Alice in Chains: Layne Staley's Warning To Fans On the Dirt Album

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Hey everybody, what's going on? welcome to rock n' roll true stories. I want to talk about the album "dirt". I've already done a video about the making of the album. I want to talk about why I think it's probably the darkest grunge album and probably the most honest one that came out from that Seattle list of bands, you now, like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. The album was released in September of 1992. Even though the album was a success, the making of the album was plagued by bad luck. The band was traveling down to Los Angeles to be near David Jerden who was the producer on the record. The band would begin recording in April of '92 and when the LA riots first broke out, various band members had to flee to safer environments including the Joshua Tree in Tijuana. they had to bring
that work on the album to a halt. a more personal downer for the band as well as something that's a pretty prevalent theme on the record, is staley's drug abuse which led the singer to a
failed rehab visit and finally a cold turkey kick of his own while reading the book, the bad place by horror novelist Dean Koontz. Staley was reluctant at first to discuss his heroine problems when he was doing press for the record, especially in light of the recent Rolling Stone story
about the drugs revival in Seattle which also mentioned him by name. the article he says, causes family and friends much grief but he also welcomes the chance to clear up any rumors and gossip, telling Rolling Stone magazine in 1992, "the facts are that I was shooting a lot of dope and that's nobody's business but mine", he says. he went on to say, "I'm not shooting dope now and I have him for a while. I took an effing long hard walk through hell and I decided to stop
because I was miserable doing it. the drug didn't work for me anymore and in the beginning I got high and it felt great but by the end it was strictly maintenance, like food I needed to survive and since I quit doing it, I tried a couple of times to see if I could recapture the feeling I once got off of it but I don't and nothing attracts me to it anymore. it got boring." according to the Rolling Stone reporter, around this time, Layne had broken his foot and the reporter said, "he's gained some weight. the color has returned to his skin and the muscle man on tour keeps an eye on him in case the old urges returned." Staley also says he deals with the feelings through his music about what he was doing in the past. you know "dirt" tracks like "angry chair" and "sick man" as well as a more overt tunes like "junkhead" and more than anything he's upset by comments that suggest his music advocates drug use." he would go on to say, "from song to song the album changes from glorifying drugs to being completely miserable and questioning what I thought once worked for me and by the end of the album, it's pretty obvious that it didn't work out as well as I thought I would." Staley would also express his current sentiments on stage introducing (inaudible) number as a song about a hopeless junkie. In the interview, Staley talked about the two themes that are found on the album "dirt". he said, "there's two basic themes. The first theme is about dealing with a kind of personal anguish and turmoil which turns into drugs to ease the pain and being confident that that was the answer in a way. then later on in the song that starts to slip down closer and closer to hell and then the main character figures out that drugs were not all they were cracked up to be and that was not the proper way to ease the pain." he said, "basically, it's the whole story of the last three years in my life." Staley described the other theme as being about painful relationships and involvement with persons. even when Layne was recording the vocal tracks for "dirt", he would surround himself with death. According to a studio engineer who worked on the album, while recording "dirt", Staley had built a shrine of inspirational items in his vocal booth and asked production staff to build a wall around his area so that he could have complete privacy. According to "dirt" engineer Brian Carlstrom, the shrine included candles and pictures of the Last Supper and then a dead puppy in a jar. assistant engineer Annette Cisneros said, "it was scary to be back there. I tried not to go back there. By keeping a dead animal, I decided the singer had literally surrounded himself with death." "Dirt" had at least four songs that dealt with Staley's struggle with drugs including "junkhead", "Godsmack", "hate to feel" and "angry chair". Staley wrote all of the lyrics to the tracks and followed the typical story of a junkie. he sings about the joys of getting high in the song "junkhead" with the line, "what's my drug of choice, well what have you got" and then talks about becoming addicted, "lo

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