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Alice in Chains' Layne Staley: The Rooster, the Jungle, and Dying Young · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Alice in Chains as Lane Staley, are insane. His Seattle
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: rehearsal space was raided by cops, making the biggest drug
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: bust in state history. He was humiliated by megadeath. He
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: dared fight back against a horde of angry Slayer fans.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: He fled Swedish authorities after punching a guy in the face.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: He had a prankster spirit, a killer rock and roll voice,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and a destructive addiction to heroin. That addiction cost his
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: band one of the biggest tours of their career and
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: ultimately cost Lane Staley his life. A life defied great music,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: unlike that clip I played for you at the top
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: preset loop from my melotron called Mister and Missus Mattlin
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: MK one. I played you that loop because I can't
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: afford the rights to Vision of Love by Mariah Carey.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: whistle registered cheese. Could I afford it? Because that was
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the number one song in America on August twenty eighth,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety and that was the day Alison Chains released
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: their debut album, Facelift, a record that introduced Seattle's so
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: called grunge scene to the world. It introduced Lane Staley
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to a world of pop stardom, pressure, and pain. On
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: this episode, Megadeth, Slayer, Swedish authorities, drug raids, whistle registered cheese,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Alice in Chains, and Lane Staley. I'm Jake Brennan and
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: this this disgrace. Land Duff McKagan knew there was no
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: scene here, not in Seattle. You were kidding yourself if
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you thought you were gonna make it. You and your band,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: you know, the one four dudes all claiming to worship
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: with the altar of Armored Saint, even though you all
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: secretly wanted to be Motley Crue. Not that you'd admit
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that out loud to anyone, didn't matter. No one in
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Seattle was listening. Those wastoids from the Boonies, guys like
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the Melvins and later mud Honey, not to mention that
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: weirdo from Aberdeen. They were listening, but they were tuned
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: into a different wavelength. King Buzzo from the Melvins and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Kurt Cobain from Nirvana didn't want to be famous. They'd
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: never moved to la which, as Duff mccagan knew, was
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the only way to make it, at least in the
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. Moved to Hollywood, start a killer hair band,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and maybe then you'd get some attention, if attention was
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: what you were after. Duff wanted it, and Duff got it,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: first moving to la and then graduating from playing drums
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: in a little Seattle hardcore band called the Farts, the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: playing bass for the biggest fucking rock and roll band
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: on the planet. But by the time guns n' Roses
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: were dominating the charts and the culture things up north
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: were changing. Seattle was blowing up. That nothing seen Duff
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: mccagan left behind was anything but nothing. Now every major
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: label was swooping in and snatching up any and all
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: bands lucky to be part of what the music rags
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: were calling grunge music, as dirty and grizzled as the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: wind coming off the Puget Sound in the dead of winter.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: The bands at the center of it all knew it
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: was bullshit, buzzwords coined by the media to sell magazines
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: alternative grunge. These were just stupid labels made up by
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: stupid people. You plugged into your guitars and played loud.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: You were a fucking rock band. End of story, Or
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: so said Sean Kitty, drummer for Alison Chains, one of
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the first of those Seattle bands assigned to a major label.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Alice in Chains had more in common with Duck mccagan's
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: hair metal side of the grunge tracks than they did
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: with the Waist doing punk side. Though they were the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: first MTV Buzzbin band to wear flannel on television, they
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: just weren't metal enough for the true heads, the fans
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of Megadeth and Anthrax, who found Sean Kinney, along with
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: bassist Mike Starr, guitarist Jerry Cantrell, and singer Lane Staley,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: to be a bunch of pussies. Whatever. Now they were
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: famous pussies, and they didn't even have to move to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: La to Viso. Not that they were looking for fame,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: but Alice and Chains suddenly found themselves one of the
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: unlikely success stories coming out of Seattle, and like Duff
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: before them, they too found themselves in Los Angeles, not
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to live, but to record their second album. At this point, however,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: La was hotter than Seattle. In fact, it was on fire.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety two. Jerry Cantrell just wanted to grab a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: twelve pack to bring back to the studio. But this
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: little convenience store was mobbed with an actual mob, one
