me jamming. So I just totally went crazy. I bought a bunch of amps, did a lot of drugs, and was an idiot, but fortunately it turned out okay.

  I met Layne again at a house party right after [Gypsy Rose].… I didn’t have a place to live, so he invited me up to Ballard, where he lived at this place called the Music Bank, which was fucking awesome for a bunch of young kids.

  JEFF GILBERT The Music Bank—a hideous place. Underneath the Ballard Bridge. You’d constantly hear those damn Alaskan fishing boats coming through there, and you’d hear the winches and the cranks of the drawbridge just grinding all the time. Those guys could make as much noise as they wanted, and it was just a monstrous party pad.

  There was just one bathroom in the whole building. You know those public bathrooms in bus stations and seedier parts of downtown? Multiply that by a hundred rock-star wannabes and, yup, pretty disgusting. Most of the time people who slept there just pissed in the corner, because when you’re that drunk, and you get up in the dark in the middle of the night to try and find the door to go to the bathroom, trippin’ over band gear, you end up givin’ up.

  JOHNNY BACOLAS The Music Bank was open 24 hours. You could go there and knock on the door at 3 in the morning and the guy that was working the keys would come, look through a peephole, let you in if you had a room there, walk you to your room, unlock it with the key—he had a huge key ring with probably 150 keys on it—and you were good to go. Layne was one of the key guys, and he usually worked the graveyard shift.

  Jerry was living in our jam room, so in the middle of the night, Jerry would be in the office with Layne, watching TV with his guitar in his hand saying, “Hey, dude, check out this riff. I got this idea.” That’s quite a big catalyst to that incredible connection those two had.

  NICK POLLOCK Alice N’ Chains went our separate ways, but it was very amicable. I could see where things were going with Layne with drugs. All of us did. That did have a certain amount to do with why we parted company as a band. He had never put a needle in his arm or tried heroin at the time, but he was doing other things to excess that could be quite startling. And it wasn’t gonna stop, and we all knew it.

  James and I went and made a band together called the Society, which was more of a funk band with all different music styles. It didn’t last very long, about nine months, and James went his way and I started My Sister’s Machine. By that time, the new Alice in Chains was formed. Actually, it was called Diamond Lie.

  SEAN KINNEY (Alice in Chains drummer) I first met Layne around 1985 when his band was playing at Alki Beach.… When Layne and Jerry hooked up, they were looking to put together a band. Jerry knew Mike Starr from playing with him in Gypsy Rose. Layne said that he knew this drummer, so he gave Jerry my number. He called me up, and I went to the rehearsal studio with my girlfriend to listen to some demos. I thought he was pretty cool, and then he told me that they were playing with Mike Starr. My girlfriend and I laughed, and Jerry asked why we were laughing. My girlfriend told him that she was Mike’s sister, and I had been playing music with Mike since we were 12.

  MIKE STARR I guess I had met Layne a couple years before, but I don’t remember it. I was on acid at the time. I was so high I couldn’t even dress myself, so I wore my bathrobe, with underwear on, and my sunglasses and my cowboy boots and rode on my Honda motorcycle to the beach. I heard Layne saying on a New York radio station one time, “When I met Mike Starr, he was on a Honda motorcycle in his bathrobe and his sunglasses. I said to myself right there, ‘That’s the kind of guy I want to be in a band with.’ ”

  JERRY CANTRELL Layne was playin’ with another band, but he came in to jam with us after we’d been playin’ together.… He was just such a cool fuckin’ guy and his voice was just amazing, and we knew we wanted to be in a band with him right off the bat. So it was just a period of time of waitin’ him out. And then that didn’t seem to work, so we told him, “We’re gonna get a new singer,” and we started auditioning singers in his rehearsal room, and we just brought in the shittiest guys we could fi
nd. (Laughs.) We auditioned a redheaded male stripper who was just terrible, and that was it. And [Layne] was like, “Fuck it. I can’t let you guys play with these fuckin’ clowns. I’ll fuckin’ join the band.”

  KEN DEANS I was approached by a guy named Randy Hauser. He was a convicted drug dealer that was on parole, and liked to hang out in the rock scene. He came to me and he goes, “Hey, here’s a band that I think is really special.” So he took me out to see Diamond Lie, and I agreed. They were definitely a full-on rock band. They were great players, they partied beyond their capacities, had sex with every woman that looked at them, and didn’t have a pot to piss in.

  I talked to Randy and I said, “Look, we need to take these guys into the studio and make a demo so we can shop it.” Nick Terzo was there 10 minutes after me.

  NICK TERZO (Columbia Records/Maverick Records A&R executive) I was hired by ASCAP [American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers] to be a membership rep, and the first trip I did was go up to Seattle. We came across something called the Music Bank, which had 50 or 60 rehearsal rooms, all full. It was kind of odd because I was thinking, Where did this come from? It was surreal to me, to see this much activity, this many rooms, a multitude of different genres. I was coming from L.A., thinking that’s the only music scene at the time.

  MIKE STARR I was at the Music Bank all night, and it was after 2, and we had no beer left. And these two guys walked in with a case of beer. I was like, “Hey, where are you going with that beer?” And they go, “We’re going to see this band”—I don’t even remember the name of the band. I go, “They suck. Come into our room, and bring that beer.” And within 10 minutes, they were in our room with the beer and we were jamming, and we were playing good that night. One was Nick Terzo, from Columbia Records, and one was Ron Sobel from ASCAP.