Alice in Chains

by David de Sola

  His other impression was similar to Salieri’s reaction when he first meets Mozart in the movie Amadeus: trying to reconcile the disconnect between the band he heard on the radio and the four young, immature musicians in front of him.

  “They seemed like they were just children,” Byrd said. “They just seemed so irresponsible to me, and I was super irresponsible at twenty-one, but they would never be on time for meetings, every other word was ‘fuck,’ they were obsessed with getting pussy and who they were fucking. Everything was—it was like a bunch of children. I could not reconcile these guys that I saw with the brilliant music I was hearing them play.”

  While this was happening, Byrd was living with his parents. He would occasionally use his mother’s Chrysler van for transportation. One time he went out to scout locations, and she got mad about it. Byrd suspects she told his brother-in-law Kevin about it. When Byrd got home, Kevin was waiting. “He gives me the whole guilt trip about, ‘You’re taking advantage of your parents. The only reason why you’re able to do this is because you live at home for free. It’s not fair to your mom. Your mom has said this to me. You don’t know if this band is going to go anywhere.’ I’m like, ‘No, I think they’ll be big.’ ‘You don’t know that; there’s no way to know that,’ things like that,” Byrd said. “I still don’t know why I listened to him, but I felt so guilty. Probably some of it had to do with the fact that I grew up Mormon and I didn’t go on a mission, and my mom used to come into my room and cry when I was nineteen. So I already had kind of a little guilt thing about my mom, and my brother-in-law Kevin knew how to bring it home.”

  Byrd abandoned the project. He enlisted in the army. About a year later, his neighbor called him over. He had recorded a video from MTV: it was for Alice in Chains’s “We Die Young.” Byrd was furious when he found out Columbia Records had bought the video from the Art Institute of Seattle. It was confirmation that his idea to shoot, produce, and sell a music video for “Sea of Sorrow” would have worked. He didn’t forgive his brother-in-law for years.

  * * *

  The summer of 1989 was an interesting time, just before careers were about to take off. According to Krisha Augerot, Kelly Curtis’s assistant, “It was just an epic kind of summer, where there was a lot of parties and we’d go to the beach all the time, just a fun time. A lot of socializing, and just really good times, a really hot, fun summer.” This would become the subject of the Mad Season song “Long Gone Day.” “It’s interesting that he felt the same way … Kristen Barry rented a house where Screaming Trees practiced in the basement. Her band practiced in the basement. Alice in Chains was happening. All those bands were happening.” According to the Above liner notes, the song was “inspired by those who shared this memory.” The notes mention by name Augerot, Demri, Layne and Demri’s close friend Fabiola Gonzalez, Cole Peterson and Rich Credo of the band Sweet Water, and Kristen Barry. Absent from the list was Sweet Water’s Paul Uhlir, who, according to Augerot, had an off-and-on relationship with Demri during this period.

  * * *

  According to the band’s official biography from the summer of 1989, they were trying to decide if they were the “Jay Leno of heavy metal” or the “all-male Partridge Family.” The same biography notes claim that Alice in Chains is “currently the only unsigned band to receive regular airplay on KISW’s ‘New Music Hour.’” Their live credentials included opening for the Bullet Boys, Tesla, and Great White.19

  “Even before we got signed, we had a lot of big shows and some arena shows through a friend of our manager’s,” Layne said. These early arena shows caused him a bit of stage fright. “I think the first time with Great White and Tesla, I was dry-heaving behind the bass cabinet. It was like halfway through the set until I actually realized where I was.”20

  Press from this period shows the buzz around the band in the months before getting their record deal. KISW’s Damon Stewart, in February 1989: “To all A&R types—Alice in Chains, remember that band—they’re gonna be huge, and they RAWK!”21

  Tower Records’s publication Pulse, in April 1989: “The latest conquest for the Alan/Silver team is a band called Alice in Chains. Emerging from the studio with one of the most original demos in memory, this little rat pack should have labels eating out of its hand in no time.”22