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: that was quickly mobilizing throughout the city. An angry, cathartic
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: reaction to the verdict in the Rodney King trial four
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: LAPD officers acquitted of assault, a vicious beating captured on
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: videotape one the entire world had watched over and over
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and LA lost its shit when the acquittal came down.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: In this convenience store, meters were grabbing whatever they could carry.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: It was total chaos. Outside the store wasn't any better.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Jerry quickly returned to his car to head back to
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the studio. Just over the canyon in North Hollywood, there
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: was smoke on the horizon, helicopters circling, alarms, explosions. Jerry
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: put it in drive and hit the gas. He drove
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: like he was driving to a war zone, fast, never
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: looking back. Now safely inside the studio, Jerry was busy
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: thinking about another war zone, this one thousands of miles away.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: In decades in the past, writing this new song was
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the most emotionally challenging thing he'd ever done. It required
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: him to get inside his father's head, a man he
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: didn't really know and didn't even meet until he was
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a toddler. That was one of his earliest and most
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: formative memories. Three year old Jerry on the floor playing
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: with his toys, mother leading a man inside their house
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: over to Jerry, who is staring up in confusion at
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: this man his uniform, his hat in his hands, and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that look on his face, a look that even a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: three year old knew was the look of a man
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: who had seen things he couldn't unsee. The man in
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: uniform looked thirty feet tall to young Jerry. Jerry his
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: mom was telling him, now, this is your father. Jerry
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: cantrell sor aka Rooster, that nickname given to him by
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: his father, Jerry Junior's grandfather, on account of how Jerry
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Senior's hair used to stick up, but also a nickname
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: given to M sixteen gunners in Vietnam, that clusterfuck from
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: which Jerry Senior had just returned Roosters in the jungle,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the muzzles on their machine guns flashing like the tail
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: of a rooster. Down on a farm, Jerry Cantrell Jerry
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Junior here. He didn't know anything about the service, about
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: how it felt to be shipped to a foreign country,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: machine gun in your hand, isolated from the life you
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: knew back home. But he put himself in his father's
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: shoes to write this song. And then he fed that
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: song in those lines to Laine Staley Alison Chains as
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: lead singer. Laine loaded up on Jerry's words, loaded up
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: with his amo two. That voice, Jesus Christ, what a voice,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: so powerful, a voice belonging to a man that Mark
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Lanigan of Screaming Trees once called the most singularly impressive
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: hard rock singer he'd ever heard. And Mark Lanigan was
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: a guy with a killer voice, so he knew a
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: thing or two about a great set of pipes. But
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Laine's voice wasn't so strong that it could destroy every
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: challenge coming his way, Just like the Roosters and Nom
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: couldn't beat back their own demons. With Justine, sixteen soldiers
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: who returned home from the ship found that they were
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: pariahs in the eyes of their fellow countrymen. Their anger, guilt,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and sheen easily vanquished by a needle in the vein.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: One plunge to the syringe, all that junk, laying waste
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to your bloodstream, like napalm blanketing a Vietnam jungle. It
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: was better than nothing, which is what Jerry Cantrell had
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: when he first met his father. He didn't know he
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and his mom were on welfare at times, practically homeless
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: as teenagers. Lane invited Jerry to stay with his family
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: over Christmas one year and now some five years later,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: they still had that bond. Jerry had this new song, Rooster,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: a song that his old friend Lane was now singing
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: while la Verne just beyond these studio walls. Laane sang
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that song like he had lived in, battling his own
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: private Vietnam, mostly up north in Seattle, a heroin addiction
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: that he'd managed to kick cold Turkey, well, cold Turkey
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: by way of an intervention, so that Lane could be
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: clean to record Alison Chains the sophomore album Dirt. His
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: habit was one he'd grown to depend on. It helped
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: him navigate fame, had helped him cope with the death
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: of his friend Andrew Wood, the singer for Seattle's mother
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Love Bone. And though Lane was managing to stay clean
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: for the moment, his longtime struggle was laid bare. In
