by Mark Yarm
MIKE INEZ It wasn’t working, and the vibe that Dave created for us in the studio was not the vibe we needed at that time. We ended up going back to Toby.
TOBY WRIGHT When I came back to work with the band on the box set, it was all about getting some music done, so I was focused on that instead of anything that might be bad happening around them, to keep a positive influence and to keep creativity flowing.
The only time I actually used Pro Tools with the band was during the two new songs, because Jerry and Layne had gotten to a point where they wouldn’t go into a room together. There was something going on between them, I’m not sure exactly what it was. It was really none of my business. Layne would come in and sing, and then Jerry’d come in and listen to that and say, “Oh, that’s horrible.” Thank God for Pro Tools, because for me it was an editing nightmare.
SUSAN SILVER The last time I saw Layne? It was at a soundtrack recording session, which took him 10 hours to get to. People were waiting and wondering and worrying, and Todd Shuss, who used to work for me and who Layne would answer the phone for, picked him up and brought him to the studio. And when he finally got there around midnight, Layne was as sweet and funny and unaffected and mischievous as always.
ERIC GARCIA The thing about Layne is, especially toward the end, that I’d just hear all these horror stories about how he was and where he was at. The last time I saw him, I had to drop some stuff off at his condo. At the time, he was doing some soundtrack work. And he came down to meet me, and he was kind of frail-looking and he was wearing gloves, which I thought was odd because it was kind of summertime.
But his brain was firing on all cylinders. We were just shooting the shit really, but he was funny and articulate, and his eyes were alive. He’s obviously having a good day at that point, I guess. It was weird, because I expected to basically see a hollow shell of a guy with sunken eyes, talking really slow, on the nod or something like that. But he wasn’t. There was still a light on; he was still there.
SUSAN SILVER In the last couple years, Layne was extremely isolated. I don’t know who he saw, but of the people that I know, it was really only Todd who saw him. I was dealing with my family problems at that point. By late ’99 I was in my own private hell. The new primary drug addict in my life was my husband, and I was also going through fertility treatments and eventually got pregnant in late ’99. Meanwhile, Alice was not active; Jerry had another manager, and he was struggling with his own addiction.
RODERICK ROMERO I was Krist Novoselic’s best friend for five years, after Kurt’s death. Krist really tried to help Layne, ’cause obviously he’d already lost Kurt, so it was like … Krist is one of the most caring and kind and sincere people on the planet. He would show up at Layne’s apartment, and bring food to him. Layne wouldn’t let anybody in; he had surveillance cameras. Krist would come back and say, “I dropped more food off for him. Fuck.” I’d say, “Well, anytime you want me to go with you …” He said, “It’s just kind of freaky. You don’t want to.” He really cared. It was like, maybe he could help save somebody.
NICK POLLOCK The last time I ever saw Layne was probably a year and a half before he died. I was living up on Capitol Hill with my first wife after finishing college, getting my design degree, and I was walking into QFC on Broadway, and I see this guy shuffling around. He looks like an 80-year-old man with this obviously fake curly wig on and weird-ass mismatched clothes. Looking like a homeless person. Looking like he was just nuts. I think it was a disguise. But I caught his profile, and I’m going, “Oh, my fucking God.” I knew who it was, and I came around the corner and his back was to me, and I go, “Excuse me.” And he turns around and he looks and he goes, “Nick!” and he gives me this big hug.
I was in such shock because he was like a skeleton. His skin was gray. I don’t remember him having any teeth. We had a nice conversation—“Let’s get together,” the usual things that people say—but this is surreal. This is a nightmare. I don’t even know who I’m talking to. My friend, but not my friend. I was in such shock. I went home, and I just bawled my head off.
JEFF GILBERT Layne sequestered himself and did nothing but play video games and do drugs. I bumped into him probably about six months before he died, in the U District. He looked like an 80-year-old version of himself. He looked very jaundiced. He wore a leather jacket down to his fingertips to cover up all the needle marks. He had a knit hat on, pulled down, and his eyes were so sunken in, just dark. Smelled pretty ripe. I gave him a hug, and we talked for a while. I said, “Damn, man, you need to get out in the sun.” That was my attempt at humor. But I felt this horrendous amount of sadness for him. He was a dead man walkin’.
