Alice in Chains: History in a Nutshell

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirtley You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious podcast. We are here in Atoka, Oklahoma. Oh wait, no,
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry, that's where the rooster's from. We're not in Atoka,
<v Speaker 1>but we are in Norman, Oklahoma, and we are being
<v Speaker 1>joined by our good friend James Buckley, back from Louisiana,
<v Speaker 1>joining us to attack Alison Chains versus Stone Temple Pilots. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>how you doing, James?
<v Speaker 2>I am doing wonderfully, guys. It's always a thrill to
<v Speaker 2>talk to you, guys, and it's always a thrill to
<v Speaker 2>talk about one of my favorite topics.
<v Speaker 3>Both of these albums are turning thirty in about a month.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, just to let you guys know. Two days ago
<v Speaker 1>it was what would have been Lane Stay's fifty fifth birthday.
<v Speaker 1>Three days ago it was the thirty second anniversary or Facelift.
<v Speaker 1>And by the time this episode comes out, it will
<v Speaker 1>be September, which is when both Core and Dirt came
<v Speaker 1>out on the same day, September twenty ninth, thirty years ago.
<v Speaker 1>This September.
<v Speaker 3>It's incredible. I can't believe these albums are that old.
<v Speaker 3>We're old, man, Yeah, I mean, we're alternative. Should not
<v Speaker 3>be thirty years old.
<v Speaker 2>I distinct we remember buying both of these albums at
<v Speaker 2>the record store, and my hairline also remembers, yes, because
<v Speaker 2>I had one that's definitely changed over the past thirty years.
<v Speaker 3>Hey, you know the funny thing is that this was
<v Speaker 3>originally slated for season two on the twenty ninth anniversary.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and they were like, why would we do that?
<v Speaker 1>That's dumb, you kid do twenty nine. No, let's do
<v Speaker 1>thirty thirty.
<v Speaker 3>So here we are pushed from season two now in
<v Speaker 3>season three, Stone Temple Pilot's Core versus Alsa Jains Dirt.
<v Speaker 3>What were you doing in ninety two, James?
<v Speaker 2>I was in college. I had taken one of my
<v Speaker 2>frequent sabbaticals and I had just come back. I was
<v Speaker 2>trying to get wrapped up.
<v Speaker 1>What are you doing in ninety two? Deep in ninety two,
<v Speaker 1>I was in a band myself. We were covering STP songs.
<v Speaker 1>I was learning how to play Rooster on the guitar.
<v Speaker 1>It would I love. Rooster taught me that chords don't
<v Speaker 1>have to be regular chords. You can take a chord
<v Speaker 1>and just throw it anywhere on the guitar and it
<v Speaker 1>might end up sounding.
<v Speaker 2>Goof just added that to the set list again. So
<v Speaker 2>if you ever come through Monro, We're gonna grab you
<v Speaker 2>up on stage. I'm telling you now.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can still pull it out.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know about a lead, but I can definitely
<v Speaker 1>do the intro for sure. Yes, I'll be there for
<v Speaker 1>that one man.
<v Speaker 2>Oh it'll be a fun show. I guarantee you.
<v Speaker 1>James, you are an admin on one of the nineties
<v Speaker 1>groups on Facebook, right correct.
<v Speaker 2>That was a very special musical era for me. I
<v Speaker 2>came up out of the eighties. I was huge metal head,
<v Speaker 2>but I had a dark secret. I like bands like
<v Speaker 2>depeche Mode, you know, The Cure, The Fix, the Police
<v Speaker 2>at the same time, so when the nineties alternative stuff,
<v Speaker 2>when I started hearing bands like Nirvana and Toad, the
<v Speaker 2>Wet Sprocket and the Womenheads, that resonated with me because
<v Speaker 2>it seemed to combine my two favorite things so fairly
<v Speaker 2>aggressive guitar and drums, slightly more introspective lyrics. So I
<v Speaker 2>was a happy man for about ten years.
<v Speaker 1>Before we keep going, I want to give a quick
<v Speaker 1>shout out to my good friend Kevin Davis. Kevin is
<v Speaker 1>a guy who one night as I was sitting down
<v Speaker 1>to study up on one of our episodes, is like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>then your kid Russell And I was like, uh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he's there right now, and he goes, Yep, my grandson too.
<v Speaker 1>And we got to talking and his grandson's name is Halen,
<v Speaker 1>as in Van Halen, and I was like, we are
<v Speaker 1>going to be best friends. Wow, We're totally going to
<v Speaker 1>be best friends. And so I turned him onto the
<v Speaker 1>podcast and he has been a avid listener since I
<v Speaker 1>showed him the podcast. And he gave us a music review.
<v Speaker 1>And James is back from our comparison of Girls Girls
<v Speaker 1>Girls in White Snake, and he gave us a review
<v Speaker 1>on that one. So I just wanted to read it.
<v Speaker 1>Kevin says, I agree with the host that White Snake
<v Speaker 1>was much better than Girls Girls Girls. The crew can
<v Speaker 1>light their white Johnson's on fire and I wouldn't care.
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for another great show. Now I must return to
<v Speaker 1>my Marble arts.
<v Speaker 3>That's awesome, Kevin, Thank you so much. He does like
<v Speaker 3>multiple reviews. He throws him out all the time.
<v Speaker 1>It's awesome. Just about every episode he'll give us a
<v Speaker 1>new review, and I see him all the time. I
<v Speaker 1>go to that same restaurant all the time, and we
<v Speaker 1>just talked up. He is a fantastic guy. When I
<v Speaker 1>told him we were doing Alison Chains, he was like,
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, one of my favorite bands. So decided
<v Speaker 1>for that. This one's for you, Kevin, there you go.
<v Speaker 2>Speaking of which, the guitar player for my band saw
<v Speaker 2>Motley Crue in Texas last night.
<v Speaker 1>What's the verdict, Well.
<v Speaker 2>He said there were still really entertaining. Vince was a
<v Speaker 2>bit off, but he said that Tommy Lee, possibly in
<v Speaker 2>light of recent online shenanigans, instead of encouraging the women
<v Speaker 2>in the audience to flash him, he encouraged the men
<v Speaker 2>in the audience to to expose their giraffes. Let's just
<v Speaker 2>say it that lay.
<v Speaker 1>You Me and Mike Johnson, Yes.
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, Preston said, no one did.
<v Speaker 1>So, Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
<v Speaker 2>Allison Chains. I distinctly remember back in the eighties and
<v Speaker 2>nineties there was a magazine called Rip or Rip or
<v Speaker 2>whatever so metal magazine yep. At the end they would
<v Speaker 2>always have a really extensive selection of reviews. Because I
<v Speaker 2>lived in a very rural area, I was always worried
<v Speaker 2>I was missing out on something cool and I remember
<v Speaker 2>reading the review for Facelift, the first Allison Chains out.
<v Speaker 2>I was on a massive Sabbath kick at the time,
<v Speaker 2>and they hit all the right notes with the reviews
<v Speaker 2>said slow, doomy riffs, founding drums, black Sabbath influence. So
<v Speaker 2>I went to a local record store over the next
<v Speaker 2>few days and actually found a copy of face Lyft,
<v Speaker 2>and ah, man, it was love at first Listen, that's cool.
<v Speaker 1>It is a great album. And then of course that
<v Speaker 1>Man in the Box off of that album is what
<v Speaker 1>brought them into the spotlight.
