Although his popularity was never that of a Cobain, Vedder, or Cornell, Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice In Chains, was no less important to the Seattle grunge scene or modern rock. His death Friday is both a tragedy for his family and friends and a blessing for the man who described himself as being “in hell” years before his death. Staley was found dead in his Seattle apartment on the couch surrounded by drug paraphernalia; he was 34 years old.
While frat-metal bands like Staind and Adema have singers that do “the tortured singer thing” to sell a few records to a gullible audience, Staley wasn’t fortunate enough to have the opportunity to put up a flimsy façade. He was the real deal, and that’s the saddest part. It’s always difficult to reflect on a life that could have been so much more, but for years, critics including yours truly held hope that Alice In Chains would rise once again to show the beginners how it’s supposed to be done. That day will never come — a fantasy for many that will go unfulfilled.
A virtual recluse in recent years due to addiction, Staley was too hooked to even record, leaving Alice In Chains to repackage the group’s existing music via a greatest hits compilation, a live record and a boxed set to keep hungry fans at bay.
Alice In Chains’ thick grunge sound that began to take shape in the 1980s was unleashed on the mass public in 1990 with the release of Facelift, the acclaimed debut marked by Staley’s powerful, gritty voice on the trademark radio hit “Man In The Box,” a thick stomper employing a blistering chorus that seemed to echo from the depths of Staley’s soul. It was ironic that so much intensity and such a larger-than-life sound could come from such a frail man, a trait that Staley and Kurt Cobain held in common.
By 1992, Alice In Chains was a force to be reckoned with in the grunge music scene. The follow up to Facelift, entitled Dirt, went triple platinum on the strength of the explosive tracks “Them Bones,” “Rooster” and “Would?,” the latter of which was written after the death of Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood. Dirt also represented the only major tour Alice In Chains ever undertook, delivering Seattle grunge in the sweltering heat during the summer 1993 Lollapalooza trek.
Former Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello reflected on Staley’s death by saying, “Layne and I became good friends on the 1993 Lollapalooza tour. I will always remember him as the bright, funny and amazingly talented singer who got up there every hot summer day in a gorgeous suit and sang like an angry angel. We would laugh until we split our sides arguing about who was ‘more metal.’ I hope now he is at peace.”
Alice in Chains’ journey continued with the Sap E.P., marked by the acoustic hit “Got Me Wrong,” which in part inspired a later MTV Unplugged session with the band. 1994’s Jar of Flies and a self-titled release in 1995 fared well, but the years following Dirt were lean times and touring was too much for Staley.
By 1996, the spiral was in full force, and Staley recognized that things were not going well. In an interview that same year, he admitted his plight: “I wrote about drugs, and I didn’t think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them. Here’s how my thinking pattern went: When I tried drugs, they were f*cking great, and they worked for me for years, and now they’re turning against me — and now I’m walking through hell, and this sucks.”
His walk over, Staley’s family and friends hope that the young star can finally find some peace after a life that was both blessed and cursed.