The musicians Jerry Cantrell called musical aliens: “An otherworldy being”
Sometimes music holds the power to transport you to a far-off land, even if only temporarily, and that’s often something that listeners chase the feeling of when searching for new obsessions. In Jerry Cantrell‘s case, he can’t quite fathom how his favourite artists manage to achieve what they do.
The Alice in Chains guitarist and songwriter may be best known for his contributions to the grunge scene, but his own personal preferences and influences all appear to return to the realm of classic rock and metal. Though some of these influences shine through in his own work, those whom he cites as being among the major foundations for his own output all have a skillset that he’s been chasing his entire life.
Of course, plenty of fans of Cantrell’s work would likely hail him as having had the ability to inspire and take them to unimaginable places, and even though Alice in Chains’ original run as a group was curtailed due to the passing of frontman Layne Staley, they’ve maintained a consistent following in the years since reforming, with Cantrell’s position as a guitar god still in good stead.
It would have been his ambition as a performer and songwriter to have the same effect on his fanbase as those pillars of influence had on him when he was growing up, and he explained in an interview with Full Metal Jackie that this was the exact ethos that he’d followed from the day he first picked up a guitar.
“I wanna make something that makes somebody else feel,” he argued. “[Someone who] makes me and somebody else feel like that record made me feel when I was a kid, made me want to become a musician and make music myself.”
But who exactly were these musicians who inspired him to follow in their footsteps, and who he aspired to emulate in his own guitar-playing, and what was it about their abilities that stood out to him as having been unlike anything else that he’d heard?
Cantrell continued: “It’s hard to really boil it down to who maybe influenced me the most. There’s standouts that are just like aliens to me. [Jimi] Hendrix was one. Eddie Van Halen is another. I think Randy Rhoads might qualify as an otherworldly being.”
While Hendrix is often considered a major touchstone for people who grew up with an affinity for classic rock and psychedelia, constantly looking for ways to mutate the sounds they produce with outlandish techniques and use of effects, both Van Halen and Rhoads are the idols of many a metal guitarist around the world, both of whom had both an aggression to their playing while also pulling off virtuosic fills.
It’s no surprise considering his own style that Cantrell was infatuated with this trio of players, but for him to call them all otherworldly is perhaps the highest praise that he could possibly offer them, and the fact that they had an almost unexplainable flair that he wished to be able to reproduce and incorporate into his own work is indicative of just how influential they’ve all been to the biggest rock guitarists of subsequent generations.