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: every song on this new album Them Bones, Junkhead, God Smack,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: even this song about Jerry's dad and Vietnam. It resonated
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: with Lane because Lane Staley was in the jungle now
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: not Duff mccagan's jungle, a jungle of his own making,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and in that jungle he be left for dead, misjudged, undervalued,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: fighting his way out, gunning down all weakness, every compulsion,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the things that wanted to snuff him out, and doing
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: it with his only weapon, his voice. Lane Staley The
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Rooster nineteen eighty eight, Seattle, three years before Grunge broke,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Randy Hauser had a record, not a record as in
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: an LP, but as in a rap sheet. It didn't
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: bother Lane, Jerry and the other guys. Lane in particular
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: was no stranger to fucking get the law. It was
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: funny to him, the mushrooms he took, the canine munth
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: that the cop sicked on him, the back of a
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: patrol car they stuffed him into, even the jail cell.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: It was dumb, but also funny. All that for being
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a public nuisance. Randy Hawser, on the other hand, was
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: putting that nuisance ship behind him, supposedly Rea aabilitated from
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the drug scene that got humlocked up in the first place.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Now he was out of the pen and interested in
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: that other kind of record music, rock and roll, promoting
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the new sound of Seattle, like Lane and Jerry's band,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: which Randy Hauser loved. He do anything to help them
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: get their big break, manage them if they wanted him to.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Whatever it was they were calling themselves these days no
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: longer diamond liar fock settling on Alice in Chains, which
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: look doesn't matter what the story is behind it, but
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry to say, remains an objectively bad, bad band name.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: This is also the opinion of the receptionist at The Rocket,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest biweekly music magazine at the time, who,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: when asked what she thought about the name Alice in Chains,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: simply replied, hate it, don't like it. Remember, though, this
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: is Seattle Circle of the late eighties and early nineties,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a time when bands thought it would be cool to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: call themselves Kappa, Gas Huffer, Quack Quack Quack, stomach pump,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and old Jam. But I digress. First, Randy had to
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: rehabilitate the band's image their braddy attitude had getting the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: band from local clubs, including one were laying through a
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: milkshake at the audience. Again, Lane thought it was funny.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Randy asked the clubs for forgiveness, and he got it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: And then the band at the work at getting better,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: rehearsing as much as possible at the Music Bank, a
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: collection of rehearsal spaces in a warehouse down by the
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: water in Seattle's Ballad neighborhood. The Music Bank was the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: scenes incubator, and there Alison Changed' sound quickly became a
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: hybrid of their hairband pasted and the darker, sludgier vibe
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: now permeating their city as a whole. The next step,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: in Randy's eyes was to cut some new tracks that
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: were strong enough to shop around. They had their site
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: set beyond local grassroots operations like Subpop, and beyond Seattle
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Columbia Records, Capitol Records, some big Los Angeles operation, the
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: real deal. They wanted it tonight. However, it seemed like
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: someone or something was doing whatever they could to prevent
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: that from ever happening. Plain clothes detectives led the charge
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: inside the Music Bank. Behind them, the boys in blue
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and big ass German shepherds tethered to the leashes in
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: their hands. Fifteen twenty cops easy, moving fast through the hallways,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: they kicked open the first door they came to. Inside,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: a band was finishing that night's rehearsal, sweaty punks, their
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: ears still ringing. Some poor schmuck holding the joint in
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: his hand. The cops a dozen plus, raised their weapons,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: stand against the fucking wall. Alu scared shitless. The band
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: did as they were told, and at this exact time,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Lane Staley was coming around the corner out in the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: hallway looking for the exit. The rehearsal for him was over,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and now he was thinking about tomorrow's recording session and
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the slick demos that would soon serve as Alice in
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Chains's calling card. He was also thinking about the two
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: women hanging on off his arms and what trouble they
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: could get into that evening. Look at these fucking pigs,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: one of the women said. Lane told her to cut
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the shit. This wasn't just some stupid bust. Whatever was
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: happening here was huge. Best to stay the hell out
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of it. The cops kept kicking down doors and they
