Alice in Chains

by David de Sola

  Mike moved in with Buttino during the mid-1990s. He wasn’t writing music at the time and was deep into heroin addiction. Buttino estimated Mike was using between two and five grams a day, spending an average of about five hundred dollars a day. Mike was aware he made a mistake trying it in the first place. One time, after Mike and Buttino had gotten heroin, Mike shot up and nodded off. Buttino was about to shoot up when Mike came to, took the syringe out of his hand, and squirted it on the ground. He started crying and told Buttino, “You’ll never do heroin. I’m never going to let you do it. I wish I never started it. I wish I’d never touched it.”

  At some point during this period, Mike mentioned an interest in writing a book telling his story, a coffee table–style book that would be titled Unchained. In July 1998, Mike met John Brandon, a journalist with local television and print experience. After the release of the Music Bank box set in 1999, Mike asked Brandon to help him produce a music video for “Fear the Voices” using material from Mike’s private collection of twenty-five videotapes he made while in the band. The video was sent to the band, their management, and their record label but never saw the light of day. While working on the video, Mike asked Brandon if he would write the book. For the project, Brandon interviewed Mike, his family, and a few of his friends.

  Published in 2001, Unchained: The Story of Mike Starr and His Rise and Fall in Alice in Chains has several inaccuracies in the text. There are two in particular that deserve correction.

  The first is the claim that Mike told the band and management during the Brazil trip in January 1993 that he was taking time off from the band and leaving of his own accord. Multiple sources, including Mike himself, have said on the record that Mike was fired.

  The second major inaccuracy deals with Demri’s death. One paragraph makes the following unsourced assertion: “In Seattle, with doctors, a counselor and John Starr by her side—Demri passed away.” After reading this, Kathleen Austin angrily denied it. “This is bullshit. Demri died at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, and there were two people there—me and my sister. And that’s the only people that were there. This is a lie, an out-and-out lie.” Demri’s death certificate confirms she died at Evergreen.3

  * * *

  On May 5, 2003, Mike and John Starr boarded Southwest Airlines flight 584 from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, Utah. Mike spent nearly half an hour in the bathroom before returning to his seat. Shortly after, a flight attendant saw the elder Starr trying to inject his son with a needle. The attendants eventually informed the pilot, who asked the tower to contact local law enforcement. Two Salt Lake City police officers boarded the flight as soon as it pulled into the gate and escorted the Starrs to the airport police station.

  Upon arrival at the station, both Starrs gave police consent to search their luggage. Police found heroin and drug paraphernalia. They were arrested and taken to Salt Lake County Jail. Mike was charged with having drug paraphernalia for personal use, disorderly conduct, and possession of a controlled substance. A local bail bonds agency put up $10,650 for his bail. Mike and his defense attorney decided to plead guilty to unlawful possession of a controlled substance for the heroin charge. His lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge all signed off on the deal. Mike, however, didn’t show up for sentencing on August 25, 2003. A judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest, setting bail at $20,000. This bench warrant would come back to haunt him several years later.4

  * * *

  In the summer of 2009, a woman walked into Bass Northwest and approached Evan Sheeley. “I’ve got somebody that wants to talk to you real bad. Do you mind if I bring him in?” she asked him. It was Mike. Sheeley hadn’t spoken to him in years because Mike forgot to acknowledge or credit him for his work in the liner notes for Dirt. According to Sheeley, “He came in and said, ‘I’m really sorry for what I did.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He says, ‘Well, I didn’t give you credit.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I know. That’s fine; I accept your apology. What are you really here for?’

  “He was trying to figure out how to get money from Alice in Chains. He felt they owed him millions of dollars. And I had to remind Mike that he did not really contribute a lot to the songwriting process and that he needed to go back and check his records, because he had probably sold maybe his rights to certain things for money back in the day.”

  Sheeley encouraged Mike to move on with his life. The two took a picture together before Mike left. That was the last time Sheeley saw him. Mike went to California to film the VH1 reality show Celebrity Rehab shortly after.