  The Seattle Times, May 19, 1989: “Alice in Chains may be the next Seattle-based hard-rock band to land a major contract. Representatives of several labels, including RCA and Columbia, are set to check out the quartet at its show tonight at the Bellevue VFW Hall.”23

  Don Kaye, writing in his Deathvine column for Kerrang, July 15, 1989: “This band should be huge, and I wanna say you heard it here first. Alice in Chains is the name, they’re from Seattle, and it’s sleazy, bluesy rock with needle-sharp hooks and monster riffs that would do Metallica proud. Emotive vocals, funky, dirty grooves, and a totally original yet heavy-edged sound guarantee some big things.”24

  From the September 1989 edition of Rip: “Alice in Chains is rumored to be the next big thing from Seattle. The four-piece have only been together for one year and are already attracting the attention of major-label A&R departments.”25

  One of their most important fans during this period was Don Ienner, who had recently been hired as president of Columbia Records. “I flipped out the first time I heard their demo tape,” he said. Timing was also a critical factor. The buzz around Alice in Chains happened when the label was trying to get a foothold in the hard rock/heavy metal market. “They came to us at a time when we were hungry for music,” Ienner told Rolling Stone. Another crucial business ally at this early point in their career was Nick Terzo, a rep who had been involved in the band’s music publishing and who later joined Columbia’s A&R team. “Everybody thought I was getting the worst of the bunch. But to me they were a diamond in the rough.”26

  It was a slow start on the business side. Ken Deans and Sean Kinney estimated that negotiations between the band and CBS Records went on for about eight months by the time the deal was signed.27

  “We had good managers and great lawyers, and we were trying to retain things that you can’t usually keep when you’re a new band,” Sean explained.

  “Like your publishing,” Jerry added.

  “We were fortunate to do that, but … when you’re young like that, you’re like, ‘Fuck! Let’s just do this. We’re gonna get a record deal,’” Sean said. “But we waited it out, and it ended up working out for us.”28

  According to Ken Deans, “The most significant and important part of that deal was that Alice in Chains kept their publishing.” In a typical contract, Deans said record companies would ask for fifty percent ownership in the songs. Under the terms of their deal, this meant that Alice in Chains owned all the songs they had already written and would own all the material they would write in the future under this contract. “Alice got it all. Alice is probably one of the last bands to get signed that kept all their publishing.”

  Timing was a key factor working in the band’s favor during negotiations. “It looked like Seattle was going to be the next big deal,” Deans said. “Everybody wanted a piece of it. So from Mother Love Bone on, the signings were virtual bidding wars. So everybody was trying to present the best deal.”

  Representing Alice in Chains in the negotiations was Michele Anthony, a partner at the entertainment law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Phillips. Anthony made such an impression that she was later hired as a senior vice president at Sony Music. In this capacity, according to a 2005 press release, she “established and managed the company’s regional A&R offices in addition to overseeing special projects and new business opportunities. She was vital in negotiating and signing many of Sony Music’s most important artists and was also involved with talent development, soundtracks, new technologies, and myriad special projects.”

  Don Ienner said, “When I first met Michele, she was the lawyer for Alice in Chains, who I was signing to Columbia. She was a brilliant negotiator who knew the business
inside and out, and those factors, combined with her passionate, no-holds-barred approach to demanding the very best for her artists, made it clear that she had the makings of a truly great executive.”29

  Nick Terzo joined the label as Alice in Chains’s A&R representative. After months of negotiations, Alice in Chains signed with CBS Records on September 11, 1989.30 With the deal signed, it was time to make a record.

  PART III

  1989–1996

  We’ve had some interesting and hard times.

  But along with success comes some of the darker things.

  —Jerry Cantrell

  Since our music is so depressing, everybody expects us to run around in black and whine about shit. But that’s such a misconception. We just get together and fuck around. We’re like the Monkees or something.

  —Sean Kinney

  Chapter 9

  It was a no-brainer this band is going to go somewhere.