MIKE INEZ Me and Mark Lanegan would go by Layne’s apartment and knock on his door. We didn’t get an answer, and we’d call him, just trying to put as many lines in the water as we could.
SUSAN SILVER Sean would call Layne all the time. But it didn’t matter—he could call Layne every day for six months and Layne still wouldn’t respond. Not because there was any animosity; it was just like Layne was in that cloud.
TOBY WRIGHT I had spoken with Layne by phone three or four times like three weeks before they found his body, which turned out to be a week before he died. I had sent him a track—I was working with a band called Taproot, and they really, really wanted Layne to sing on this one song, and he had agreed to do it. He sounded excited on the phone because this band was a big fan of his, and he was like, “Wow, I get to perform again.” Some of the members of Taproot wanted to be there when he recorded, but he wanted complete privacy.
MIKE STARR He died the day after my birthday. And I was with him all that day, on my birthday, trying to keep him alive. I even asked him if I could call 911, and he said if I did he would never talk to me again. And of course, I didn’t know he was gonna die, or I would’ve called 911 anyways.
I wish I wouldn’t have been high on benzodiazepine.… [Layne] just said, “I’m sick” … He was agitated because I was too high. He used to get mad at me when I took ’em. He’d be like, “You’re an idiot on these pills.” And then I got mad at him, and I said, “Fine, I’ll just leave.” And his last words to me were, “Not like this, don’t leave like this.” I just left him sitting there. His last words were, “Not like this.” I can’t believe that. I’m so ashamed of that.
KURT DANIELSON Layne had access to resources that allowed him to get in much deeper than most people ever could, unless they’re an ingenious thief. When you heard about his death, it wasn’t such a surprise. What was sad about it was that his body wasn’t found immediately, but only after many days, which indicated the level to which he’d been cut off from everybody else.
MIKE STARR I went home and I blacked out on benzodiazepine. I just blacked out for the whole two weeks.
SUSAN SILVER I got a call that there was some concern because Layne hadn’t been heard from for a while. Maybe his bank statement came in, and there hadn’t been the usual pattern of activity. Both Laurie Davis, who was the bookkeeper for the business-management firm Alice was with, and I had an innate sense that something was wrong. And Laurie mentioned it to Sean, who also runs heavily on intuition, and he was gonna go over there and try to get into Layne’s building and break down the door. I immediately felt the gravity of it and told him he needed to sit tight and we needed to get the family involved.
IANN ROBINSON (MTV News reporter; MTV News report, weekend of April 20, 2002) The rock world lost one of its more honest voices this weekend when Alice in Chains front man Layne Staley was found dead in his Seattle home on Friday. He was 34. Seattle police say they responded to a call from one of Staley’s relatives, asking them to check on his well-being since he hadn’t been seen in two weeks. Police then discovered a body, later identified as Staley, that had been deceased for at least a few days, surrounded by intravenous-drug paraphernalia.
SEAN KINNEY It’s like one of the world’s longest suicides. I’d been expecting the call for a long time, for seven years, in fact, but it was still sho
cking …
MIKE INEZ I had just come home to Big Bear Lake, California, and I was really in a bad spot because my best friend in the world, Randy Castillo, the drummer of the Ozzy band and basically my mentor, died. He got smoking cancer in his jaw, and it spread throughout his body. Either the day I got back from his funeral in Albuquerque or the next day, I get a call from Sean. He said, “Are you sitting down? Layne’s gone.” “Oh, my God, you’re kidding.” That was one of the lowest points I think I’ve ever been in my whole time of existence.
TOBY WRIGHT My wife at the time and I were from Los Angeles and we were on our way to the Burbank airport to go to Seattle—to get the studio together and capture Layne’s performance—and my phone rang and it was Susan saying that they had just found Layne dead. We all cried, and I said, “Well, I’m actually on my way to Seattle right now.” And she said, “Well, keep on comin’,” for the memorial.