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: found Jerry Cantrell and Alice's rehearsal space, passed out on
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: a couch. No harm, no foul. Alice in Chain's basis.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Mike's starr, however, was in the middle of a line
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: of coke in another room when he heard the commotion.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: He put the remaining powder up his nose in the
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: nick of time. But it wasn't Mike's coke the cops
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: were here for. In the fourteen thousand square foot industrial
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: space located in the same warehouse, directly next to the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: music Bank, someone had set up a serious marijuana grow operation.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: We're talking thirty million dollars a year serious. At the time,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: it was the biggest drug bust in the history of
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Washington State, and it affected Alice in Chains not because
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: they were implicated or arrested, but because the cops locked
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: down the entire building for their investigation, including the Music Bank,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: which meant that everything inside, including all of Alice in
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Chains's gear, could not be removed, and thus Alice and
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Chains could not record their demos the following day as planned.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Not that it stopped Lane, Jerry, Mike and Sean from
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: pressing on even when things got tougher when they moved
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the rehearsal space, out of the music bank and into
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: a house with a toilet that didn't work, even when
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Lane was so broke that he had to choose between
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: food and cigarettes, and even they could only afford to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: buy one cigarette at a time with loose change, when
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Alison Chains's biggest fan and one time financial supporter, Randy Hauser,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: suddenly found himself back in the big house, this time
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: for cocaine. Lucky for them, they had the support of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a new ally, Susan Silver, Soundgarden's manager, and they also
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: had Lane's voice flashing like a rooster's tail on the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: chorus of the song Man in the Box, an incredible song,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: so raw, so authentic, pure Alison Chains, in many ways,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the definitive version of the band that they'd spend the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: rest of their career chasing and never duplicating. Those huge verses,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the soaring chorus drenched in Jerry Cantrell's talk box and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: wah wah Battle. Released as a single in January of
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, Man in the Box put Alison Chains
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: on the map and sent their debut album on Columbia Records, Facelift,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: released five months earlier, to a respectable number forty QWO
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: on the Billboard chart. Facelift was the first so called
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: grunge album to reach gold status, a status that Alice
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: hit just weeks before Nirvana dropped never Mind and then
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the whole scene went nuclear. Man in the Box also
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: helped get Alison Chains on the Clash of the Titans
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: tour during that same year, opening for Megadeth, Slayer and Anthracon.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: But just because Alice and Chains were Seattle heavy, they
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: were not Anthrax heavy. They weren't even Megadeth heavy. Dave
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Mustaine the Megadeth reminded them of this factor the posters
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: he had printed up and tasted all over the massive
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: arenas that they played in posters of Alice in Chains
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: from years back, hair teaste, spandex tight, still spelling their
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: name Alice n Chains. That's apostrophe capital N getting trolled
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: by fucking Dave Mustange. Of all people, that must have stopped.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: But not as bad as the physical violence Alice in
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Chains endured up on that stage, pased by Slayer fans,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: fans that did not give a shit for Alice in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Chains en or no end. They pelted at them with
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: all manners of subterfuge spin on them threw him mercilessly.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Wayne Staley, for one, wasn't just gonna stand there and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: take it. He started throwing all that shit back in
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the crowd, and he jumped the barricade and got right
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: in their faces and spat back at them. Lane Staley
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: fought back, fought off the hordes, did well in the process,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: stood up for himself, and had the last laugh, or
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: so he thought. After the show, he and the others
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: were greeted by a group of Slayer fans waiting outside
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: their tour bus. Slayer fanatics that is, and fanatics being
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: the operative word. These dudes were hard. Lane braced himself
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: did oh for Jerry and the others. No longer protected
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: by the stage, they were about to endure an extreme
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: ass kicking by a bunch of pissed off metal heads.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Lane and the boys got closer and the Slayer kids
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: were blocking the entrance to their bus. Lane's pulse quickened.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: He looked around for some kind of blunt instrument that
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: he could use if shit went the way he thought
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: it was going to. And then one of the Slayer
