by Greg Prato
I think Layne went to his first concert in high school with his step dad, Jim, who raised him. It might have been Van Halen. One day, his stepbrother, Ken, was at the house and said, “Layne, there are a couple of guys over at Shorewood High School looking for a singer.” Layne said, “Well, I’m not a singer,” and Ken said, “Why don’t you try out anyhow?” I think Layne was out of high school and probably had turned eighteen. So they zipped on over there, and he tried out. When they heard Layne, they said, “You’re it, no more auditions,” even though they had a long list scheduled. It was a band called Sleze — Johnny Bacolas, James Bergstrom, Nick Pollack, and Ed Semanati were in that group. They practiced at James’s house.
YANNI “JOHNNY” BACOLAS: The first song we jammed was “L.O.V.E. Machine” by WASP. Then we did an Armored Saint [song], a Mötley Crüe song, and after doing a few songs together, that was the band. We were just blown away by him — he had “star qualities” even then. He was much more timid — he looked down while he sang. But the grain of his voice was there, the soul was there. From that point, we started playing local gigs around town.
MATT VAUGHAN: I first met Layne when I was in high school. He was hanging out with my sister, who was a year younger than me — I think it was because he knew my folks managed Queensrÿche. I remember him posing in the mirror — we were in our kitchen — and he said, “I’m going to be one of the biggest rock stars in the world.”
JERRY CANTRELL: I went to concerts, played with people. I didn’t have a car, so I would carry my guitar case and little amp on a bus. I’d get to practices and learn. And then things took a turn for my family. My grandmother and mother both passed away in about six months of each other. At that point, I was on my own — I had no home, no immediate family — except for aunts and uncles. My mother left me a little money from an insurance policy — enough for me to exist on for a while. I bought some gear, put together the Diamond Lie band. We probably were one of or the biggest band in Tacoma.
DAWN ANDERSON: Those poodle bands used to play at this steakhouse out in Lynnwood — total white trash — and stand around comparing each other’s equipment and haircuts. One of them was Diamond Lie. I always thought they were one of the best of the poodle rock bands — for whatever that’s worth.
BEN REW: Jerry is an OK guy … he’s not really my cup of tea. He’s always been into “the strippers and ho’s.” That’s not my fucking biz. Remember those little guys in school that were “the rock guys,” that were skinny as fuck but were always trying to bully you around? That’s Jerry. I was big, but I was always nice, and I could never understand how you would be having a party, and he’d all of a sudden decide he was going to be screaming at somebody twice his size — just because he was in some band. He was the only guy out of the scene that I ever met and remember [at] parties being a jerk.
YANNI “JOHNNY” BACOLAS: One day, myself and a guy named Russ Klatt — he was the singer of a band called Slaughterhouse Five — we were at this party, and we were talking about different concepts for backstage passes. It would say, like, “Sleze: The Welcome to Wonderland Tour.” That ended up turning into a discussion — we were talking about changing the band name. And we were saying, “Alice in Wonderland? How about this, how about that? Maybe … Alice in Chains? We could put her in bondage stuff!” I liked the ring [of ] “Alice in Chains” — I remember I came back to the next band rehearsal and I told the guys. The issue was the reference to bondage, which our parents would not go for. Layne’s mom was very hardcore Christian. So we ended up changing it to Alice ‘N Chains, which made it more like “Alice and Chains.”
JEFF GILBERT: They used to be “Alice ‘N Chains” — like “Guns N’ Roses.”
NANCY LAYNE McCALLUM: I had a sense of humor about the name Sleze. But when he came home and said they were changing the name to Alice ‘N Chains, I was not happy. I said, “Honey, that is female bondage. You don’t want to choose a name like that — it’s going to push your female audience away. I really feel strongly about this.” He was adamant and I was adamant. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have much of a conversation with him for about two weeks, because I was concerned, and also off ended. How could my child possibly choose a name like “Alice ‘N Chains”?