  In early 2010, Mike reentered the public eye as the third season of Celebrity Rehab aired. According to Mike’s official biography for the show, he had already been to rehab thirty times. The guilt of his last meeting with Layne still weighed on him seven years later.

  Reminiscing about his Brazil overdose, Mike told Dr. Drew Pinsky that “I let him [Layne] die, too, and he saved my life. Isn’t that terrible? On my birthday.” During a voice-over narration, Pinsky described Starr as being “clearly haunted by very intense feelings surrounding the death of his friend Layne Staley” and added that that threatened his sobriety and needed to be addressed in treatment. With encouragement from Pinsky, Mike finally told Nancy Layne McCallum of his feelings about the last time he saw Layne.

  He looked her in the eye and said, “I wish I would have known he was dying. I wish I would have called 911. He told me that if I did, he would never talk to me again, but there’s no excuse. I should have done that anyways. I wish I wouldn’t have been high on benzodiazepam and wouldn’t have just walked out the door.”

  “Did you see Layne die?” McCallum asked.

  “No, I didn’t see Layne die,” Mike answered.

  “He was agitated because I was too high. He used to get mad at me when I took them. 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 to me were, ‘Not like this.’ I can’t believe that. I’m so ashamed of that.”

  “You know, Mike, he could have called 911,” McCallum answered.

  “He would not call 911.”

  “I know.”

  “No, I know that. I’m just saying, I don’t know why he would not call them.”

  “Because he was embarrassed. A beautiful man with huge talent had squandered his life and his talent. That’s not a judgment; it’s just a statement of fact, and he knew that. And it’s a horrible thing, but I don’t blame you, and I never have. Layne would forgive you. He would say, ‘Hey, I did this, not you.’”5

  Aaron Woodruff thinks Mike never got over the guilt and blamed himself until the end. After taping for the show ended, he appeared on the spin-off series Sober House. Mike played with musicians from the School of Rock, as well as ex–Guns n’ Roses drummer Steven Adler and former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley during a performance at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, which included covers of “Man in the Box” and KISS’s “Shout It Out Loud” and “Rock and Roll All Nite.” Mike had been getting back into music again, with at least two different ventures, according to an interview he did with Pinsky on Loveline. He said he had been collaborating with Iggy Pop’s guitarist, Whitey Kirst, having recorded eleven tracks together. In early 2010, he relocated to Los Angeles to play bass on singer Leiana’s cover of Sonic Youth’s “Kool Thing.” Leiana told Blabbermouth.net it was Mike’s first sober studio session in about twenty years. It was also his last studio recording.6

  Mike’s initial signs after the programs were good. He was asked to participate in a panel at the Pasadena Recovery Center. Pinsky offered a glowing assessment of his patient, stating, “Mike, in spite of having the most awful withdrawal we’ve ever documented on the show, is doing fantastic. I saw him last night and I cannot wait to get him on the radio show and let him speak for himself. He is doing amazing.”7

  Mike’s former bandmat
es publicly slammed the program but not him. “Addiction is no joke, and we know that firsthand. We lost a good friend of ours to that. Mike deserves a better life,” Jerry said during an interview with an Atlanta radio station. “That particular show, I think it’s a real travesty and a shame to put people in a really vulnerable situation like that and make it entertainment for people to see … It’s just kind of disgusting to me, actually. It’s nothing I back.”

  He added, “I totally back Mike, and I back his efforts to get clean and [he] remains somebody that I and the band really care about—he’s a friend of ours, you know, and we wish him the best.”