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: fans gave the Alice and Chains guys a head nod. Hey,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the kid said, you guys are all right. You didn't
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: puss out back there. The hardcore Slayer dudes parted and
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: let Alice in Chains get onto their and then it
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: was off to the next stop to do it all
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: over again, to be humiliated, attacked, and ultimately forgiven. A
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: roller coaster of emotions that took its toll on Maine
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Staley despite the brave face he put on night after night,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: and soon he would need more than just a brave
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: face and a big voice to keep it all at bay.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: A different kind of coping mechanism, heroin. We'll be right
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: back after this word word word. Just how and when
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Laine Staley began using heroin is up for debate. According
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to the biographer for Alison Chain's Bassis, Mike Starr, it
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: was demriy Perrot, Laye's longtime girlfriend and eventual fiance who
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: introduced him to the drug. If you ask Al Jorgensen,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: he'll tell you that his band Ministry showed laying the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: ropes back show, But Al's timeline of events doesn't quite
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: add up. A third, and perhaps more likely scenario comes
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: from Johnny Bacalus Lane's banned Me in his pre Alice
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in Chainsdays. According to Johnny, Lane began using heroin in
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the second half of nineteen ninety one, when Alice and
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Chains were on tour opening for Van Halen. For Johnny,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Lane reported back saying, quote, Johnny and I took that
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: first hit for the first time in my life. I
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: got on my knees and thanked God for feeling so
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: good unquote. At this point, heroin was making its mark
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: on Seattle. In the nineteen eighties, the city plunged into
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: a recession, junk and pills were suddenly commonplace. At that time,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: heroin's purity was around only four percent, but by the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: early nineties it had increased to sixty five percent. For
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: someone like Lane, who had always experimented with drugs as
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a teenager, heroin was easy to try out and hard
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to shake. Heroin related deaths and Seattle jumped from thirty
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: two in nineteen eighty six to fifty nine in nineteen
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: ninety two, an increase of eighty four percent. Including Lane's
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: friend Andrew Wood as well as Stephanie, Anne's sergeant from
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the band's Seven Year Bitch. In nineteen ninety three, the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: city would see a record number of overdoses four hundred
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: and ten in the first six months of the year alone.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: But back in nineteen ninety one, Lane Staley was beginning
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: to rely on dope the way Alison Chains fans relied
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: on the band's songs. Heroin for Lane was cathartic. It
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: was a way to deal to handle people in crowds
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: and success in general. Pressure, anxiety, pain, you name it,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the shot in the arm, get rid of it all. Heroin, however,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: wasn't the only issue taking root on Alice and James's
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: tour with van Halen. Mike Starr, Alison Chains's bassist, was
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: putting a lot of names on the guest list, which
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: was odd. Van Halen's cracked security team GANDU investigate, but
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: what they found was way worse than an inflated VIP section.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Mike Starr was busted scalping tickets to his own bands shows,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: selling and trading backstage passes in exchange for money for drugs.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: When he was caught, he said he was doing it
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to score dope for Lane, which may have been the
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: truth or may have been deflection, seeing as though Mike
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: was struggling with his own addiction that would plague him
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. In the end, it
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: didn't matter. Mike violated the trust of Alice in Chains
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and of the mighty Van Halen, a band that was
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: doing Alice in Chains a solid by taking them out
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: on tour, who believed in Alice in Chains. Even though
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the Van Halen masses proved just as cruel as the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Slayer crowd. Lane understood on a professional level that Mike
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: had to go, but on a personal level, they fucked
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: him up. Mike had been there from the beginning. They'd
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: struggled together when they didn't have two Nichols to rub
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: together in the old days, when the police squads were
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: raiding their rehearsal space, and when their house had a
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: backed up shitter, And now Mike was out. Bad timing too,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: just as Alison Chains' second LP, Dirt hit stores and
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: bumped the band up a notch, regardless of what the
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: critics were saying. Pompous, turgid, no riffs a bore is
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: how the La Times described Dirt in their one and
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: a half star review. But what did the critics know?