YANNI “JOHNNY” BACOLAS: About 1988, we were jamming in this place called the Music Bank, and Layne — to pay his portion of the room rent — was the guy with the keys. If you were to come knock on his door at three in the morning, he would look through the peephole, walk you in the room, unlock your band room, and you’d get to jam all night long. It was this warehouse in Ballard.
TIM BRANOM: I worked days and Layne would work nights. A bunch of girls would bring you food, and let you go take showers. That’s how we survived. And then we made four dollars an hour credit at the rehearsal room. The place was huge — I don’t know how many rehearsal rooms were in there, maybe a hundred. So at night when we turned off the lights, me and Layne would be sleeping in there. He was on the couch and I was on the floor. If you had to walk all the way to the bathroom — it was gross and dirty — you can’t see, it’s all pitch black. A couple of times, we were so tired, we’d just pee in this big Slurpee cup. One time, Layne peed in it — I don’t know who did it, I was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag — it spilled. I was so tired and it was so pitch black, I just had to lay in the pee.
JERRY CANTRELL: I had met Nick Pollock, who was the guitar player in Alice ‘N Chains at the time — Layne’s version of it. He knew what I was going through, and he invited me to come up to Seattle. He took me to a house party — somewhere in West Seattle. I walked in the door, and he introduced me to Layne immediately. We just clicked. He was really cool and he looked great — he was really funny. I think he had his hair flat-ironed, so it was all crimped and teased up. He offered, “Come down and live at the Music Bank with me. Maybe we can get you a gig, running keys.” I moved up there the next day. And I have to also say about Layne, the very first time I heard him sing — at the Tacoma Little Theater — it was one of those “lightning bolt moments.” I just knew, “I’ve got to be in a band with this guy.”
Layne Staley … or Vince Neil?
TIM BRANOM: Jerry played with [Gypsy Rose] for a short time — all the music sounded like Dokken. That’s kind of what Diamond Lie sounded like — really polished. They always used to talk about Mike Starr because all the women loved him. He wasn’t a great bass player, but the women loved him.
JERRY CANTRELL: I was in band with Mike Starr — Gypsy Rose — for a minute. We both got kicked out because we didn’t have good gear.
MATT FOX: [Mike Starr] was like “the sergeant guy” in a World War II movie. If you were in the desert, out of weed, out of gas, out of girls — he could find all three. He was a good guy to have around if you were a band living in your band room — he could scrounge up the girls who would buy you pizza. They were total “band bum guys.”
JERRY CANTRELL: We ended up at the Music Bank jamming. Our second or third rehearsal, there was some dude running through, looking for bands to open up this show he was throwing at Kane Hall. We had maybe two or three songs. He’s like, “Hey man, can you do a forty-minute set?” And we’re like, “Uhhh … yeah, sure!” That was our first gig. [Layne] was working with his band, which I think was disintegrating at the time, and he was working with another guy in another band. It became apparent that we had similar goals — we really liked each other as people and we all had a lot in common. We were like, “We need to get Layne to get out of these other bands and commit to us.”
Layne Staley … or Bret Michaels?
SEAN KINNEY: I met Layne at a place in Seattle called Alki — the closest we have to a beach. You can’t go in the water — it’s cold and shitty — but people cruise around in cars. I was down there and I saw Layne hanging out. We got to talking — he had this band going on. “Cool man, I’m a drummer. If you know somebody who’s looking for that, give me a call.” We exchanged numbers. Probably six mont
hs later, Jerry called me out of the blue. He said, “Hey, I got this thing from Layne.” So I came down to meet him at the Music Bank. My girlfriend at the time was Mike Starr’s sister. He was like, “I want to put a band together — I’m thinking of a bass player, this guy Mike Starr.” And I was like, “That’s weird — this is his sister!” I was sleeping in a car in front of [the Starrs’] house for the last month. So I called him, and he came down that night. We hung out, had some drinks, and started jamming. Kept trying to coax Layne into doing it.