JEFF GILBERT There was a public gathering at the Seattle Center around the fountain. Whenever anybody dies, that’s where everybody goes. The local radio station came down and blasted music out. I ran into Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder, and they were walking around on the outside of the crowd. And I was glad that people were stayin’ the fuck away from them, givin’ them some room. Eddie was tremendously distraught. I gave Chris a hug and said, “You doin’ okay?” He said, “I’m never okay with this.”
MIKE INEZ The private service was on this island, so you had to take a ferry there. I remember sitting with Chris Cornell, smoking cigarettes at the front of the ferry, just totally silent, listening to the waves hit the boat.
NANCY WILSON Layne’s memorial was another amazing communal thing. We went out to kind of a resort somewhere in the San Juans, and me and Ann and Chris Cornell sang together. It was hard to get through it; it was an emotional moment, but a really great moment. We did a Bob Dylan song called “Ring Them Bells,” which Layne had sung with us for one of Heart’s albums.
I remember when Layne had finally agreed to sing with us on “Ring Them Bells,” we were like, “This will be great! Let’s have a moment!” He was like, “Oh no, you can’t be in the control room when I’m singing. You have to go away.” He was too shy to be singing where Ann Wilson might be listening. We went out to dinner or something and came back, and he didn’t want to be there when we heard it, so he left. He was just like that.
JERRY CANTRELL Was there more I could have done to help Layne? I don’t think so. I think we all cared about each other a lot and dealt with each other pretty realistically, but we were grown men at that time and you live your life the way you’re going to live it. So I don’t think there was anything anybody could have done. He made a choice and stuck with it, and it didn’t turn out very well, obviously. It’s not like nobody did anything or nobody cared, that would be a ridiculous statement.
SEAN KINNEY It felt like when Layne passed away, he largely got swept under the carpet. They just kinda discounted everything he was.… It made me really sick when he’d just passed away, and we’d been up for another Grammy, and they convinced us to go.… And during those shows, they play a collage of all the people who passed away, and they didn’t even put him up there. I remember us lookin’ at each other and just gettin’ up and leaving.
JERRY CANTRELL “Died of a heroin overdose. Junkie.” That’s the only thing anybody ever fuckin’ wrote, and to see that start to fade and people realize what the guy contributed and the amazing talent that he was—and nobody’s ever gonna know personally what kinda fuckin’ guy he was. We do, and he was so fuckin’ cool and badass. It’s cool he’s taken on an Obi-Wan kinda of thing: He’s more powerful in death, and he’s gained a lot more reverence.
MIKE STARR (died March 8, 2011, of a suspected drug overdose) When the band formed, we all became brothers, especially me and Layne. Me and Layne definitely bonded. Over what? We wanted to be rock stars. Every time I’d walk into the jam room I’d look at Layne and he’d look at me and we’d get these big smiles. Everyone was funny as hell. We all laughed a lot. As a band, we were always really good. Layne was, Jerry was, Sean was. They were great. I was a lucky guy to play with them.
One time, Jeff Ament came up to me and said, “Every time you guys walk in, it’s all four of you, you’re always together.” I was like, “That’s right, man. We’re the Four Musketeers, man.”
We lived our band. That was our only focus in life.
JOHN BIGLEY I got a phone call from Bruce Pavitt. I haven’t talked to him in a year or two, and this must have been 1989, 1990. I’d bought a house near where I went to high school and went and hid for a while. He’s goin’, “I don’t know if you were paying attention to this, but the shit is goin’ on, man. I would strongly recommend you take a long hot bath and think about what you’re doing, because shit is happening and you should be part of it.” He gave me this wicked pep talk.
“Yeah, I know what’s goin’ on.”
“Like national press.”
“What?!”
He said, “Let’s talk about signing you”—he wanted us to reform the U-Men or something similar—“and hop on this fuckin’ thing. Call Tom. Fuck it!” He was very excited.
And? I don’t know … I don’t feel like it’s a lost opportunity. I don’t regret not hopping on the train. I do wonder what would have happened to my life differently had we continued on under those circumstances. Morbid curiosity more than anything. We were a little off-center as far as the music goes. I don’t know if there’s that much to ponder, really.