<v Speaker 3>You know, the year that I graduated from high school
<v Speaker 3>was nineteen ninety one, and so so fall of ninety
<v Speaker 3>one is when the grunge thing really catches fire. You know,
<v Speaker 3>Facelift predates that a little bit, and so we were
<v Speaker 3>aware of Alison Chains or whatever. But when I left
<v Speaker 3>my hometown and went to the university, there's a shift
<v Speaker 3>in music, and so it's very easy for me to
<v Speaker 3>split high school music in college music.
<v Speaker 1>And this is one of those that was very very college.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, I was in early college, but that's still more transition.
<v Speaker 2>I had a couple of cool friends who were much
<v Speaker 2>cooler than I was, kept saying you need to listen
<v Speaker 2>to this. You need to listen to that. They warped
<v Speaker 2>me forever. I'm afraid.
<v Speaker 1>Were you guys ready to jump in?
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely, let's jump into the history of Alison Chains.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, history of Alison Chains starts March eighteenth, nineteen sixty six,
<v Speaker 1>with the birth of little Jerry Cantrell. A little over
<v Speaker 1>a year and a half later, we have the birth
<v Speaker 1>of Lane Stay on August twenty second, nineteen sixty seven,
<v Speaker 1>and then just almost exactly two years later, there's a
<v Speaker 1>book that comes out by Doctor Seuss called My Book
<v Speaker 1>About Me and Jerry Cantrell Little Kid, Lane Staley Little
<v Speaker 1>Kid both had a copy of this book. And when
<v Speaker 1>it got to the part of what I want to
<v Speaker 1>be when I grow up, Blane Stay put I want
<v Speaker 1>to be a singer, and Jerry Cantrell put, I want
<v Speaker 1>to be a rock star. So as early as the
<v Speaker 1>late sixties early seventies, these guys had predicted their future.
<v Speaker 1>That's really cool.
<v Speaker 3>Did you guys have awesome lawyers written down in your
<v Speaker 3>Dutchess book.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm pretty sure rock star was in my book too.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, archaeologist or superhero.
<v Speaker 1>Badly, I want to be a stunt man, I definitely
<v Speaker 1>had that book. Though my kids have that book. I
<v Speaker 1>think it's required reading for everyone that exists. Yep. All right,
<v Speaker 1>so we fast forward a little bit to nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 1>six and the birth of a band called Sleeves. So
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty six, some high school friends Byron Hanson,
<v Speaker 1>Johnny Bicholes, Zoli Samante, and James Bergstrom put together a
<v Speaker 1>band and they needed a singer, and a friend of
<v Speaker 1>theirs named Ken Elmer says, Hey, my stepbrother really wants
<v Speaker 1>to be a singer. You should listen to him and like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>what's his name? And he says Lane Elmer because at
<v Speaker 1>that point he was not using his own last names,
<v Speaker 1>using his stepdad's last name. Well, there's a little bit
<v Speaker 1>of argument about whether Laine actually wanted to be a
<v Speaker 1>singer or not. He was a drummer. But he went
<v Speaker 1>and did the audition for this new band that they
<v Speaker 1>were going to name Sleeves. And do you know what
<v Speaker 1>song he sang?
<v Speaker 3>He sang looks that Killed by Motley Crue.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. Also I saw that he also sang, now she's
<v Speaker 1>a cool, cool black.
<v Speaker 2>There you go. There's some rumors that you may have
<v Speaker 2>also sang the song love Machine by Wasp.
<v Speaker 1>I heard that as well.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, just being a family oriented show, I'm not going
<v Speaker 2>to translate.
<v Speaker 1>Well, whatever Motley Crue or Wasp song that he sang.
<v Speaker 1>They realized, this guy has got the soul and the
<v Speaker 1>timber and the voice that is going to make our band.
<v Speaker 1>He said, we didn't know what we were looking for,
<v Speaker 1>but when we saw him, we said, that's it. Yep, yep.
<v Speaker 3>So interestingly, Lane Staley, you mentioned Lane Elmer, which is
<v Speaker 3>so funny because his name Lane Staley. That's his mother's
<v Speaker 3>maiden name, and of course his father's surname, and so
<v Speaker 3>Lane Staley is his parents' last names. I think that's
<v Speaker 3>really cool. And then in high school he goes by
<v Speaker 3>Lane Elmer. Right when his mother went back to his
<v Speaker 3>twentieth high school reunion, of course Lane was dead. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>she went back and people were like, wait a minute,
<v Speaker 3>wait a minute, wait a minute, are you telling me
<v Speaker 3>that Lane Elmer is the same guy as Lane Staley.
<v Speaker 1>They didn't even know. They had no friggin clue. That's crazy,
<v Speaker 1>that is crazy. And to just bring Motley Crue back
<v Speaker 1>into the mix again. His name, his birth name was
<v Speaker 1>Lane Rutherford Staley. He had it legally changed to Lane
<v Speaker 1>Thomas Staley. And do you know where the Thomas comes from? No,
<v Speaker 1>Tommy Lee. He changed his name to Thomas because remember
<v Speaker 1>he was a drummer before he was a singer. He
<v Speaker 1>loved Tommy Lee, he loved Motley Crue. He gave himself
<v Speaker 1>the middle name Thomas because of Tommy Lee. Wow, that's fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>So Sleez ultimately changes its name. I got the impression
<v Speaker 1>that they might have signed. And here's where I got
<v Speaker 1>this impression. This is good. You guys are going to
<v Speaker 1>appreciate this. There was a protest going on for the PMRC.
<v Speaker 1>You guys know the PMRC, right, Yes, we've talked about
<v Speaker 1>it multiple times, right, Yes, So they were having some
<v Speaker 1>sort of town meeting there somewhere in Washington, and Frank
<v Speaker 1>Zappa was the guest speaker, and Lane Staley is in
<v Speaker 1>the audience with Backliss, and at some point he stands
<v Speaker 1>up and starts ex berating the PMRC. And of course
<v Speaker 1>he also plugs his band. Yes exact. A few times.
<v Speaker 4>I played for a rock band called Sleeves, and I mean,
<v Speaker 4>there's enough controversy on our on our name more or
<v Speaker 4>less than our songs. You know, we just signed a
<v Speaker 4>local with a local record company. I don't feel there's
<v Speaker 4>anything objectionable about any of our songs, But I don't
<v Speaker 4>feel anyone anyone else has the right to rate our songs.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, I'm the only one that has the right
<v Speaker 4>to rate it. You know, my album, you don't have it.
<v Speaker 3>When I watched that interview, I'm like, this looks like
<v Speaker 3>a seventeen year old kid who's just popping off about
<v Speaker 3>something dumb, and that probably his thirty year old self
<v Speaker 3>would be like that kid needs a shut up. But
<v Speaker 3>it was funny to see though. Absolutely, you know that
<v Speaker 3>Sleeves was really kind of a hair band.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, it was glam metal. Yeah, it was glam metal.
<v Speaker 1>And they had as I said they had. He gave
<v Speaker 1>the impression that they had gotten signed with somebody, although
<v Speaker 1>I didn't really see that to be true. Somewhere, but
<v Speaker 1>they were doing it tour and they had some success.
<v Speaker 1>Bacalus was having a conversation with a guy named Russ Klatt,
<v Speaker 1>who was the singer for Slaughterhouse five. Butter House five.