  Sean offered similar sentiments during an interview with Philadelphia radio station WMMR, saying, “It exploits people at their lowest point, when they’re not in their right mind, and the sad part is, this is like entertainment for people when it’s actually a life-and-death situation. I don’t think it helps anybody and it makes entertainment out of people’s possible death, and that’s pathetic and it’s stupid. So I don’t support that show at all and I think it’s pretty disgusting. But Mike getting his life together or anybody doing that, I’ll support that.”8

  Mike sounded happiest in the Loveline interview when talking about his family, particularly his mother, for whom he had recently bought a furniture set, he said, with a sense of pride in his voice. While discussing Nancy McCallum’s annual August concert fund-raiser in Layne’s memory, he expressed an interest in putting a band together for the event.

  Mike still missed his friend. “I feel naked without Layne in this life,” he explained. “I don’t care about a band thing, I don’t care about them dismissing me from the band. I never quit the band, for one thing. I’m not a quitter. I’m not a quitter, that’s for sure. I don’t care about any of that. I love Layne for the human being that he [was], and I just … I really miss him.”

  Asked about the possibility of reuniting with Jerry and Sean, Mike said, “Jerry Cantrell and Sean Kinney are my brothers. They will be forever. I spent ten years with them, and they will always be my brothers, they will always be in my heart, and I would do anything for them. And so if they ever asked me to play with them, I would definitely play with them.”9

  * * *

  Mike went to San Diego in August 2010 to visit Aaron Woodruff, taking a bus to the beach near where he lived. A street was closed off where there was a block party with a live band. Mike got up onstage and performed with them. “He got up there and jammed and everybody was recognizing him, and I sat back and watched all the attention he was getting. I was really proud of him, and I was really, really, truly almost, like, wanting to cry, I was so proud of him.”

  “Here he is just walking in—that old Mike is back. I hadn’t seen that since high school probably. He was charismatic—positive energy. You know, everybody loved him and he was pretty good there and allowed him in.” That was the last time Woodruff saw him.

  That same summer, Brooke Bangart—one of Mike’s childhood friends—was checking in to a San Diego hotel with Melinda and Mike. There was a large grand piano inside, and she heard Lionel Richie’s “Hello” on the piano. It was Mike. At the time, she thought, “I know that’s him. We’re gonna get kicked out of here for sure,” Bangart said at his memorial service.10

  In late 2010 or early 2011, Mike moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, to start a band with Travis Meeks, the former singer from Days of the New. On the night of February 17, 2011, Mike was riding in the passenger seat of a van being driven by Meeks, which got pulled over by a Salt Lake City police cruiser for a traffic violation—Meeks had driven over the median when making a turn, and Mike wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Buttino was surprised to hear Mike wasn’t buckled up. “That was the thing that Mike always criticized me the most on, wearing my seat belt.”

  “Hey, Officer, have you heard of Alice in Chains? I used to be the [bass] guitarist for them. We are down here in Utah, me and Travis, putting together a new band,” Mike said, according to the police report. The officer ran a background check on Meeks and Mike. While he was getting the information from dispatch, his partner handed him a bottle with pills that Mike was taking, later identified as six Opana pills and six alprazolam pills.11

  Meeks was issued a traffic citation for driving on a suspended license and released. The officer discovered Mike’s bench warrant from 2003. He was arrested and taken to Salt Lake County Jail. He was let go on prefile release for the new charges, on the condition that he show up in court for a hearing. Someone paid the twenty-thousand-dollar bail on the bench warrant.12

  In late February or early March, Mike had a phone conversation with Nancy Layne McCallum. As she recalled during his memorial service, “He’s turned the corner. He wasn’t obsessing on old stuff. He was really positive and happy, and I know that he was one rung higher in his ladder to heaven.”13

  On March 7, Travis Meeks; his wife, Micaela; and Mike drove to Orem, Utah, to pick up a methadone prescription. Mike made several phone calls during the course of the day. He called Melinda’s fiancé, Chris Jurebie, and left him a voice message. His final words on the recording were: “You’re my little brother. I love you; we’re brothers for life.”14

  At some point, he left a thirty-five-second voice mail for a drug dealer asking for marijuana, which was later posted on the Web site TMZ.15

  The Meekses were up all that night packing to leave for a road trip the next day. At around midnight, Micaela went upstairs to use the bathroom next to Mike’s bedroom. She saw him listening to music and trying to go to sleep.