CHARLIE RYAN We were thrilled for everybody’s success. My father called me one day and he’s reading a review of Nirvana in the paper, and he’s like, “You know these guys, right?” I’m like, “Yeah, you know, we were playing the same places.”
“I don’t understand this. How come all these guys are making all this money and you’re not gettin’ nothin’ out of it?”
I said, “Well, you know, Dad, we have our artistic integrity.”
He slammed the phone down. He hung up on me.
He always busted my balls about the money: “So, you know these Soundgarden guys, and you know the Pearl Jams?” “Yeah, Dad.” “And these guys all make millions of bucks?” “Yes, Dad.” “But let me guess, you got your artistic integrity?” “That’s right, Dad.”
When I was playing with Cat Butt, we were on some Sub Pop record, so we got these crummy little checks sent to us for years. One year, I framed this and gave it to my dad for Christmas. The letter says, “I’m pleased to enclose mechanical royalties for blah blah blah.” And look at how much the check was for: one dollar and 48 cents. My dad actually hung it up behind his couch. He thought it was hysterical.
JOHN BIGLEY Nirvana did two nights with the Butthole Surfers at the Seattle Center Arena. Peter Davis, this tour manager guy, called me and said, “Man, I got a band playin’ with the Buttholes and Nirvana, and I’m gonna be in town, and if you don’t show up you’re fuckin’ dead. I’m gonna come and burn your house down.” He was adamant about me goin’ to it. I had gone fully screaming in the opposite direction. Just wasn’t going to shows in general, after going to shows five, six nights a week for seven years. The scene had started getting a little intense, I thought. Just the gravity of it all. I haven’t seen Peter in some years and went, and it was a very heavy night, catchin’ up with the Butthole Surfers and doin’ the whole backstage thing.
Backstage, bodyguards and A&R guys in the mix. Fully like, fuck me, laminates and like, “Could I get you something?” “Sure.” That whole trip. I met Courtney through Peter. It was a cordial, somewhat brief encounter. I watched Nirvana’s set; I went out on the side of the stage, and there were thousands of people. They were just on it, man. In Utero had been out not that long, and I was just knocked out by how tight they were. I haven’t seen them in five, six years. The last concert I’d seen at that place was Van Halen open for Black Sabbath. Kurt is standing where Ozzy Osborne stood, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler. This is fucking wild.
I go
backstage at the end of the set. Talkin’ to Greg, one of my friends that was in the Crows. And this memory is very vivid: these two metal doors, tile floor, cinderblock painted-white walls—the backstage bunker trip. And the door—crashhh, and this army of people come in. Krist’s head is stickin’ up in the middle of it all. There are a couple bruiser-type guys, and guys in suits—the full-on Geffen fuckin’ army, 25 to 30 people around, ear pieces and all this shit. Like, Whoa. They come through the door, and Kurt’s in the middle of the whole crowd, wearing one of those striped shirts. He walks by and noticed me and goes, “John? Bigley? Did you come to our show?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d ya think?”
“Fuckin’ rockin’, man.”
He goes, “Cool. Thanks, man.” He shakes my hand and he goes, “Hey, what I do, you do,” and he said some sort of cosmic brotherhood of rock thing. I didn’t fully understand it myself at the time. It was kind of a musician buddy pat on the head. He was always wearing Melvins and Scratch Acid shirts—seemed to be highly aware of that which came before him. I’d never heard that kinda shit from him to me. I’d only met him very briefly before. It was flattering. And he goes, “Thank you, and please come back and have a drink and meet my wife.” I said, “I just met her a little while ago. She seems really nice.”
Half this group of people with him are standing there, tapping their toes, like, Let’s keep it movin’ here. It was only two or three minutes. He goes, “Cool, see you back there.” And then they’re all whoosh, goin’ down the hallway. Greg’s like, “What the fuck was that?” We go walkin’ back later, and Kurt and Courtney had split, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to them more.
A few months later, I bumped into Charles Peterson, a friend of Kurt’s. He gave me Kurt’s phone number and said, “Hey, Kurt said he saw you. He said it was really cool. He said you should call him sometime, go up to his house and chill out.” Kurt had bought a house in Duvall, up north. “It’s really beautiful and laid-back, and it would be cool if you guys could chill.”