<v Speaker 1>They're talking about Sleeves and Welcome to the Wonderland tour
<v Speaker 1>and just that word wonderland and they're whatever they were
<v Speaker 1>drinking or smoking at the time. Somehow that transitioned to
<v Speaker 1>Alice in Wonderland and Alice in Chains, and it.
<v Speaker 3>Was Alice in bondage first and then it became Alice
<v Speaker 3>in Chains.
<v Speaker 1>So Laane Staley's mother was very religious Christian science yep,
<v Speaker 1>very religious, and so he was like, Okay, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 1>name this band Alice Change. She's like, that's female bondage.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, if you're on Wikipedia and you see
<v Speaker 1>female bondage in blue, don't click the link. Okay, puick
<v Speaker 1>the link. I'm just giving you that advice, right, yes,
<v Speaker 1>right there, there you go. All right. Anyway, his mom
<v Speaker 1>was like, I don't really approve that. She she said,
<v Speaker 1>sleez was bad enough, but this sounds like female bondage
<v Speaker 1>and you shouldn't do it. But over her objection, he
<v Speaker 1>called it Alice and Change. But he changed the end
<v Speaker 1>to the letter in like guns in roses. Although it
<v Speaker 1>was not a copy of them. They weren't even popular
<v Speaker 1>yet at that point. Well, hey, one more thing on sleeves.
<v Speaker 3>Real quick sleeves was actually in a movie. There's a
<v Speaker 3>movie called Father Rock shot in Seattle, okakay now and
<v Speaker 3>they played a couple of their songs.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Lane even had a speaking part in this movie,
<v Speaker 1>Shut the heck up. Yes, wow, Father Rock. I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't see it. I haven't seen it. But is
<v Speaker 1>this like a Maine for TV movie?
<v Speaker 5>You know, you know, I don't know, really, Wayne and
<v Speaker 5>Garth's doing like the advertisements in all this public access
<v Speaker 5>movie Steven Spielberg produced, Sleez.
<v Speaker 2>I love the name slaves compared to some of the
<v Speaker 2>names that came later. That's that almost pure in nocense.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yes, that's true. That is true. Some of the
<v Speaker 1>other names that came later, we had Mathra and then
<v Speaker 1>the F word, the F word, and it wasn't the
<v Speaker 1>F word, it was the F word.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, they said they even had a great merchandise like
<v Speaker 2>F word the band and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 1>But I don't think I don't think that'll fly Wmar No.
<v Speaker 2>No.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's interesting that initially Allison Chains really took
<v Speaker 3>their cues from like Poison almost right. Their stage presence
<v Speaker 3>was you know, flash and glam. They did stuff like
<v Speaker 3>confetti and water guns.
<v Speaker 1>Lane Staley talks about two of his idols. Two idols
<v Speaker 1>that he had David Bowie and Prince yep. Like I
<v Speaker 1>just was like, what this is the this is the
<v Speaker 1>guy that looks like the devil child in these videos.
<v Speaker 1>And his influences were Ziggy, Stardust and the Purple One.
<v Speaker 1>How about that. That's crazy, Let's go crazy.
<v Speaker 2>He had some female acquaintance at one time who actually
<v Speaker 2>came across one of Prince's old suits. Yeah, Lane evidently
<v Speaker 2>would wear it.
<v Speaker 1>He wore on stage. Oh my gosh, hey, listen to this.
<v Speaker 1>I thought this was hilarious.
<v Speaker 3>So I guess Rob Halford from Jews Priest would ride
<v Speaker 3>his motorcycle on like the big stage, big concert for juice.
<v Speaker 1>I'll bit for leather. There you go.
<v Speaker 3>And so during early Allison Chains concerts, Lane rode a
<v Speaker 3>big wheel.
<v Speaker 1>Like you pulled out on stage. You know. That is awesome.
<v Speaker 1>That is awesome.
<v Speaker 3>He was actually a very upbeat, sort of positive, fun
<v Speaker 3>guy to be around.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, even when you read interviews with people who knew
<v Speaker 2>him later on at the height of his problem, they
<v Speaker 2>said that his personality never really changed. He was always
<v Speaker 2>a sweet, con generous guy. It's just that those demons.
<v Speaker 1>Man, Dude, he.
<v Speaker 3>Was in a fight with the dragon Hey, you mentioned Prince.
<v Speaker 3>When they were rehearsing in the early early days, right,
<v Speaker 3>they had this rehearsal space. They had a VCR and
<v Speaker 3>two movies. One movie was The Terminator. I can check
<v Speaker 3>out our podcast as the Terminator, and the other one
<v Speaker 3>was Peple Rain fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Was this in the music bank? Yes?
<v Speaker 2>Nice? Nice told the keys would just sit in the
<v Speaker 2>office and watch them over and over and over again.
<v Speaker 1>Said there's Lane again, always watching Pearple Rain.
<v Speaker 2>Lane.
<v Speaker 1>Later on will meet a guy named Jerry Cantrell. So
<v Speaker 1>before we get there, I got to give you a
<v Speaker 1>little history on Jerry Cantrell. First memory three years old,
<v Speaker 1>meeting his father when he returned from Vietnam. Four years later,
<v Speaker 1>his parents would get divorced because of the troubles that
<v Speaker 1>his dad had from returning from Vietnam. They ended up
<v Speaker 1>on welfare and food stamps. But he found some musical
<v Speaker 1>success in high school. He was the president of his
<v Speaker 1>high school choir. That he had gotten a guitar when
<v Speaker 1>he was in the sixth grade, but he really didn't
<v Speaker 1>appreciate it and pick it up and start doing anything
<v Speaker 1>until he got into high school. And so his success,
<v Speaker 1>I mean his choir that he was the president of.
<v Speaker 1>They were They sang the national anthem at shows and
<v Speaker 1>were competition winners. And so his drama and his choir
<v Speaker 1>teachers encouraged his career in music. As a gift when
<v Speaker 1>he got his first gold record, he sent them each
<v Speaker 1>copy of the gold record. That's fantastic now. That was
<v Speaker 1>several years later. Right after they encouraged him to go
<v Speaker 1>into a career in music, he quit college and went
<v Speaker 1>to go work in a guitar store down in Dallas, Texas.
<v Speaker 1>He had grown up as a kid on welfare and
<v Speaker 1>food stamps, so he wasn't afraid to be poor. But
<v Speaker 1>what the beautiful thing about what happened in Dallas was
<v Speaker 1>is that working in this store, he got his first
<v Speaker 1>what we call real guitar. It wasn't some Japanese knockoff,
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't some cheap Korean model. This was a G
<v Speaker 1>and L Rampage nineteen eighty four. And I can tell
<v Speaker 1>you that having a real guitar is a key to
<v Speaker 1>becoming a real musician. He had a couple of bands
<v Speaker 1>over there in Dallas. One was called Rays, the other
<v Speaker 1>one was called Sinister. But ultimately he ended up back
<v Speaker 1>in Washington with the band Diamond Live.
<v Speaker 2>I do remember reading that the reason he originally wanted
<v Speaker 2>to play guitar was listening to a couple of early
<v Speaker 2>Elton John albums, and interestingly enough, the first concert Lane
<v Speaker 2>Staley iver remembered going to was when Elton John. His
<v Speaker 2>stepdad took him to see Elton John, and he was very.
