It was during the last years of the 80's decade that many youngsters from Seattle gathered to form their bands, including the 4 original members of Alice in Chains. Layne Staley had formed the previous Alice in Chains incarnation called "Alice'n Chains" and before that, "Sleze" both bands had Hair Metal" influences”
Meanwhile, Jerry Cantrell had gone through "Sinister", "Raze" and the first incarnation of "Diamond Lie" that lasted a short time. After Diamond Lie, Jerry had a brief stint in "Gypsy Rose" a band in which he met and shared with bassist Mike Starr. Starr had previously been in "Cyprus", a band that he formed when he was a pre-teenager which led him to meet a drummer called Sean Kinney. After Cyprus and before Gypsy Rose, Mike was part of a heavy metal band called "Sato" that had some impact because they won a battle of the bands contest.
Finally, after losing his mother and grandmother, Jerry goes to live to the "Music Bank", a place where he meets Layne Staley. Jerry then decides to reform his former band Diamond Lie, recruiting Mike and Sean, and Layne, who showed quite reluctant to leave his former band. According to Jerry Cantrell: “Layne was playin’ with another band, but he came in to jam with us after we’d been playin’ together.… He was just such a cool fuckin’ guy and his voice was just amazing, and we knew we wanted to be in a band with him right off the bat. So it was just a period of time of waitin’ him out. And then that didn’t seem to work, so we told him, “We’re gonna get a new singer,” and we started auditioning singers in his rehearsal room, and we just brought in the shittiest guys we could find. (Laughs.) We auditioned a redheaded male stripper who was just terrible, and that was it. And [Layne] was like, “Fuck it. I can’t let you guys play with these fuckin’ clowns. I’ll fuckin’ join the band.”
Alice in Chains
Facelift
The transition between hair metal and sleaze rock of the 80's to the darkness of grunge as we knew it in the 90's has only one name: Facelift. While many of their contemporaries showed influences of bands like Pixies, Black Flag, The Stooges o Sonic Youth, Alice in Chains was not afraid to show the world a combination of Van Halen and Black Sabbath, making it clear that they had nothing to do with the explosion of alternative rock. Facelift is a very important album in the history of Alice in Chains; It´s the beginning of a new sound that no one ever has been able to equal.
Once Diamond Lie had formed they immediately began to rehearse, to play and to work on some demos (read the article “Publisher Demos” http://www.bleedforaliceinchains.com/#!publisher-demos/c1y9d) .Randy Hauser, a local promoter of bands that was well known in the scene by those days, offered to pay for the demos. Ken Deans met Randy Hauser who talked to him about Diamond Lie. Deans became this way, the first manager of the band sharing credits with Hauser.
According to Ken Deans: “I was approached by a guy named Randy Hauser. He was a convicted drug dealer that was on parole, and liked to hang out in the rock scene. He came to me and he goes, “Hey, here’s a band that I think is really special.” So he took me out to see Diamond Lie, and I agreed. They were definitely a full-on rock band. They were great players, they partied beyond their capacities, had sex with every woman that looked at them, and didn’t have a pot to piss in. I talked to Randy and I said, “Look, we need to take these guys into the studio and make a demo so we can shop it.”
The demos became the best introduction to Diamond Lie, calling the attention of the major labels executives. According to Nick Terzo: “I was hired by ASCAP [American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers] to be a membership rep, and the first trip I did was go up to Seattle. We came across something called the Music Bank, which had 50 or 60 rehearsal rooms, all full. It was kind of odd because I was thinking, Where did this come from? It was surreal to me, to see this much activity, this many rooms, a multitude of different genres. I was coming from L.A., thinking that’s the only music scene at the time. At the Music Bank, I went and saw a band play called Diamond Lie. The room was so small that the musicians had to stay in one room and their lead singer had to sing in the hallway because there just wasn’t room. It was a rough, crude situation, but I was pretty impressed with the lead singer. Just his voice. And he had a wicked sense of humor.”