  —RONNIE CHAMPAGNE

  DAVE JERDEN WAS A VETERAN producer with extensive credits who in 1989 was most known for his work on Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking. In the late summer or early fall of that year, he got a copy of the Alice in Chains demo from Nick Terzo, who had sent it to other major producers.

  “Everybody passed on it,” Jerden said of this demo. “This was the time of Guns n’ Roses, and everybody was looking for people with that high voice, like Dio or whatever. But I grew up a product of the late sixties, seventies. I liked deep voices, bluesy voices, and when I heard this tape, I just went, ‘Wow!’” The general reaction to Alice in Chains in Los Angeles at the time was confusion, for lack of any point of reference. “There was a lot of head-scratching going on with that band when they were first doing it, but it was something that both Dave and I had already heard in our heads. It was a no-brainer this band is going to go somewhere, because it was just old-school Black Sabbath with new-kid mentality,” Jerden’s engineer, Ronnie Champagne, said.

  A meeting between Jerden and the band was arranged in Los Angeles. The band was performing at a club, where four people were in the audience: Jerden, his manager, producer Rick Rubin, and one guy dancing in the middle of the floor “like he was on acid or something.” Rubin walked out after a few songs, leaving Jerden, Jerden’s manager, and the guy on acid to watch the rest of the show. When they met, Jerden and Jerry hit it off immediately.

  “I said, ‘What you’re doing is what Tony Iommi was doing in Black Sabbath.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah!’ And I was in. It was pretty much Jerry’s call who was going to produce the record.” Terzo told Jerden the plan was to have them write more songs. The band returned to Seattle and cut two demos at London Bridge Studios with Rick Parashar. A dozen songs from these demos became the basis for the material on Facelift.

  “‘We Die Young’ was on that, ‘Man in the Box,’ like six songs that were fucking amazing,” Jerden said. “They were doing a bit of every style: punk, heavy metal, to try and get a sound. I understand Layne at one point had a Mohawk. The idea was to cut out everything that they weren’t.”

  At the time, Jerden and Champagne were working on Social Distortion’s first album and putting finishing touches on Jane’s Addiction’s Ritual de lo Habitual. Studio time was booked at London Bridge. According to Jerden, the production budget for the album was between $150,000 and $250,000. Champagne brought a cassette of the then-unreleased Ritual de lo Habitual, consisting of unfinished mixes. The album made an impression on the band. “That’s all they talked about. That’s all they wanted to know about when we first got there,” Champagne said. Mike made copies of the cassette and gave them to friends. “They devoured that record. So while we were making Facelift, their minds were expanding, because they’re starting to listen to this record that hasn’t been released yet, and Ritual was a big sonicscape record.”

  Sean had broken his hand about a month before and couldn’t play drums. According to the Music Bank liner notes, it happened “during an altercation at a party one evening.” Mother Love Bone drummer Greg Gilmore was asked to fill in for Sean, and he wasn’t working out.

  “The way Sean played, he had this heavy kick drum going, which was the basis of the sound, the bass and the kick drum, which coupled with the low chords that Jerry was playing … this guy just wasn’t hitting hard. I kept saying, ‘You’ve got to hit the kick drum harder. Please!’ He just could not give me that whack that I needed, that really solid backbeat,” Jerden explained. “And finally, after like three days of this, Sean says, ‘Fuck this!’ and he took off his bandages. He says, ‘I’m going to do this, broken arm or no broken arm.’ They changed then—all of the sudden, they sounded like Alice in Chains.” Champagne said after Sean removed his cast—about three weeks ahead of schedule—he winced every time he hit a snare drum.1

  Aside from Sean’s mishap, Jerden said the recording process went very smoothly. “What we did was drums, bass, and basic guitars. I was up there for about a month. I had a great time. Jerry was a fisherman and I loved fishing, so we’d go salmon fishing in the mornings and then we’d go to the studio,” Jerden said. The songs were well developed by the time recording sessions began. “We did not stray from the basic tracks at all. We kept it pretty much the way the basic tracks were. I added some stuff to it, but I didn’t subtract anything.”