<v Speaker 1>Young around this time, huge tragedy in Jerry Cantrell's life.
<v Speaker 1>His mother and grandmother both pass away within six months
<v Speaker 1>of each other nineteen eighty six nineteen eighty seven, both
<v Speaker 1>from cancer. He falls into a significant depression. Three weeks
<v Speaker 1>after his mother's death, he meets Lane Staley. Now he
<v Speaker 1>had seen Lane Staley perform earlier with the glam metal
<v Speaker 1>version of Alison Chains.
<v Speaker 3>I've got May First in nineteen eighty seven. Okay, we're
<v Speaker 3>talking about the summer of eighty seven.
<v Speaker 1>Well it might be April.
<v Speaker 2>What do you got?
<v Speaker 1>I got April eleventh? No, No, May first? Okay, go ahead, we'll.
<v Speaker 3>Go with yours somewhere between in April eleventh and May first.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yes, so. Then five to four months later, Diamond
<v Speaker 1>LII played their last show. Jerry has met Lane at
<v Speaker 1>a party and they're both a little drunk, and Jerry
<v Speaker 1>somehow mentions that he's homeless, and so Lane says, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>why don't you come stay with me? I am staying
<v Speaker 1>at this rehearsal studio called the Music Bank.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, when Jerry saw Lane perform one thousand Chains,
<v Speaker 3>he said, I want to be in a band with
<v Speaker 3>that guy right there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, then, not too long after they've become roommates,
<v Speaker 1>the a n C breaks up, Alice in Chains breaks up,
<v Speaker 1>and so Jerry is trying to put together a new
<v Speaker 1>band because his band's broken up, and Lane is trying
<v Speaker 1>to put together a funk band and they reach disagreement.
<v Speaker 1>They're like, hey, you know, I'll sing in your band
<v Speaker 1>if you play guitar in my band, and that was
<v Speaker 1>their agreement. So Jerry Cantrell's trying to put together this band.
<v Speaker 1>Layne Staley is like, well, I played with this guy
<v Speaker 1>named Sean Kinney. He's really good. You might could use
<v Speaker 1>him as a drummer. And Jerry Cantrell is like, great,
<v Speaker 1>do you have his number? And he says no, but
<v Speaker 1>I have his girlfriend's number. He's like, okay, who's his girlfriend? Melinda? Okay, great,
<v Speaker 1>calls Melinda she says, yeah, sure, he'll come meet with you.
<v Speaker 1>So he comes plays drums for Jerry and Jerry's like,
<v Speaker 1>you're great. I think I've got a great guy to
<v Speaker 1>play bass for us. I used to play with him
<v Speaker 1>in a band called Gypsy Rose. His name's Mike Starr,
<v Speaker 1>and Sean goes, well, that's really interesting because that's Melinda's brother. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Melinda Starr, that's awesome.
<v Speaker 2>And Melinda would have a key role to play later
<v Speaker 2>on as well.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, And so they rehearsed together. They were playing well,
<v Speaker 1>but it was becoming a problem that there were two
<v Speaker 1>bands going on, and so at some point they just
<v Speaker 1>decided they were going to basically trick Lane into becoming
<v Speaker 1>only a singer for this. And they're like, okay, Lane,
<v Speaker 1>you know you got your band and that's fine. We
<v Speaker 1>just we can't have a guy with two bands, so
<v Speaker 1>we're going to get another singer. And he's like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>all right. And so they would audition the guys in
<v Speaker 1>front of Lane, and they picked the worst singers that
<v Speaker 1>they could find. Singer horrible singer after horrible singer, and
<v Speaker 1>Lane's just going crazy until finally they top it off.
<v Speaker 1>They throw the straw in that breaks the camel's back,
<v Speaker 1>and they have a male stripper audition as singer for
<v Speaker 1>the band, and finally Lane's like, forget it, forget it.
<v Speaker 1>I will be your singer. I will get rid of
<v Speaker 1>my funk band, and I will only sing for you guys.
<v Speaker 1>I kind of want to see the Lane's Daily Prince band. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you know, funk band.
<v Speaker 2>Heck yeah. Ron Holt the guy who started up that band.
<v Speaker 2>It's called like forty Seconds Hate or something like that.
<v Speaker 2>A few years back he actually tried to sell a
<v Speaker 2>cassette he had online of some of their rehearsals. I
<v Speaker 2>think some early demos he recorded with Lane. I think
<v Speaker 2>the last it was up to about five thousand. I think, wow,
<v Speaker 2>so maybe maybe your Prince cover is on there somewhere.
<v Speaker 1>Hey, let's go.
<v Speaker 3>Whoever bought that, if you're listening, put it out there
<v Speaker 3>on YouTube for us.
<v Speaker 2>Sean had actually, I think met Lane several years previously.
<v Speaker 2>The band had played a beach party sleeve Sead. I
<v Speaker 2>think Sean cornered Lane after the concert and say, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>your band's great, but your drummer sucks. You need me.
<v Speaker 2>That's when the game is number Girlfriend's number.
<v Speaker 1>Keavin Melnda's number. I'm I'm in between bones right now,
<v Speaker 1>here's my girlfriend's phone number.
<v Speaker 3>So Lane committed full time to the band Diamond Lie.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they had entertained the name Mathra and the F
<v Speaker 1>word as we had discussed. Then they became Diamond Lie,
<v Speaker 1>which was Jerry's old band's name. But ultimately they all
<v Speaker 1>decided they liked Alice in Change better. But they changed
<v Speaker 1>the end to I D because they liked the idea
<v Speaker 1>of female bondage. They would click the link. Okay, so
<v Speaker 1>there're at the Music Bank and they just I mean
<v Speaker 1>they're living in a rehearsal space. As a musician, I
<v Speaker 1>can not imagine how awesome it would be to have
<v Speaker 1>a place where you live with your bandmates and all
<v Speaker 1>you do all day long is play music and try
<v Speaker 1>to come up with new stuff together, you know, when
<v Speaker 1>you're not watching Purple Ring exactly, or the Terminator. They
<v Speaker 1>had this guy who was a local promoter named Randy Hauser,
<v Speaker 1>and he was like, you guys are great. I will
<v Speaker 1>fund a demo tape for you. Do the demo recording.
<v Speaker 1>We're going to do it at the Music Bank. Problem
<v Speaker 1>is is that the day before they were supposed to record,
<v Speaker 1>Washington does its biggest marijuana bust in state history, and
<v Speaker 1>of course there's some drugs over at the music Bank
<v Speaker 1>shocker what yep? And they close it down.
<v Speaker 2>Evidently whoever had least the building somebody else at least
<v Speaker 2>a different part of it. It built up a wall,
<v Speaker 2>partitioned it off, and had quite the weed operation.
<v Speaker 3>Go okay, wait, let's back up, because there's a story,
<v Speaker 3>a big story right before that.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, okay, Yeah, Randy Hauser was in jail for dealing
<v Speaker 1>cocaine as well.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right, this is not the first time we're
<v Speaker 3>going to talk about drugs in this episode, trust me.
<v Speaker 1>So he was. He was in jail for dealing cocaine.
<v Speaker 3>He gets out, gets his life back together, he goes
<v Speaker 3>to beauty school.
<v Speaker 1>Beauty school drip.
