“We never auditioned singers or any of that,” notes drummer Sean Kinney, on the necessary adoption of DuVall, due to the death of original yanger Layne Staley. “After we did the tsunami gig, we just got in a room and played some of the songs, so we invited a couple of people down, and Will was one of them. And as we were doing that, Ann and Nancy Wilson (HEART) asked us to take part in a VH1 show that honoured their career, and so we did that, and then from that it was like, ‘Hey, would you be interested in playing a couple of shows?’ So we did those, and then that led to, ‘You wanna go to Europe and do a couple shows?’ ‘Oh, OK. sounds cool.’ We go play those…”
“… and we thought we’d start small,” adds bassist Mike Inez, “and then next thing you know, we’re standing on a stage in Portugal in front of 40,000 people, going, ‘OK, this isn’t small anymore. This wasn’t our plan.’”
Specific to the record, Mike says that the band, “came up with probably 25 or 30 ideas, and it’s hard to scale it back, to choose the 11 that were on there, I think. We just wanted to get the songs together that went and fit together as an album. We’ve always been good at doing a record and not just doing a bunch of singles that you throw out. And without being too literal about it, it’s kind of like, this band has always operated on a truth level. And I think that translates on Black Gives Way To Blue - that’s just kind of chronicling the time of losing Layne, and basically where we’ve been at since that, up until the time we’re talking to you in Toronto right now, up until the album is released. The central theme, almost unintentionally through all those songs, is a rebirth kind of thing. It’s pretty amazing to me, looking at it, because we have an outlet to get some of these tunes out. Whether it’s the Dirt album or this album, you know, a lot of guys don’t have that outlet. They go to their day jobs and commit workplace murders and stuff (laughs). We have a way to get this stuff out, so in that respect we’re very blessed. But unintentionally, that’s how the album came out. It seems like the same thing repeated again. It’s a watermark of where we’re all at as a family and individually. People think we left off where the ‘dog’ record left off 14 years ago. But we’ve all grown individually as men and grown collectively as a family together and we’ve been through deaths and births, and just everything in-between.”
Reacting to the thought that this record bears quite a bit of similarity to guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s double solo record Degradation trip, Sean figures, “Jerry has always been the main songwriter in the band, so that’s not a shock to us. And Layne isn’t here, and his contributions were monumental, and Will is a newer member, and the dynamics have shifted a little bit. But this is different from Degradation Trip is the fact that we sound different (laughs). It sounds like an Alice record, and Jerry’s writing style… his fingerprint is Alice, and when he does something, it’s going to sound similar, the way he writes. That’s the way he does it. He doesn’t try to make something different. He didn’t try to go make a country record.”
Mike: “That’s what Sean wanted to do. I wanted to do a comedy record.”
OK, but seriously, you mention country… is there perhaps another acoustic record in you?
“Yeah, maybe,” reflects Sean. “It depends. It’s a big part of the band and what we enjoy doing, but I wouldn’t know. That was an unplanned formula we had anyway. I mean, we just recorded a bunch of stuff and put it out, for fans. And those did really well and people identify with them. There’s a different... what I’ve noticed over the years is that there’s a whole ‘nother audience that likes that and that won’t go to a loud show. And then there’s a core bunch that will go to either. But yes, there are people who would only go to a show if we play acoustic. We’ve done shows that way, and it’s a slightly different audience.”
Adds Mike, “We did an acoustic radio show in New York, and a song like ‘Check My Brain’, and even like ‘Sludge Factory’, some of those songs sound really... especially ‘Sludge Factory’, when we play that without all the amps and everything, I think it just really shows that it’s just a really cool club to have in our golfbag, to be able to do acoustic stuff like that. We wrote, recorded and mixed the Jar Of Flies record in ten days between tours, and when it became a #1 we were like, ‘Holy shit, maybe we shoulda put a lot more time into it’ (laughs). But that’s what’s fun for me with acoustic stuff, is that it’s a little bit of a musical vacation for us. And I just think a good song is going to translate to acoustic guitar. You hear JOHNNY CASH do a NINE INCH NAILS song and it’s amazing as well. And that video, amazing, legendary. But I think it’s really special for the fans, just to see stuff like that.”
“Sure, I can see us doing acoustic songs again,” figures Mike in closing. “It’s a good test. It’s a good headspace when you’re doing it. We did a tour in 2006 before VELVET REVOLVER, and 2005/2006, we actually did a whole leg of the tour, The Acoustic Hour With Alice In Chains, and it’s really cool for us, because when we’re playing those songs, the crowd is singing along and everything. For us it’s intimate too. It’s just as special for us doing that as it is for the audience; it’s just fun. Like I say, it’s nice to have that club in the bag. You can’t use a driver every shot (laughs).”
