5 Causes Why We Love Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley

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Layne Staley was a type of frontmen that solely come round occasionally in rock ‘n’ roll.

Primarily often called the vocalist for Alice in Chains, Staley had an extremely distinct and highly effective voice, nevertheless it was maybe the emotion he inflected in it that resonated with individuals so properly. From Alice’s 1990 debut album Facelift, to his facet challenge Mad Season‘s sole 1995 launch Above, again to Alice’s final recorded track “Died,” he touched the hearts and souls of so many individuals all over the world.

The singer was all the time unfairly related together with his dependancy battles. After all, he had them, and it is counterproductive to fake that he did not endure, particularly contemplating nearly all of their large 1992 album Dust handled the topic. However he was usually ambushed throughout interviews about his troubles, which you’ll be able to see footage of on-line, and a few publications did cowl tales on him with headlines that highlighted his substance abuse.

“Individuals have a proper to ask questions and dig deep once you’re hurting individuals and issues round you,” Staley informed Rolling Stone in 1996. “However once I haven’t talked to anyone in years, and each article I see is dope this, junkie that, whiskey this — that ain’t my title. Like ‘Hello, I’m Layne, nail biter,’ you already know? My dangerous habits aren’t my title. My strengths and my expertise are my title.”

Alice’s music was clear concerning the darkness that the members had been usually overwhelmed by, however the media actually pushed the narrative and made it appear that is all there was to them.

But it surely wasn’t.

“Layne is so, form of misrepresented in a method, all people thought he was like gloom and doom and all negativity,” Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez informed us just a few years in the past. “However he most likely laughed greater than anyone. I miss his snicker a lot. He was all the time on the lookout for the joke and all the time simply such a sweetheart of a man.”

“He had his troubles for certain, however he was simply one of many sweetest, most filled-with-life individuals I feel I’ve ever met on this life… God, I simply cherished each second with him,” he continued. “He was only a good dude. Individuals do not understand that about him, however we all know. So I suppose that is all that basically issues.”

Staley died on April 5, 2002, precisely eight years after Nirvana‘s Kurt Cobain died by suicide. We miss them each dearly, however we needed to rejoice Staley by accentuating the issues that we cherished about him that made him such a singular frontman.