<v Speaker 3>So, So he went to beauty school, and there he
<v Speaker 3>met Melinda Starr. She knew that he was this sort
<v Speaker 3>of local promoter and he was looking to kind of
<v Speaker 3>do this. She gave him a cassette and asked him
<v Speaker 3>to listen to it. Keep in mind, her boyfriend at
<v Speaker 3>the time was Sean Kenney. Okay, he takes that cassette home,
<v Speaker 3>tosses it in a box full of other demos from
<v Speaker 3>a million different groups that he never listens to.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Now, then flash forward about a month from then. Nick Loft,
<v Speaker 3>who is an A and R guy from Atlantic, was
<v Speaker 3>staying at Randy Hauser's house. Okay, don't know the story there,
<v Speaker 3>don't really care, but he's going through this box of tapes,
<v Speaker 3>just kind of looking for something. And when he pops
<v Speaker 3>in that tape that Melinda Starr had given him, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>he's like, who are these guys? And these guys got
<v Speaker 3>something and the tape was not labeled, and so Randy's
<v Speaker 3>looking at the tape like, Okay, I have no freaking
<v Speaker 3>idea where I got this tape, but he knows he's
<v Speaker 3>got something, right, right, He's got something here, uh huh,
<v Speaker 3>And so he can't.
<v Speaker 1>For the life of him, remember where he got this tape, okay.
<v Speaker 3>And so he's at the beauty school racking his brain,
<v Speaker 3>racking his brain, his brain, and Melinda goes.
<v Speaker 1>Did you listen to that tape I gave you? And
<v Speaker 1>it all clicks nice. Just when he finds the band
<v Speaker 1>that is going to he's going to be able to
<v Speaker 1>break the music bank, gets busted for drugs. Well, and
<v Speaker 1>that's when Susan Silver steps in. Kelly Curtis was managing
<v Speaker 1>Mother Love Bone and Susan Silver was managing soundguard. Soundguard
<v Speaker 1>married Chris Cornell. That's right. Yeah. They ultimately got a
<v Speaker 1>copy of the demo that they ended up doing, called
<v Speaker 1>The Treehouse Tapes. So Randy Houser misses out, so Susan.
<v Speaker 3>Silver steps in and says, this guy's a drug dealer.
<v Speaker 3>He's going to get you guys in trouble. I think
<v Speaker 3>I should do this. Yeah, And so they're like, we
<v Speaker 3>agree with you. He's out right, and so she passes
<v Speaker 3>us on to Colombia. Colombia signed them after some negotiations,
<v Speaker 3>signed them on September eleventh, nineteen eighty nine, exactly two
<v Speaker 3>years to the day later, their debut album, Facelift, goes gold.
<v Speaker 3>So before they're signed, Alis in Chains plays their first
<v Speaker 3>show July twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight. The same summer,
<v Speaker 3>Lane meets a woman named Demri Perot.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, okay, she's working on Saturdays. She is cute
<v Speaker 1>as a button.
<v Speaker 3>She looks like she just came right out of the
<v Speaker 3>sitcom Friends, very very pretty girl. Got it all together.
<v Speaker 3>She's going to play a part in this story.
<v Speaker 1>Yes she is.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, Now listen to this. June one, nineteen eighty eight,
<v Speaker 3>Jerry Cantrell attends a Guns N' Roses and Iron Maiden
<v Speaker 3>concert in Seattle.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 3>He manages to get backstage. He hands a demo tape
<v Speaker 3>to Axel Rose. He then watches Axl Rose walk about
<v Speaker 3>ten feet away.
<v Speaker 1>And throw that demo tape directly in the trash can.
<v Speaker 1>So I called you the other night. We're going to
<v Speaker 1>I'm in a total sidebar here, total sidebar, yep. So
<v Speaker 1>I called you the other night because I had come
<v Speaker 1>across this thing and I really have no idea where
<v Speaker 1>to put this, so I'm just gonna put it now. Right. So,
<v Speaker 1>when they were supposed to record Facelift, Sean Kenny had
<v Speaker 1>broken his hand. Yes, and he's the drummer, so his
<v Speaker 1>hand's kind of important. He's broken his hand, and so
<v Speaker 1>they get a guy named Greg Gilmour to come in
<v Speaker 1>to replace him for the recording of the drums for
<v Speaker 1>this album. Sean Kenny's going to miss out on recording
<v Speaker 1>drums on their very first album, right, So this guy
<v Speaker 1>named Greg Gilmore. He was the drummer for Mother Lovebam,
<v Speaker 1>the bands that we're talking about today. Have Lot both
<v Speaker 1>have lost their singers to heroin. Scott Wiland, Lane Stay
<v Speaker 1>both gone because of heroin. Heroin was involved in Kurt
<v Speaker 1>Cobain's death, and Jason pointed out, He's like, wow, Pearl
<v Speaker 1>Jam has made it through all of this and didn't
<v Speaker 1>have a heroin death. And I'm like, nope, because Pearl
<v Speaker 1>Jam started off as Mother love Bone and Andy Wood
<v Speaker 1>died of a heroin overdose. Heroin has taken almost every
<v Speaker 1>lead singer of these major bands that we have of
<v Speaker 1>the day of that time, we threw in Sublime and
<v Speaker 1>Blind Mellon a ton of them. But anyway, back up,
<v Speaker 1>Greg Gilmour also was the drummer for a punk band,
<v Speaker 1>punk band out of Seattle, and the punk band out
<v Speaker 1>of Seattle had a bass player who went down to
<v Speaker 1>LA after that band broke up and joined a band
<v Speaker 1>called Guns n' Roses and Duff McKagan. We talked about
<v Speaker 1>this in our Appetite for Destruction Guns and Roses, we
<v Speaker 1>probably did. He went down there joined this band and
<v Speaker 1>they were just starting out, but he had a band
<v Speaker 1>that had broken up and said, hey, hey, we've got
<v Speaker 1>some dates that we have set with my old band.
<v Speaker 1>We can go up to Seattle and play those shows
<v Speaker 1>as Guns and Roses, and they all talk about how
<v Speaker 1>this bus ride up there where like the van breaks
<v Speaker 1>down and everybody gets angry at each other, and nobody
<v Speaker 1>shows up to the shows because they haven't done any
<v Speaker 1>self promoting. That made them jell as a band. It
<v Speaker 1>was that thing that caused them to jell as a band.
<v Speaker 1>Greg Gilmour was the drummer for the band whose sets
<v Speaker 1>Guns n' Roses took over Wow. But when he came
<v Speaker 1>in to play for Alison Chains, Sean Kenny is trying
<v Speaker 1>to show him how to do the drums with one hand,
<v Speaker 1>and eventually they just said, uh, never mind, we'll just
<v Speaker 1>come back in a month or two when Sean hand
<v Speaker 1>works again. That's great.
<v Speaker 2>I remember an interview with Sean. He said he kept
<v Speaker 2>out when he finally started playing, he kept the ice
<v Speaker 2>bucket right beside the drum set so between the song
<v Speaker 2>or said he had to shove that hand in, and
<v Speaker 2>evidently the problem was I don't know if y'all ever
<v Speaker 2>seen Sean. Kenny's a real tall, kind of big guy.
<v Speaker 2>He's a hard hitter, and evidently Gilmour just could not
<v Speaker 2>reach his levels myself to subscribe to the Sean Kinney
<v Speaker 2>school of playing. But that's another story.