JERRY CANTRELL: We staged fake auditions with some super shitty singers — just to piss him off. One of the guys was a male stripper! [Laughs.] This redhead dude — we didn’t think the guy was talented at all, we were just trying to get [Layne] to make a move, like, “OK, you’re not going to jump in? We’re going to get somebody else.” After the guy left, he was like, “OK, fuck it. I’m not going to let you guys get in a band with that dude. I’ll quit my shit — I’m jumping in.” And from then on, it was any gig we could take. Any VFW hall, we did a lot of gigs at the Kent Skate King — we did some shows there with Mother Love Bone.
BRUCE FAIRWEATHER: When Love Bone was first starting, we played a few shows with them, and they were full-on, bad glam. They were white trash dudes. We were playing somewhere down south in Seattle, a roller skating place. We played, and then afterwards, Layne’s up onstage — I think they did “Suff ragette City,” but a horrible version of it. He’s like, “Bruce, Andy, come up here!Come play with us! ” Andy’s just like, “Jeeez!” He’s hiding behind me — we ran away [laughs].
JERRY CANTRELL: That was kind of the music of the era and the look. I don’t know any of my buddies that play in bands today that weren’t involved in that — some shape or form. Spandex and the fucking hair — I had all that shit. My whole thing before I even was a good player was just trying to get attention — the more outrageous I could look, and the more people that could call me “fag” as they drove by in their cars.
JEFF GILBERT: These guys would get bigger gigs, because they had an insane female fan base. These guys had women like you can’t believe — all over the place. And not just good women, skanky broads [laughs]. The dirtiest women you could find. And the guys would go, because the girls were going, and would go, “Hey, that guitar player’s pretty freaking good!” Sean Kinney on drums — he’s very Bonham-esque live. I mean, he throws his whole upper body weight into it. When he hits a drum, you can feel it in the back of your head. But they were very tongue-in-cheek. I don’t think they had any aspirations to be anything but. They’d come out and do this shtick — they’d bring mirrors out and primp. They had this one song, “Queen of the Rodeo,” and it made the circuit. The underground trading and grunge guys liked it, because they thought, “Oh, these guys get the joke.” They were, in a sense, making fun of themselves.
There was a bidding war for Soundgarden that was just stupid-crazy. Suddenly, bands started to stop and take a look around to see the changing face of the music scene. Alice in Chains did that almost overnight. It was that quick. That sounds like that was a very patented move on their part, and for a large part I guess it was. But I also think that they had run out of steam on the glam thing, because their buddies, who were all in metal bands, kept giving them shit. “Hey, you guys are better than this — why don’t you really play?” Because Jerry, my God, can play anything. So I think it was, for them, a natural progression, to just slide right in and bring their hard rock roots. They had no problem saying, “Yeah, we listen to KISS, Aerosmith, and Ted Nugent.” They weren’t from a punk background at all — they could care less about punk, because punk guys never got any girls. So these guys got the best of all worlds — they got the credibility and the chicks [laughs]. All the grunge guys were butt-ass ugly, but Alice in Chains were good-looking guys, scored all the women, and got good street cred. Once they got serious, their whole sound got serious. Their sound got larger. The bass got thicker, because it’s that “drop-D tuning thing.” [ Jerry] brought in his love of Joe Perry and Ted Nugent, and just thickened up that sound. When you put Layne’s vocals over top of it — you couldn’t miss.
GRANT ALDEN: I thought Alice in Chains were posers. There was an organic scene and sound, which did develop in Seattle. Alice in Chains looked around at what was happening and changed who they were. It was like Soundgarden-lite. They had the same management, they’d clearly been watching Soundgarden a lot, it was the same stage moves. It just wasn’t honest.
JERRY CANTRELL: Everybody starts off emulating someone else — that’s just the way it is. That’s how you learn — you emulate other people. And hopefully at some point, you become yourself. You take the best elements of stuff that turns you on, and you add your own thing to it.