Layne explain us his opinion about Jerden on Facelift: "Basically Dave just let us do our thing and let it flow... We really didn't know what we would sound like when we came to record the album, 'cause we'd done demos beforehand that sounded a lot cleaner, more accessible. I think with Dave's help, just letting us be ourselves, it just came out really dark and heavy and that's what we wanted but didn't know we had really."
Facelift is the great debut of Alice in Chains and was released on August 21st, 1990. It contains 12 songs that put the foundations for what would come later for the band.
Facelift is an album that could be classified as a hybrid; on one side you can clearly feel the essence of the bands of the late 80's as Guns n 'Roses, Hanoi Rocks or Extreme in its attitude and bands like Van Halen in the technique. But then, you can also hear the influence of Black Sabbath, particularly in the slower songs, which provide the atmospheric dye that the classic and legendary band offered.
Although the album features heavy melodic dyes in the structure of the songs, there´s something that differentiates it clearly from those 80´s bands; the lyrics and the voice of Layne Staley. The lyrics on one hand have a much darker tone than heavy or sleaze bands, digging much more into the mental processes of a generation without much future than the street adventures the bands of the 80´s wrote about it. On the other hand, Layne Staley´s voice is much more raspy and nuanced, with a very wide range that could go from tortuous and deep voices to the most piercing screams. In that sense, Facelift is a unique album inside the Alice in Chains catalog, because it´s the only one where Layne's voice is not doubled or harmonized with Jerry Cantrell.
On this album the great duo was still emerging, so Layne's voice is widely prevalent in this recording. Additionally, the youth and good health of the singer in this period makes his voice can be listened like no other album, with a sense of melody and a shattering force that give chills, even 24 years after its release. Another 2 points I want to highlight in this album are: first, the sound. It´s a sound much more "accessible", easier to digest and lighter than his other albums, such as "Dirt" which has a “Sludge" essence " in their tempos and especially the distorted sound of guitars. In Facelift, the sound is the metal bands had in the late 80s; clear, powerful and strong, with one exception, the way the band played was not the typical based on the technique, but rather contained emotionality in the progression of each song. Secondly I would like to note Mike Starr bass in this recording. Personally I think the performance of Mike in this album is awesome and it is also a merit of the producer we could hear a recognizable and loud bass sound. A high point among the album features.
The album starts with "We Die Young", a song that leaves no one indifferent. The opening riff is great, followed by the powerful work of Sean on drums. The initial "uhhhhhh" by Layne is the calm before the storm in vocal terms, too powerful and melodic voice, making We die Young the perfect beginning to the Alice in Chains story. It´s a suffocating and sinister song that won´t let you breathe for 2 ½ minutes. The lyrics of this song are as powerful as its music (Down, Down, Down, you´re rollin´/ watch the blood float in the muddy sewer/ take another hit/ and bury your brother/ and we die young / faster we run) and talk about the brutality of kids gangs in Seattle. According to Layne: “I like that song a lot. It was written during a time when there was an uprising of gang activity around the Seattle area and it was all over the news. It was scary. All the kids, you know, dying. That's what that song's about."
"Man in the Box" is, perhaps one of the most popular or directly the best known song of the entire Alice in Chains catalog. It must be the song that has been played the most in band's history. It´s a slow song with a bass and guitar that mark the tempo of the song. Cantrell's guitar and Layne´s voice at the beginning of the song set the mood of a song that would become an anthem to this day. The lyrics in MIB are similar to the plot of "Planet of the Apes" in terms of reversing the roles between the human race and its brutality, and the peaceful animals, calves in this case (I'm the man in the box / buried in my shit / will not you come & save me / save me). It is also critical of the government policy, made through a blind, deaf and dumb Jesus, one of the few songs of the catalog that goes into these matters. According to Layne Staley: “I started writing about censorship and around that time we (the band) went out for dinner with some Columbia Records people who were vegetarians. They told me how veal was made from calves rose in these small boxes, and that image stuck in my head. So I went home and I wrote about government and eating meat as seen through the eyes of a doomed calf.” Nick Terzo was one of the executives who participated in the dinner and corroborates the origin of the song: “I was vegetarian at the time, and I had this long discussion with the band at dinner once about how veal is actually produced, how these calves are put in the boxes. That was kind of the genesis for the song “Man in the Box.” The success of Facelift is because of this song in a great part. When it came to the radio stations became a hit immediately that helped the album to sell more copies.
