July 2nd, 2009
Alice In Chains Coming To Philly
The re-tooled Alice in Chains — with singer-guitarist William DuVall front-and-center where the late Layne Staley used to be — comes to the TLA on September 5th, just a few weeks before the band’s forthcoming album Black Gives Way to Blue arrives in stores on September 29th. The first single, “A Looking In View,” is already making the rounds and it’s actually pretty good, living up to their malevolently melodic legacy (check it out above).
Of course, there’s still a sizable contingent of people who feel like without Layne, there is no Alice in Chains, and I suppose that’s a fair enough stance, especially in the recent context of bands-reuniting-and-touring-without-their-dead-singer (INXS, Queen, Blind Melon, the Doors, etc. etc.). However, I did a piece on Alice in Chains’ decision to move forward without Layne a couple of years ago in which I interviewed Jerry Cantrell, Layne’s mom Nancy McCallum, and such AIC friends as Heart’s Nancy Wilson and former Screaming Trees (and Mad Season, which also featured Staley) drummer Barrett Martin, who all had a lot to say about keeping Alice alive:
Nancy McCallum: “I believe the band has been more than appropriate, and I think that’s because there are deep, deep emotions attached to, ‘What do we do next?’ You lose someone who you counted on being in your life for so many years and you have a fantasy of what the future will be like. If you’re honest, it takes a long time to be able to regroup and come back from those feelings and do something new with it. I can’t imagine that the band has moved in any direction without every step including a thought about Layne and what he would have thought.”
“Frankly, from a personal standpoint, I thought maybe if they gave themselves a new name, it would be a fresh start. I figured that going out as Alice in Chains, they might get some negativity. But, you know, the business side of it says that if you keep your original name, everything flows more smoothly. I don’t mean to put this in [terms of] dollars and cents, but the fact is, if you go out with a different name, then you have to reestablish yourself financially, and it’s very expensive. Also, the fact is, Jerry wrote a lot of the music, and it’s kind of like, that is their identity too.”
Jerry Cantrell: “”It’s like, who’s somebody else to tell us we can’t be with somebody? “You get divorced and what, you can’t be with anybody else? Somebody dies in your family, you can’t continue to live on? People deal with it every day, and we’re dealing with it right now, and that’s our choice and our business…so as far as that decision, that comes down to us, and as far as what we’ve seen standing in front of people, having William sing with us, people have been there with open arms, man, holding us up when sometimes it feels like you don’t wanna fuckin’ stand.”
Nancy Wilson: “I think people get a little too indulgent with their feelings of ownership about what they think bands should do or not do, but they’re not in the band. It’s up to the band, and those guys in particular are extremely aware of all that stuff — they care about how their fans feel, really a lot, but they’ve gotta do what’s right for them in the time they have allotted on the Earth.”
Barrett Martin: “It’s totally a case-by-case kinda thing, these kinds of reunions. I think that in this case, they have every right to re-form as Alice in Chains because that’s who they are, and they have years and years of effort invested in that…they’re real solid, they’re real sincere, and I think they’ll do a good job.”
