Alice in Chains… those guys always felt a little darker than the rest of the Seattle scene.
I first heard them when Facelift came out in ’90, but it was Dirt in ’92 that really got to me. The way Layne projected his voice from some deep, dark corner inside him… it wasn’t party music, not even close. It was the kind of stuff you listen to when things aren’t going well, when you need to feel like somebody understands what you’re going through.
I got to see them live on December 20th, 1993 at the Seattle Center Arena. That was right around the time Dirt was blowing up. The place was packed, and they played a ton from that record — “Them Bones,” “Would?,” “Dirt,” “God Smack,” all of it. The whole room would get dead quiet during the slow parts and then just explode when it kicked back in. You could feel how much those songs were hitting everybody that night.
They were always a bit more serious, a bit more haunted than a lot of the other bands coming out of here. Layne and Jerry had this chemistry that made everything they did feel personal, even in big rooms.
After Jar of Flies and the Unplugged show things got real quiet. The band hasn’t played much in the last few years. Layne’s been keeping to himself, and from what I hear he’s been dealing with a lot. It’s tough to watch from the outside. I hope he’s doing okay.
These days I still put on Dirt when I want to remember how that whole period felt. Facelift, Jar of Flies, even the self-titled one — they all stay with you no matter how much time passes.
Alice in Chains wasn’t about the hype or the flannel. They were about those dark truths that a lot of us were living through back then. And they never tried to sugarcoat it.