<v Speaker 1>He said.
<v Speaker 3>He kept standing there off stage going hit it harder, No, no,
<v Speaker 3>no harder. So you mentioned that they signed in September
<v Speaker 3>of eighty nine. Yes, that summer of nineteen eighty nine
<v Speaker 3>they opened for Get This Bullet Boys, Tesla, Great.
<v Speaker 1>White Wow, cutting their teeth with the eighties hairbands a
<v Speaker 1>little bit. Well, I don't know. I call it Tesla hairband,
<v Speaker 1>but yes, that's right. Sorry, don't hit me for saying that.
<v Speaker 2>This is evidently a time where Jerry Cantrell has approached
<v Speaker 2>from writing music began to change. They'd all come up
<v Speaker 2>in the glam heavy metal scene, but Jerry was evidently
<v Speaker 2>very inquisitive. He would talk to other musicians like punk bands,
<v Speaker 2>try to find out about their influences. He allegedly talked
<v Speaker 2>to Kim Thale, the guitar player for Soundgarden, about some
<v Speaker 2>of the songs he played off their Louder Than Love album,
<v Speaker 2>and Kim says that he showed Jerry the drop D tuning.
<v Speaker 2>Jerry disputes. Jerry later said he earned it from Van
<v Speaker 2>Halen's unchained, but Kim was doing some really creative riffs
<v Speaker 2>at the time. So I can see Jerry being intrigued
<v Speaker 2>by that. The guys who were with him in Diamond
<v Speaker 2>Law said that after his mom and his aunt died
<v Speaker 2>that his songwriting also changed. It was less about girls
<v Speaker 2>and partying and more about personal issues.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I'm going to just keep the digression going because
<v Speaker 1>you mentioned Van Halen, okay, And so I saw an
<v Speaker 1>interview just a couple of days ago with Sammy Hagar
<v Speaker 1>and he was talking about Alison Chains and he was
<v Speaker 1>talking about how it was obvious to him that they
<v Speaker 1>were a part of the hair band glam metal scene
<v Speaker 1>that everybody was turning off. And then Alison Chains was
<v Speaker 1>the new up and coming band and so as opposed
<v Speaker 1>to fighting them, he decided to join them. And he
<v Speaker 1>called them up and said, why don't you guys open
<v Speaker 1>up for our show? And so Alison Chains opened up
<v Speaker 1>for Van Halen and they were fantastic friends. And I've
<v Speaker 1>also seen a picture where Van Halen is doing their
<v Speaker 1>typical you know, where they marched behind each other doing
<v Speaker 1>the little shuffle back and forth. Well, Alison Chain snuck
<v Speaker 1>up behind them, dressed in nothing but g strings to
<v Speaker 1>do the Little Dance with Them's hilarious. Yeah. Jerry Cantrell
<v Speaker 1>said that during that time he became very good friends
<v Speaker 1>with Eddie van Halen, all very down to earth guys,
<v Speaker 1>and he said, hey, you know it was when they
<v Speaker 1>had that music Man guitar. It was that time period
<v Speaker 1>for Eddie. He says, I really love that guitar. Would
<v Speaker 1>you ever let me buy one from you? And Eddie's like,
<v Speaker 1>buy one? Are you kidding me? He goes, this is
<v Speaker 1>the problem with the world. He goes, when you really
<v Speaker 1>need a guitar and nobody will give you one, and
<v Speaker 1>when you don't need it, everybody gives you all of them.
<v Speaker 1>And he says, I'll send one to you. And so
<v Speaker 1>Jerry had been staying. I believe it was at Chris
<v Speaker 1>Cornell's house. No, it was his manager, his manager at
<v Speaker 1>the time. When he gets home, the manager's like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>welcome back. Can you get all your crap out of
<v Speaker 1>my garage? And he goes down and his garage is
<v Speaker 1>full of guitars and amps, including a gold top music
<v Speaker 1>Man guitar, which I mean it's beautiful and amazing in
<v Speaker 1>all sorts of ways. Sad part is just a couple
<v Speaker 1>of years later, somehow it got stolen on one of
<v Speaker 1>their tours and he did not have it until the
<v Speaker 1>Internet and people being able to search things, and so
<v Speaker 1>twenty eighteen, somebody figured out what guitar had been sent
<v Speaker 1>to him by Eddie van Haalen, tracked it down in Florida,
<v Speaker 1>got it back and got it to him. He's now
<v Speaker 1>got it back again. Wow, that's cool.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So after they've signed, it's now time to make
<v Speaker 3>a record. Dave Jorden was one of the many producers
<v Speaker 3>who is possible for this Allison Chains record. Nobody wanted
<v Speaker 3>to do Alison Chains because Guns and Roses was super
<v Speaker 3>hot at the moment, and the high vocals of Axel
<v Speaker 3>is what everybody kind of gravitated towards. Well, Dave was
<v Speaker 3>attracted to the low vocals of Lane. He thought, man,
<v Speaker 3>this is really cool. This sounds like Black Sabbath. This
<v Speaker 3>is what I grew up on, and so he wanted
<v Speaker 3>to do their record. So they were playing in La
<v Speaker 3>and he goes to check him out. Okay, so I
<v Speaker 3>thought this was really funny. When he goes to check
<v Speaker 3>them out, there were four people in the audience. Four Dave,
<v Speaker 3>Dave's manager, a guy on acid, dancing on the floor
<v Speaker 3>like going crazy and.
<v Speaker 1>Rick Rubin what.
<v Speaker 3>R DJ double r our man deaf Dave just had
<v Speaker 3>a baby right there when I said that. But yeah,
<v Speaker 3>the guy who produced Run DMC and Slayer. He was
<v Speaker 3>there as a possible producer as well. After a few songs,
<v Speaker 3>He's like, Nope, these guys aren't for me.
<v Speaker 1>I'm out. Down to three people in the room. Rick
<v Speaker 1>Rubin passed on Alison Chane. Yes he did, Yes, he did.
<v Speaker 1>That is tragic, And at that time he decided instead
<v Speaker 1>to go to Wolf the Wolf Spain. Yeah Spain, you know,
<v Speaker 1>world famous, Yeah, Wolf Spain, all right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, famous for their singer filling in for Bruce Dickinson
<v Speaker 2>for a while, an iron mate. That's so.
<v Speaker 1>Jordan ended up as the producer and their first album
<v Speaker 1>is Facelift. It comes out with a smashing single Man
<v Speaker 1>in the Box, and all of a sudden, everyone in
<v Speaker 1>the country knows who Alison chains is.
<v Speaker 2>They I think with We Die Young as a single
<v Speaker 2>and it didn't quite catch on. I think in the
<v Speaker 2>first few months they sold maybe forty thousand copies, but
<v Speaker 2>when they released Man in the Box, within six weeks
<v Speaker 2>I think they'd sold four hundred thousand copies.
<v Speaker 3>So I've got a couple of things I want to
<v Speaker 3>talk about Man in Box real quick. Dave Jorden was
<v Speaker 3>driving to the studio one day thinking about the recording
<v Speaker 3>that day.
<v Speaker 1>For Austin Chance.
<v Speaker 3>What comes on the radio Living on a Prayer by
<v Speaker 3>bon Jovi. As he's listening, he's like, you know what,
<v Speaker 3>Man in the Box needs a voicebox.