  According to Jerden, his production process consisted of recording several takes of a song, maybe five to ten at most. He would sit with a pencil and notepad, making notes on every bar, whether he liked it or not. He listened to every take and would composite the song using the best takes based on his notes. “There was no click track,” Jerden said, referring to a signal routed into a musician’s headphones in the recording studio to serve as a metronome to keep time while recording. “So the timing would go up and down, but I’d pick the best overall take and then from other takes that were in the same time, I would edit those in.”

  Dave Hillis, an assistant engineer at London Bridge at the time, credits Jerden for one element of the band’s sound. “If you hear the demos, the tempos are always faster. The thing that … Dave Jerden brought out [was to] slow the tempos down. Analyzing that now, it really helped develop the Alice sound, in that it became heavier with the tempo slowed down and more brooding.”

  According to Jerden, “The midtempo, slow-tempo stuff just sounded heavier. If I sped it up, like ‘Man in the Box’ sped up, it wouldn’t have sounded right. I don’t remember from the demo what I did [in the recording], how much I slowed it down, but to me even a beat per minute slower or a beat per minute faster can make a big difference.” Champagne agreed, “It can’t be racing at you. It’s got to scare the fuck out of you before you even see it coming. That was the mentality.” According to Champagne, their message to the band as they were recording was “Play it like you mean it. Play it to us. Fuck everybody else. Make us impressed, because we’d seen it all already.”

  Jerden was driving to the studio one day while they were working on “Man in the Box,” thinking they needed a hook sound for the song. At that point, Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” started playing on the radio, which features a prominent use of a Voice Box. This gave Jerden the idea of adding a Voice Box to “Man in the Box.”

  The lyrics to “Man in the Box” can be traced to a dinner conversation between the band and Nick Terzo. Layne told Rolling Stone, “I started writing about censorship. Around the same time, we went out for dinner with some Columbia Records people who were vegetarians. They told me how veal was made from calves raised in these small boxes, and that image stuck in my head. So I went home and wrote about government censorship and eating meat as seen through the eyes of a doomed calf.”2

  During a 1991 interview, Layne and Sean criticized bands for writing about subjects they didn’t know about, specifically “political stuff.” Layne said, “We write about ourselves, and we know about ourselves. I’m not any authority to write on any political nothing.” The interviewer asked, “What’s ‘Man in the Box’ about?” And Layn
e replied, “Ah, shit. It’s kinda loosely based on media censorship, but only my theory, so it’s not a fact or a statement.”

  “It’s about veal,” Sean added.

  “Plus I was really stoned when I wrote it,” Layne said. “So it meant something different then.”3

  Layne’s “Sexual chocolate, baby!” scream at the end of “Real Thing” can be traced to the period when the band was living together after moving out of the Music Bank. According to Steve Alley, the band had been watching the Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America, in which a Murphy character is the singer of a band called Sexual Chocolate. Alley said it became a recurring joke for Layne, which eventually made its way into the song.

  Mike bought his bass guitars and equipment from Evan Sheeley, formerly the bassist of Seattle hard rock band TKO, who at the time was working at Seattle Music. Sheeley was at home when he got a call from Jerden, who said they were having problems with the bass and amplifier he had sold Mike and asked him to come in. Once at the studio, Sheeley noticed Mike had set the levels on the instrument and the amplifier all the way up to 10.

  “You can’t do that because that’s going to make it sound like crap. It’s going to sound all distorted,” Sheeley explained. “I’ve been in the studio a lot, so I just took the bass—there’s the tone. Dave Jerden came on the talkback and said, ‘That’s the sound I want. That’s perfect.’” According to Sheeley, after getting the right levels on the bass and the amplifier, they put duct tape on the bass knobs so Mike couldn’t touch or change them. The knob settings on the amplifier were marked with a knife so they wouldn’t be forgotten. More than two decades later, those markings were still visible on Mike’s amplifier.4