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Not much? As usual didn't matter. Dirt debuted on the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Billboard album chart at number six, so the La Times
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: could get fucked. Dirt was heavy musically and lyrically. It
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: made good use of eerie harmonies that only Lane and
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Jerry could create together, and it gave Lane an outlet
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to speak from the mind and heart of an addict.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Getting clean to make the record gave him clarity and perspective,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: made him think that perhaps there was life after dope,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: or that perhaps he could be a different person, someone
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: who kept coming back against all odds, clawing his way
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: out from the jungle of his own mind. February nineteen
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: ninety three, Stockholm. Lane Staley aka the Rooster was fully
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: in his element. Standing next to him on stage Jerry
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Cantrell on guitar, and to his other side Mike and
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Nez Borrowed from Ozzy Osbourne's band on bass. Behind him,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Sean Kinney on drums, Alison Chains a force, that voice
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: rising above the trolls, the haters, Dave Mustain and his
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: stupid posters, Van Hagar's frat boy Army, the La Times
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Alison Chains did not puss out. That's right, not then
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and not now. Lane had triumph on his mind, but
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: there was something else, some hitler, youth looking punk down
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in the crowd, elbowing and kicking everyone around him, tossing
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: up the Nazi salute. The rooster narrowed his eyes. He
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: singled out the skinhead and told him to get up
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: on the stage, and of course the guy jumped at
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: the opportunity, desperate for attention. The rest of the band,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: the fans, security guards, no one knew why Laine was
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: giving this dirtbag the time of day. And Lane the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: rooster did give that dirtback attention and did give him
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: that space, and then he gave that Nazi shit heel
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: what he had coming to him. Two pops to the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: face with his fist. The Skinhead's nose gush blood as
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: he fell back into the crowd, and Lane grabbed the mic.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Fucking Nazis died, he shouted, and the audience roared their approval.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: And that would have been that, but this particular Nazi
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: went crying to the police. Lane took off, running with
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: a security guard to get to ferry to Finland. Stockholm
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: PD meanwhile found the rest of the band at their
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: hotel and they seized all their passports. They wanted to
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: know where Lane was at. The guys gave him up.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: The cops got the Lane before the ferry left and
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: placed him under arrest. That is until the skinhead's brother
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: appeared and made an appeal, explained how what Laine had
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: done was a good thing, and now the cops were
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: doing a one to eighty. They suddenly had Alice in
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Chains's back, just like those Slayer fans a few years prior,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Just like another megawap band, this time Metallica, Still riding
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: high on the crossover success of their Black album, that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: album that Alis and Chains loved so much that they
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: purposefully recorded Dirt at the same recording studio, Metallica tapped
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Allis in Chains to open their nineteen ninety four tour.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Alice in Chains now riding high on the release of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: their seven song EP, Garrod Flies, the first EP to
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: ever debut at number one, but Lane's priorities had shifted again,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: away from being clean, away from triumph. Once again shooting
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: up and nodding off, he showed up the band practice
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: for the Metallica tour so fucked up on Heroin that
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Sean threw his drumsticks to the floor and walked out
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: and said he never worked with Lane again. It was
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: hard for Jerry to follow, but he knew he had to.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Alice in Chains were forced to cancel. In the summer
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety four, James Hetfield and the dudes of
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Metallica mocked Lane Staley on stage in front of thousands.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I can't tour, I can't tour, Hedfield wind while the
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: other guys in Metallica made cartoonists shooting up gestures into
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: their arms. This just months after the heroin epidemic, and
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Seattle claimed another victim, Kurt Cobain, dead at the age
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: of twenty seven, and Lane Staley, the rooster himself, also
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: twenty seven years old at this exact moment, went back
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: into the jungle, wondering if he'd never make it out again.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: The first person to realize something was wrong with Lane
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Staley was his accountant. Lane's bank accounts were stagnant for weeks,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: no purchases, no withdrawals. For a junkie who completely given
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: himself over to his addiction, this was strange. Lane had
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the money to score dope whenever he wanted. Enough money,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: in fact, to purchase a fifteen hundred square foot condo
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: in Seattle's University district for two hundred and sixty two
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. That was five years ago, and now it
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: was two thousand and two April nineteenth to be exact.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Just before six in the evening, the two cops at
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Lane Staley's condo door found that it was bolted from
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the inside. They made quick work breaking it down. It
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: was dark, all fifteen hundred square feet, stretching into shadows
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that made the place look twice as big. They turned
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: on their flashlights and stepped inside. Reruns flickered on the