SUSAN SILVER: Ken Deans was managing them with a fellow that was a hairdresser by day, coke dealer by night — who ended up going to jail. Ken asked Kelly [Curtis, Mother Love Bone’s manager] and I if we’d like to work with them. I’d been helping them already with various things locally, and loved the tape they’d made. I loved their personalities — they were some of the drop-dead funniest people I’d ever met in my life. Sean Kinney is one of the funniest human beings I challenge anybody to meet. They all lived together in Des Moines, Washington. It was a ridiculous scene — totally trashed party house that had a sun bed underneath the coffee table. A couple of grey cats running around. And four funny, crazy guys that survived [by] getting girls to buy them food and other people to buy them drinks. And played this music that was so catchy and so cool. When Ken said he didn’t want to do the management, I said, “Absolutely — sign me up.”
NANCY LAYNE McCALLUM: That kid onstage — I just didn’t know him. Layne was a great actor — and I was completely unaware or completely unprepared for any kind of drug involvement. He struggled a bit in high school for a couple of years, but had quit using. Then he was off and running with the band. Other than one of the moms screaming into the phone at me, “You’ve got to do something!” — I didn’t have the faintest idea what she was talking about. I had no idea how to help my son, and I didn’t know how severe his use was. I just didn’t know how much to be alarmed. Layne was a smart boy with so many wonderful qualities. We came from a family and church that didn’t use drugs. There was just no reason in the world to think that this would persist. I wanted to stay calm, to support Layne, and know that he wouldn’t go in that direction or be harmed. I thought that the songs he was singing about drug addiction were about people he was observing.
The show I remember the best was when they performed at the Renton Fire Hall. At that point, evidently, they were being scouted. He came up to me, and his eyes were glistening with tears just on the rim. He looked down at me, from his six feet, and said, “Mom, I’m going to be a star.” I put my hands up on his shoulders, and I looked him straight in the eye. I wanted him to go for his dream, so I said, “Go for it, honey. Somebody’s got to do it.” I would have said that to him if he wanted to be a roofer or anything else. It was in his heart. I was so naive. If I had any idea what the entertainment industry is like, and what would happen to him … I would have hidden him.
JERRY CANTRELL: We had been living in the Music Bank for a while. I paid for a demo that we did in a tree house on the side of a mountain — that’s no joke, we borrowed Coffin Break’s van to drive up on top of this mountain in Issaquah, and recorded a demo in a fucking tree house! We killed their van in the process, and lost all our gear halfway down the mountain because the back doors came open. But we recorded the demo. And then we were going to record another demo — for the record companies. And that night, while we’re sitting there — we have all our gear ready to go — the Seattle swat team comes down and takes over the whole place! It turns out the party scene that was the Music Bank — we’d been living next door to a fucking forest of pot. I can’t remember how many times we’d been like, “Man, we need some weed,” and it’s right through the wall.
They seized the whole building — incl
uding our gear. We woke up to guns in our face. Of course, they think we’re all involved [laughs]. We spent most of the night trying to [convince] the cops into, “Just check our gear. There’s no drugs in here — we’re going to get signed, dude. We’ve been working for-fucking-ever to get this to happen, and now you guys are going to lock our shit down, the night before we’ve got to go make a demo.”
So while that’s going on, we were bored, and Sean and Mike went around to a couple of the local Zippy Marts, and ripped off some beer. We figured all the cops were busy, and we needed something to do in the meantime [laughs]. So they brought it back, and we washed the whole thing down. As the night went on, they realized we were just a bunch of kids — we weren’t connected. When we ran out of the beer, we actually talked the officer-in-charge into kicking down twenty or forty bucks for some more beer! [Laughs.] So we sat there and got toasted, and as the night went on, we were the only band they let take gear out of there. We’d spent enough time with these guys — they checked our shit to make sure there was nothing in it. We took it out, and stacked all of our shit in front of the front door. We had to sleep on the gear outside, so nobody would steal it. Then in the morning, Ken Deans came in a van to pick us up. We went down, made the demo, and the rest is history.
CHAPTER 16
“He’s going to be one of the biggest rock stars in the world — no question”: Mother Love Bone and Andy Wood’s Death
After the split up of Green River and Malfunkshun, several members of each band united as Mother Love Bone. While the majority of grunge bands were punk-based, the Andy Wood–led Love Bone modeled a sound and look akin to arena rockers, and were poised for success. But shortly before the planned release of their major label full-length debut, Apple, tragedy struck.