<v Speaker 1>You're telling me that the voice box in Man in
<v Speaker 1>a Box came from Living in a Prayer by by Joby. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god.
<v Speaker 3>It's one of the two pieces of equipment they bought
<v Speaker 3>for this album. They bought like a five hundred dollars
<v Speaker 3>based guitar and a one hundred dollars voice box.
<v Speaker 1>And that's the reason why. Wow wow wow wow wow
<v Speaker 1>wow wow wow wow. That's it.
<v Speaker 2>Dave Jorden's had he had some credibility coming into this.
<v Speaker 2>He had already done James Addictions Nothing shocking back in
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty eight. Yep. But he was one of my
<v Speaker 2>favorite albums. He did the first Social Distortion album. He
<v Speaker 2>done some stuff for Anthrax, so they got he clearly
<v Speaker 2>knew his way around the guitar based band.
<v Speaker 3>The other Man in the Box story. I want to
<v Speaker 3>tell real quick. The CEO of MTV, they brought in
<v Speaker 3>a new guy and he wanted to change what they
<v Speaker 3>were doing at the time. So there was a conscious
<v Speaker 3>shift to move away from hair metal and move to
<v Speaker 3>something different. So one day they had two videos that
<v Speaker 3>they were deciding whether or not to get into heavy rotation.
<v Speaker 1>One of them was by Blue Murder. Remember them, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Blue Murder is Sykes, John Sykes, John Sykes who is
<v Speaker 1>responsible for the White Snake album. Yes, it's his band,
<v Speaker 1>Blue Murder.
<v Speaker 2>Yes.
<v Speaker 3>So they had a Blue Murder video that they wanted
<v Speaker 3>to play or Allison Chain's Man in the Box, and
<v Speaker 3>they chose to move away from hair metal with that selection.
<v Speaker 3>Moved that Allison Chains Man in the Box song to
<v Speaker 3>their what they called the buzz clip of the Week
<v Speaker 3>or buzzband or whatever, and that contributed to their massive
<v Speaker 3>rising popularity.
<v Speaker 1>How about that John Sykes Cannot Catch a Break? John
<v Speaker 1>Sykes Cannot Catch a breakd go fired from White Snake
<v Speaker 1>and shunned by MTV.
<v Speaker 2>I did read an in a cool interview with Jordan
<v Speaker 2>talking about it later. So one of the reasons he
<v Speaker 2>thinks he got the jobs he's talking to Jerry Cantrail
<v Speaker 2>and said he probably I'll at your approach. He said,
<v Speaker 2>what Metallica did by speeding up Tony almeis riffs you're
<v Speaker 2>doing by slowing him down, said Jerry Candrel, say you
<v Speaker 2>got it, man, that's it, And Jordan said, that's how
<v Speaker 2>we got the job.
<v Speaker 1>That's fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I got a couple of things for you. On
<v Speaker 3>Facebook's Really Quick. There's a song on there called real.
<v Speaker 2>Thing that is a very prophetic song.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, well tell me about it.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's most of the songs on that album don't
<v Speaker 2>really seem to be more observational talking about bad things
<v Speaker 2>in life. But I mean that song has lines like
<v Speaker 2>played around as a boy, grew up and made the
<v Speaker 2>blade Manu toy and later early talks, I went to
<v Speaker 2>rehab and the doctors didn't do me no good and
<v Speaker 2>wow yeah, and so even then there was some suggestion,
<v Speaker 2>even though Lane's all his friends say that Lane's drug
<v Speaker 2>use wasn't that bad at this point you really hadn't
<v Speaker 2>touched heroin, there were some hints.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I want to talk about the lyric at the
<v Speaker 3>very end when Lane Gille's sexual Chocolate Baby that is
<v Speaker 3>a clear reference to Coming to America.
<v Speaker 1>Have we done it? Coming to America? That was one
<v Speaker 1>of our first episodes. I gotta check that one out.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, it's a fantastic one.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I got one more facelift story for you. The
<v Speaker 3>guys were recording in La and at night when they
<v Speaker 3>got done recording, you know, hard day at the office,
<v Speaker 3>they would go to Motley Cruz's favorite joint, the Tropicana.
<v Speaker 2>Right discussed in the travel All Girls, Girls Girls.
<v Speaker 1>That's right.
<v Speaker 3>They apparently that Trapicana is where they lost their heart
<v Speaker 3>as well. But they got a calendar that had pictures
<v Speaker 3>of all the Tropicana girls and they would put big
<v Speaker 3>red x'es over each girl that they slept with from
<v Speaker 3>the Trappicana's.
<v Speaker 1>Kind of like an advent calendar.
<v Speaker 2>What are we opening today?
<v Speaker 1>Okay?
<v Speaker 3>One date I've got to bring up is March fifteenth,
<v Speaker 3>nineteen ninety. That is the day that Andrew Wood of
<v Speaker 3>Mother love Bone died of a heroin overdose. Mother Lovebone
<v Speaker 3>was on the cusp of maybe breaking big and all
<v Speaker 3>these guys went through the funeral. Yeah, and they knew
<v Speaker 3>what he died of.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. I mean the sign says warning ahead. Well, there's
<v Speaker 1>a reason they call it a monkey on your back,
<v Speaker 1>some living thing that you can't control and can't get
<v Speaker 1>to you.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>In August of ninety is when Facelift was released and
<v Speaker 1>it was dedicated to Andy Would. It was also dedicated
<v Speaker 1>to Jerry Cantrell's mother, Gloria, whose name comes up in
<v Speaker 1>one of their songs on the album We're going to
<v Speaker 1>cover here in just a little bit yep. But before
<v Speaker 1>we get there, we had a little bit of stuff
<v Speaker 1>that happened in between Facelift and Dirt. And one of
<v Speaker 1>those things is that these guys were in a real movie.
<v Speaker 1>They were in a movie called Singles, and while they
<v Speaker 1>were in there making that movie, Cameron Crow said, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>I need you guys to get a song together for
<v Speaker 1>this soundtrack, and I will of course pay the fee
<v Speaker 1>for you to record it. And so, just like Huey
<v Speaker 1>Lewis had done years before, they came in and they
<v Speaker 1>used their studio time to record that song, along with
<v Speaker 1>about ten other songs, mostly acoustic stuff, did some demos
<v Speaker 1>for Rooster and another couple of songs. But during that
<v Speaker 1>recording process, Sean Kenney comes in and he says, I
<v Speaker 1>had a dream last night that we released an EP
<v Speaker 1>and it was called SAP, and all the guys said, well,
<v Speaker 1>we can't mess with fate. Let's do it. And they
<v Speaker 1>took all of those songs that they had recorded on
<v Speaker 1>the sly while they were just supposed to be recording
<v Speaker 1>Wood for the single soundtrack, and they turned that into
<v Speaker 1>an EP called SAP. And that album is awesome, one
<v Speaker 1>of my favorites.
<v Speaker 2>Well, oh, it's amazing. It was released on my birthday
<v Speaker 2>in nineteen ninety two. I remember that well for some reason, huh,
<v Speaker 2>and it's can we make a brief digression back towards singles? Sure?
<v Speaker 2>That movie, I mean, it was a typical nineties rom
<v Speaker 2>com but with worst wardrobe, even worse hair, but just
<v Speaker 2>an amazing soundtrack. When that was released in that summer
<v Speaker 2>prior to release of Dirt, I picked it up and
<v Speaker 2>hearing Wood and seeing the direction Alison James are taking
<v Speaker 2>their new music, I was so excited. Now I could
<v Speaker 2>not wait for Dirt to come out a few months later.