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: television set the answering machines. Red light flashed like a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: distress signal. The cops kept walking, cans of spray paint
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: on the floor, white powder, and crack pipes on the
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: coffee table. They followed stains from the living room to
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the bathroom, where cash was splay out near the toilet,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: five hundred and one dollars exactly. Then they got to
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: the heart of the condo, the heart of the darkness,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the couch. The smell so overpowering they got worse the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: closer they got. The cops knew it before they stepped
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: one foot inside this place, but this grizzly discovery sealed it.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: The rumors were at long last true. For years there
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: were all kinds of rumors going around Seattle about Lane stay,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Lane had aids, Lane had no fingers, or toes Lane
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: was dead. Those rumors were out there for good reason.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: When Alison Chains buried the to make their third full
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: length album, The process took an agonizing eight months, always
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: waiting for Lane to show up, for Lane to come
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: out of the bathroom, for Lane to either be high
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: enough or sober enough to get through a session. And
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: sometimes he really did show up, like at the taping
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: for the band's episode of MTV's wildly popular Unplugged series,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Although Laine needed a fix to make it through that taping,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: a stash he brought with him in a little jar
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: pre cooked. Not all nights went so smoothly in Missouri.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: After Alison Chains opened a show for Kiss, Lane overdosed.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: He managed to pull through demory, However, his longtime girlfriend
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and fiance recently his ex girlfriend in fiance to be precise,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: she wasn't so lucky. The pills she was taking, in turn,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: took her life. Lane was overcome with guilt and regret
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the same feelings of guilt and regret he'd experienced when
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Alison Chains fired Mike Starr this time it was way worse.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: If only he'd gotten out of here, both of them,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: out of Seattle, away from everyone, the users, the pushers,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the fans banging on the doors of his condo. Now
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: they were here to get high with him, and he
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: knew it. Anyone could find out or Lane staining them.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Seattle talked, and then Seattle walked right up to Lane's
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: front door and knocked. He was scared to open it,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: scared to acknowledge that some of those rumors were finally
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: coming true. That Lane had lost most of the teeth
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: in his head, that Lane was well under one hundred pounds,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: and that Lane looked like he was eighty years old,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: not thirty four. He hid there in his condo, his lair,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: that jungle of shadows and junk, a jungle fit for
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a rooster who long since giving up the fight. But
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: still he had a little energy left, and that shriveled
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: up body of his the necessary energy required to sink
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: a needle in his arm, a speedball set course through
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: his veins, big enough and fast enough to make everything stop.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: One last time. The cops looked over Lane Staley's stiff
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: body where it sat on the couch, the leathery skin,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the advanced state of decomposition, the adutops. He confirmed that
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: he had died exactly two weeks earlier on April fifth,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: eight years to the day since Kurt Cobain took his
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: own life years later. When explaining why he made the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: decision to continue Alice in Chains without his original lead
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: singer Jerry Cantrell said, this, here's what I believe. Shit
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: fucking happens. That's rule one. Everybody walking the planet knows
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that rule. Two. Things rarely turn out the way you planned. Three,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: everybody gets knocked down. Four and most important of all,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: after you take those shots, it's time to stand up
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: and walk on, continue to live that fourth point, the
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: most important point. That was the hardest, hardest for anyone,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: but way too hard for some, in particular like Lane
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Staley fighting his way out of the shit with his
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: only weapon his voice. And when that voice was silenced,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: so was the fight lost somewhere in the weeds. What
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: This is Disgraceland.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: All right, Thanks for crawling down into the hole with
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: me in this Alison Chains episode. This week's Question of
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: the Week is which Seattle artist, band, singer songwriter hits
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: you the hardest? Is it? Alison Chains our Boy, Lane
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Staley here, Kurt Eddie? Hell? What about even? Jimi Hendrix?
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Hit me up? Let me know six months seven nine
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: oh six sixty six three eight. Leave me a voicemail,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: send me a text. Here your answer on the Afterparty
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: bonus episode. It's coming up right after this one. All right?
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: You can also send your answers to me at disgracelampod,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: on Instagram, X and Facebook. Leave a review for the
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and win some pre merch.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: All right, here come some credits. Disgracelam was created by
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: a disgracelan All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.
• 35:33
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• 35:36
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• 35:39
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• 35:44
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• 35:57
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• 36:00
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• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Disgracelampod Rock a Roller, He's a baddad man.