Alice In Chains: The band Henry Rollins thought were “utterly genius”
Henry Rollins has never been one to deal with the bullshit of rock and roll. The whole point behind Black Flag was to make something that meant something other than the superficial side of the genre, and the minute that he heard something disingenuous, it didn’t take him long to either tear the artist in question through the mud or filter his anger through one of his songs. So when a genre like grunge came along to stomp out everything that was wrong with hair metal, he couldn’t have been more thrilled to see certain groups emerge.
For anyone doing a musical history lesson, though, the fact that ‘grunge’ was the label put upon every band is one of the dumber qualifiers in rock history. Despite most of them sharing the same home state, the whole point behind the Seattle scene was for everyone to be themselves, which doesn’t exactly lend itself to everyone sounding the same.
Throughout their history, Nirvana had the ethos of a punk band, and looking at how Chris Cornell carried himself onstage in Soundgarden, it was much closer to what Robert Plant had done. And considering how Pearl Jam had their hooks in the sounds of classic rock, every part of rock history seemed to be covered. The only thing missing was metal, and Alice in Chains became the resident hard rock act that could please both the hair metal kids and the grunge fans.
Although some photos from the band’s early days make them look a little like Guns N’ Roses Jr, it was clear Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley were going for something a lot different. There are pieces of their sound that feel like they’re indebted to the biggest names in metal, but when both of them start harmonising together on tracks like ‘Man in the Box’ and ‘Rooster’, it’s almost as if you’re listening to Simon and Garfunkel if they had Black Sabbath as their backing band.
But the biggest part of Alice’s sound was how they never minced their words. Everyone in the group was going through their own personal battles with demons, and listening to tracks on Dirt or Jar of Flies, Staley is an open book talking about what drugs can do to someone and how he’s on the path to nowhere if he ends up taking things one step too far.
Although Rollins may not have related to the strung-out heroin addiction, he knew that he was hearing musical brilliance, saying, “Alice in Chains, I think that band is utterly genius. Layne Staley’s voice is amazing. Jerry Cantrell’s singing and songwriting is amazing. [Just] a great, great band.”
But whether he knew it or not, Rollins may have had a hand in shaping the sludginess of Seattle without knowing it. You have to remember that Black Flag toured through Seattle when promoting My War, and when listening to the back half of that album and how heavy it gets, it’s not hard not to see Cantrell’s doomy riffs like ‘Sludge Factory’ as a descendant of Rollins, only with a bit more of Tony Iommi’s signature tone thrown in for good measure.
And even when making their later records, that sludginess has never gone away, with Rainier Fog and even Cantrell’s solo record, I Want Blood, extending that signature gloomy atmosphere. Rollins may be a much different person than the man screaming his brains out on My War, but someone that authentic is bound to notice some genius on display out in the wild.