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, I'm sorry.
<v Speaker 1>No, I think it's important. I mean because the reason
<v Speaker 1>that Allison Chain's is predominant in that movie is because
<v Speaker 1>they were an established band at that time, Soundgarden was
<v Speaker 1>also an established band, so much so that the Matt
<v Speaker 1>Dylan part was supposed to be played by Chris Cornell,
<v Speaker 1>but then they realized Chris Cornell can't act, and so
<v Speaker 1>they gave the part to an actor, and they gave
<v Speaker 1>Chris Cornell this small part where he's watching the car
<v Speaker 1>explode from the speakers, which is a great part. I
<v Speaker 1>love that part. You've got the guys from Pearl Jam
<v Speaker 1>in it before their Pearl Jam, I mean, before they
<v Speaker 1>have done anything. They're in the band as Matt Dylon's band.
<v Speaker 6>And you'll remember, Yes, that's it, Citizen Dick. Yes, and
<v Speaker 6>you'll remember that when we talked about Pearl Jam and
<v Speaker 6>Nirvana at that time, those guys in Seattle, they were
<v Speaker 6>so secluded and it was just that kind of weird
<v Speaker 6>subpop managed to get somebody from a major magazine to
<v Speaker 6>do a story on the Seattle Sound and that's really
<v Speaker 6>what caused that whole group of bands to explode. But
<v Speaker 6>before that they had worked together like they weren't in competition.
<v Speaker 6>They were deepest friends, right. That's why they all went
<v Speaker 6>to Andy Wood's funeral.
<v Speaker 1>That's why they would all ultimately go together to Lane
<v Speaker 1>Staley's Funeral. But all of those guys were involved together,
<v Speaker 1>and because Alison Chains was the band that was most
<v Speaker 1>established at that time, that's the one that's why they
<v Speaker 1>were so predominant in that movie.
<v Speaker 2>That soundtrack was amazing, but we even had early Pearl
<v Speaker 2>Jam material on there that was really fun. But going
<v Speaker 2>back to SAP, I remember listening to that the first time,
<v Speaker 2>and I was so used to all the doomy riffs
<v Speaker 2>off Facewift that it took me out one listen to
<v Speaker 2>it just what they're doing. But then you realized, Wow,
<v Speaker 2>these guys are really talented musicians and they've written some
<v Speaker 2>beautiful songs on this album.
<v Speaker 1>I can remember when I started listening to these guys,
<v Speaker 1>I thought to myself, this guy is a genius. He
<v Speaker 1>is a genius guitar player.
<v Speaker 2>He makes this weird combination of blues, metal and some
<v Speaker 2>kind of psychedelic texture. It just has a sound all
<v Speaker 2>his own. SAP for an EP had pretty good. You
<v Speaker 2>had Ann Wilson from Heart singing back up.
<v Speaker 1>On one so it Blows Me Away Man.
<v Speaker 2>On Brother and Inside, you had Jerry Cantrell making his
<v Speaker 2>first lead vocal appearance on the song I think as
<v Speaker 2>a brother.
<v Speaker 1>Hey, they knew that Alice mud School choir.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah exactly, YEA had Alice Muddgarden, which was Alison Chains
<v Speaker 2>Mark arm from the band mud Honey. So if you
<v Speaker 2>ever looked at him, he looks kind of like a
<v Speaker 2>Borgain basement Tom Cruise and then you've got Chris Cornell
<v Speaker 2>wailing away in the background. Is all he could. It
<v Speaker 2>was just such a fun album and such a surprising album.
<v Speaker 2>And I think it actually sold within two weeks that
<v Speaker 2>had gone gold, sold over five hundred thousand copies, So
<v Speaker 2>that's not a bad fell in.
<v Speaker 3>So fall of ninety one, they're touring with Van Hill.
<v Speaker 3>This is when the big h comes in. Heroin shows
<v Speaker 3>up right here. According to Mike Star's dad, Demery Perrot
<v Speaker 3>introduced it to Lane, and Lane introduced it to Mike Starr,
<v Speaker 3>the manager of Alison Chains got a phone call one
<v Speaker 3>night and it was Lane and he was telling him
<v Speaker 3>how much he loved Heroin. He and Demery could not
<v Speaker 3>talk enough about it. They were just going on and
<v Speaker 3>on about how great it was. He's like, as soon
<v Speaker 3>as I heard that they were fighting a losing battle.
<v Speaker 3>According to one friend, Lane got down on his knee
<v Speaker 3>and thanks God for feeling so good.
<v Speaker 1>And from there it just never stopped.
<v Speaker 3>At this time, Mike Starr started like scalping Van Halen
<v Speaker 3>tickets in front of his own concert to raise drug money.
<v Speaker 2>It said. His guest list started growing longer and longer
<v Speaker 2>for each show because he was adding people who I
<v Speaker 2>guess bought tickets off of him.
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy.
<v Speaker 3>Right when the money started coming in from their first
<v Speaker 3>album and from these EPs, I thought this was interesting.
<v Speaker 3>They were pretty conservative with their money. Jerry Cantrell, going
<v Speaker 3>with his Oklahoma roots, bought a Dodge pickup limited.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 3>So right before Dirt comes out, there is an intervention
<v Speaker 3>conducted on behalf of Lank. His family meets with him,
<v Speaker 3>his band meets with him, even though his band is
<v Speaker 3>doing drugs as well, right and they say, look, dude,
<v Speaker 3>you got to get this problem taken care of. And
<v Speaker 3>so Lane says, okay, I will get this problem taken
<v Speaker 3>care of.
<v Speaker 1>And that's when he went to rehab the first time,
<v Speaker 1>the first time, and then he didn't never have to
<v Speaker 1>go again, and everything's okay.
<v Speaker 3>Lane went or thirteen times in his life and it
<v Speaker 3>never ever tuck well apparently was the greatest thing in
<v Speaker 3>his life.
<v Speaker 1>It really was. As a matter of fact, it was
<v Speaker 1>so good it was worth dying for. Yep, all right,
<v Speaker 1>we are ready to jump into dirt track by track
<v Speaker 1>next week.
<v Speaker 2>James, thanks for being everybody always have last to hang
<v Speaker 2>out with my Oklah homies.
<v Speaker 1>You're coming back so we can do track by track together.
<v Speaker 2>This is an album. Sometimes it's a tough listen, but
<v Speaker 2>it's one I listened to over and over a year
<v Speaker 2>after year, so I can't wait.
<v Speaker 1>Awesome guys, We will see you next week. Be sure
<v Speaker 1>and hit that subscribe button on your podcast app or
<v Speaker 1>follow if you will, be sure and check us out
<v Speaker 1>on Twitter at Shirley Podcast, on Facebook at Shirley Podcast,
<v Speaker 1>send us an email at shirleypodcast at gmail dot com.
<v Speaker 1>And if you loved this episode and want to become
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<v Speaker 1>how much we appreciate you listening all the way through.
<v Speaker 1>We will see you next week for Dirt track by
<v Speaker 1>track or.
<v Speaker 7>Wow boom bum boom boom bum bum bum bum bum
<v Speaker 2>Bum bum Up