  According to the police report, Travis tried to wake Mike up between 5:00 and 7:00 A.M. the next morning to leave for the trip. He was described as “sleepy but responding to Travis.” That was the last time anybody saw him alive. A driver was supposed to pick them up that morning but didn’t show up. They never left for the trip and fell asleep instead. Micaela estimates that she and Travis slept from 8:00 A.M. until 1:00 P.M. At some point in the early afternoon, the Meekses found Mike, wearing a T-shirt and gym shorts, lying in his bed near a laptop computer, unresponsive. They called Spencer Roddan, the owner of the house. Roddan arrived a few minutes later, and at 1:42 P.M. he dialed 911.16

  Salt Lake City police and fire department personnel arrived shortly after. Fire personnel concluded he was dead and there was nothing more they could do. He was forty-four years old. The police officers interviewed Mike’s housemates. Travis Meeks told them Mike was a recovering addict but speculated the pressure to get back into music and go on the road may have been too much for him. He also said Mike had been using benzos—mixing methadone and diazepam. Roddan told police Mike was using Percocet, methadone, and, according to the police report, “others including one [Roddan] described as Opana, a hard opiate.” Officials also found empty prescription pill bottles in Mike’s name and unidentified white pills.17

  One of the officers called Gayle Starr to inform her of her son’s death. She told the officer that Mike had had “very high anxiety and back problems” but was not aware of any other health issues. She also said he’d had a drug problem for years.18

  Alice in Chains posted a statement on its Web site that read, “Jerry and Sean are mourning the loss of their friend and ask that the media respect their privacy—and the privacy of the Starr family—during this difficult time. Their thoughts & prayers are with the Starr family.” On his public Facebook page, Mike Inez wrote, “R.I.P. Michael Christopher Starr. I’m gonna play your great bass lines with integrity and truth. You kicked ass. Period.”

  Other musicians took to Twitter to offer their condolences and pay tribute to Mike, including former Guns n’ Roses members Steven Adler, Matt Sorum, and Slash; former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy; and Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx. Two of Mike’s Celebrity Rehab castmates Mackenzie Phillips and Lisa D’Amato also paid their respects, as did Dr. Drew Pinsky and Jennifer Gimenez, the house manager on Sober House.19

  According to his will, Mike appointed his mother, Gayle, as executrix o
f his estate and his sister, Melinda, as a backup in the event their mother would not be able to serve in that capacity. The will states Mike intended to make a list of items from his personal property to be given as gifts at a later time. The rest of his assets and estate were to be distributed equally among his parents and sister. According to a court document, Mike’s assets were valued at in excess of $350,000—primarily future royalty payments—and his debts at not more than $240,000, meaning his estate was solvent.20 There are no publicly available estimates for the current value of Mike’s estate three years after his death.

  A private memorial service was held at Experience Music Project on March 20, 2011, followed by a public service at the International Fountain immediately after.21 Photos were compiled into a slide show, which was projected on-screen as people spoke. Mike’s white Spector bass, his signature instrument, was displayed onstage. Mike’s friends and family shared memories from elementary school up until his final days.

  “Really hard” is how Buttino described the service. “Kathleen [Austin] walked up to me and just hugged me for a while and hung out with me, and she knew it was hard for me. I hadn’t really talked to Gayle in a while, and it was hard for me to walk up to her. She just gave me a big hug, and I told her I loved her and sorry and I tried, and we both about burst into tears, so I walked away. [It was] the hardest thing I ever went through.”

  Dr. Drew Pinsky and Mike Bloom, the cofounder of the Pasadena Recovery Center, sent videotaped statements offering their condolences. The statements were included with a montage of Mike’s highlights from Celebrity Rehab and Sober House.