1994 should have been a huge year for Layne Staley. Alice in Chains completed a pretty extensive tour in late ’93 to support their 1992 album, “Dirt” which was a huge hit. The band assembled in Seattle to finish up an EP that took about a week to write and record called “Jar of Flies”.
Alice in Chains were set to tour with Metallica in the summer of ’94 as well.
Jar of Flies
Alice in Chains released “Jar of Flies” in late January and it would go to number one on the Billboard charts. The band also kicked off 1994 with a benefit show at the Hollywood Palladium where they played some of the tracks off of their latest EP as well as some songs from SAP. It was believed to be around this time, when Layne had relapsed and had started using heroin again.
Fishbone Benefit
Alice In Chains performed at the Fishbone Benefit in January of 1994. They played about four songs total, “Am I Inside”, “Brother”, “Nutshell” and “No Excuses”. The fans who attended the show were a little disappointed because it was a pretty short set and the band didn’t really play any of their big hits. Songs off “Jar of Flies” had just come out so they didn’t have time to go up the charts and a lot of stuff was new to them. The crowd wasn’t too pleased.
Jerry said that it was not a very good show for them. It was badly booked and it was one of Layne’s final performances in that period between ’94 and ’96. He’s wearing leather gloves covering his hands, which he wore a lot during ’95 and ’96. According to a Rolling Stone piece on Layne, a lot of heroin addicts will sometimes inject their hands so that’s why maybe some people think he was wearing gloves to hide any kind of puncture marks on his hands.
Cancelled Metallica Tour
During this time in 1994 between January and when they cancelled their tour with Metallica, Layne did make some appearances. He appeared on stage with Tool at the KISW FM’s Rock Stock concert where he performed “Opiate” with Tool. According to one person who was at the show, Layne looked sickly and wore a wool ski mask to hide his face during the performance. Staley along with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Peter Klat of Candlebox were elected to Playgirl Magazine’s Rock N’ Roll Hall of Hunkdom but Staley’s appearance had already begun to deteriorate.
“We’ve just been going full force, just running at top speed with our eyes closed.” – Jerry Cantrell
In the summer of ’94, the day before the start of the tour of Metallica, Alice nearly reached the end of their chain. Staley was in his throes of heroin addiction and Sean Kinney was struggling with the bottle.
According to Rolling Stone, “We’ve just been going full force, just running at top speed with our eyes closed,” says Cantrell peering through half an empty glass of beer. “We had been way too close for too long and we were suffocating. We were like four plants trying to grow in the same pot.” Things got worse when Staley who, according to Kinney, had just returned from drug rehab, came to practice high. In response, Kinney vowed to never play again with Staley. Cantrell concurred and the tour was canceled. The band parted ways for about six months.
For those fans wanting to see Alice in Chains open for Metallica, the band would end up being replaced by Candlebox instead. James Hetfield of Metallica would go on to mock Layne Staley in a 1994 performance because of him having to withdraw due to his drug issues at the time.
“Nobody was being honest with each other back then.” – Sean Kinney
According to Sean Kinney, he said, “Nobody was being honest with each other back then.” “If we kept going, there was a good chance we would have self-destructed on the road and we definitely didn’t want things to happen in public and it’s kind of ironic because you look at some bands like Guns N’ Roses back in the 80s when they were first starting out.
Their manager was encouraged to actually put them on the road because even though they had their own drug problems. He figured that if they were all on the same tour bus together, they were all sharing the same space as a manager, it would be a lot easier to keep a handle on these guys and stop them from doing harm in themselves but in this case, Alice in Chains’ management decided, ‘Hey we got to keep these guys off the road and they got to get better.”
“I just sat on my couch staring at the TV and getting drunk every day.” – Layne Staley
According to Rolling Stone magazine in the months that followed the band’s breakup, the band members went their separate ways and they went through their stages of grief that accompany loss – denial, anger, depression, and finally acceptance.
Staley recalled, “At first I was dumbfounded, mumbling like someone awakened by a late-night phone call.” “I just sat on my couch staring at the TV and getting drunk every day.” “When we first got together as a band, we were all brothers. We lived in the same house and we partied together and drank as much as each other but then we started to split apart and went different ways and we felt like we were betraying each other.”
During their time apart, Staley would record a record with Mad Season, which was his side project with Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin.
Layne would also take some time to work with another group called Second Coming. Layne performed with them on stage at Seattle’s Colorbox in 1994. Staley was also featured on the music video for the song, “It’s Coming After”.
“Alice in Chains”
Layne wasn’t the only guy to go do some stuff on the side.
Mike Inez worked with Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash on his first Snakebit record, “It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere” but he wouldn’t end up touring with Snakebit.
Sean Kinney recorded a track with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, Kim Tall and Johnny Cash for the Willie Nelson tribute record “Twisted Willy”.
Jerry, who writes most of the band’s music, holed himself up at his rural home outside of Seattle and wrote riffs initially intended for a solo record but by January of ’95, things seemed to be moving again with Alice in Chains. He was working on some material with Sean Kinney and Mike Inez and four months later they would eventually invite Layne Staley back into the fold and the band would begin working on their self-titled record “Alice in Chains”.
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