Another one of our best and brightest has fallen. Layne Staley died alone in his Seattle apartment sometime last week. We are all very saddened at the end of this remarkable man's life, but whatever the cause of his death, it is unimportant, because death is really just the punctuation mark on the life itself. As an ordained former Zen monk, I learned to meditate on death frequently -- it is one of the primary practices. In doing so, you eventually come to realize that life and death are one and the same, two sides of the same continuum. If life can be expressed as a circle, then birth and death are literally the same singularity on that circle. Chief Sealth, Indian leader of what became Seattle, once said, "There is no death, only a change of worlds".
Now Layne Staley has changed his worlds. I learned long ago that a person's addictions and obstacles are merely the outer veneer that hides the true spirit within. If you were fortunate enough to know Layne, you would know what I'm talking about. If we look at his strengths and talents, his gift to us becomes clear: His life was expressed in his words and in his music. Listen to them! He said a lot in a very short period of time.
One of the things that always stuck with me about Layne was an early conversation we had about our past day jobs. He and I had both worked as carpenters, and we talked about our lives before and after musical success. We both agreed that music was, by far, a much more difficult profession that required a tremendous amount of discipline and physical fortitude. You could leave the tool belt at the job site after a day's work, but you carried the music with you long after you left the studio or the stage. It WAS your life.
He approached his "work" like a skilled craftsman and I think that is why any musician who has had to truly work for a living, can express themselves in that blue collar, working man kind of way, the way Layne did.
Memoriam for Layne Staley, for Barrett Martin
When he was at his peak of greatness, he was awesome to behold. His command of his voice and natural charisma was a very rare combination indeed and those of us who toured with him and saw him onstage remember the power he held. His unique vocal style has been frequently imitated since the heyday of the Seattle music scene, but none will ever really come close to his mastery. He was most certainly "a natural" and one couldn't have imagined a more perfect embodiment of a rock singer.
Surprisingly, behind this outer image, was a very intelligent, gracious and humble man. When Alice and the Trees toured together over the course of 12 months and in as many countries, I saw a different side of Layne. His guest list, for example, was not for friends or elite patrons of the rock circuit; it was for the kids who couldn't afford to by a ticket. I remember an argument he had with a tour manager who needed Layne's share of the list for some VIPs. Layne refused to give it up saying, "Those people can afford to buy their own tickets, those kids out in front of the club cannot".
He refused to budge on this and that's when I knew he really had backbone. Because those kids were the ones he thought should really see his show, those of the dispossessed. I remember wandering around European cities with him and talking about the age and history of the places we were in, marveling at the architecture, the differences in style. He really had a keen intellect and a wicked sense of humor and he always made us laugh at the profane. A couple years later when we formed our own band, Mad Season, we talked about how our life experiences, together and separately, had brought us all to this singular point.
The point of deciding to create together, with the focused intention of making a great record. And that is exactly what we did. We made the record we wanted to make, about how we felt, musically and spiritually. I have always felt that it was the finest rock record I ever had the privilege of making, and I think the rest of the band would agree. Unfortunately, we lost Baker Saunders, the bassist, a couple years ago, in a similar manner. Now there are only three of us from that band left, but the music we made together is the statement of that friendship and trust. And I think that is what defined Layne as an artist: because he made the kind of music he wanted to make, not what the trends dictated.
He cut a wide swath through popular music with his style and it helped define the trends that are still being copied today. He lived what others pretended to. And then he wrote about it. My best memory of Layne was when we were making the Above album. He was in the studio lounge reading Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.
I had read it a few years earlier so we started talking about what it meant to be an artist and have a spiritual message. I don't need to get into the specifics of the conversation, but suffice it to say that Layne Staley felt as though he was on a spiritual mission through his music. Not a rock mission, a spiritual mission. And I think that is evident in his words and in the timbre of his voice. When you hear it, you know it. He was an authentic artist in a time of imposters. I'm not going to quote The Prophet, you can read that for yourselves.
But I would like to quote a Japanese death poem in the form of Jisei, the art of writing a final poem moments before one's death. This one seems to best describe how I felt about Layne Staley, in his life and his death.
My sword leans against the sky.
With its polished blade I'll beheadThe Buddha and all of his saints.
Let the lightning strike where it will.
(Shumpo Soki, Zen Master, died January 14th, 1496 age 88) --
Barrett Martin
(Screaming Trees, Mad Season)