According to Jerry Cantrell: “Man in the Box” hit, and everything changed. When that song hit, we sold half a million records. I think we toured for eight fucking months, and sold 40,000 records. Then that song hit, and boom, there it went. As far as “Man in the Box” goes, I’ve had conversations with the record company about this, and everybody conveniently forgets the fact that nobody really liked that song [laughs]. They thought it was too slow and dirgey. There was some discussion about it maybe not being on the record, and we’re like, “Fuck that — that song is killer.”
"Sea of Sorrow" is a song that has a structure more conservative. It´s a song with classic hard rock structure, start, verse and a catchy chorus. It could be compared with songs made by heavy metal bands of the late '70s. The song begins strangely with piano parts accompanied by a classic metal riff by Cantrell. Starr's bass again holding the track throughout its development. Cantrell's solo in this song is like a tornado that surrounds you, it´s really fast and well developed showing all the young talent of Jerry. As mentioned above, the vocal parts are the highlight in this album and "Sea" is another good example. Layne shows all his voice in this song by parts with low, high and melodic parts with raspy screams that demonstrate the potential of the young singer by that time. The lyrics maybe are not strong enough at times falling in clichés (You opened fire/ and your mark was true / You opened fire/aim my smilin' skull at you /You opened fire.../ I live tomorrow, you I'll not follow/ As you wallow in a sea of sorrow) but think that the band was making its debut and the boys were still very young, so their potential in lyrics hadn´t been reached the peak of maturity.
The next song is perhaps the best song of Facelift. Or at least the most intense. "Love, Hate, Love" is a tortured song that takes us through the darkest thoughts of a broken relationship. Again, we are in front of an acoustic-electric hybrid. Kinney plays a key role in this song to set the accents and nuances in a song of psychotic features, while Starr supports the development with inspired and powerful bass lines. The lyrics have a tone of schizophrenia ( I tried to love you / I thought I could/ I tried to own you I thought I would / I want to peel the skin from your face / Before the real you lays to waste / You told me I'm the only one / Sweet little angel you should have run / Lying, crying, dying to leave / Innocence creates my hell) . Layne Staley: "That was a song about myself and my girlfriend and I wrote it during a time when I was treating her really badly and didn't know how to break the pattern. It was kind of therapeutic, you know? When you really don't know how to break a sick pattern, then you write it down and sing it and it kind of breaks the pattern." Layne's voice gives chills, you get goosebumps when you listen the main character in a state of deep despair, perhaps on the edge of committing a crime ( Lost inside my sick head / I live for you but I'm not alive / Take my hand before I kill / Still love you, I still burn). Towards the end of the song the shuddering climax comes. Jerry Cantrell performs a dramatic guitar solo, reinforcing the idea of self-pity and a man on the verge of running a horrendous act pushed by the voices of his inner demons that will not let him live. Sean Kinney starts hitting the cymbals of his drum kit in a crescendo that tells us that the outcome is about to happen. The man, embodied in Layne, loses the battle against madness and the screams are deafening repeating the phrase "Love, Hate, Love". It is in this part where the one who is listening feels the worst. The man´s demons mock him through Cantrell's guitar (what a great guitar effect my God!). There´s no turning back, After realizing what he has done, the man repeats with bitterness and madness one last time the ill-fated phrase. The acoustic echoed guitar sounds at the end trying to disappear. LHL is almost a demonic and criminal song. The listener can have a scary feeling. And to produce that feeling, is something in what only a few succeed. SUBLIME.
After this great song. Alice gives us a break with a song that has a more grunge feeling than the previous ones. The opening riff of "It ain´ t like that "is huge. It’s tuned in a different way to the other songs on this album. It´s fun to know that this riif was born by mistake. According to Jerry Cantrell: “A great dinosaur riff that was actually a mistake. I whipped out this stupid, huge riff and the guys loved it and told me to play it again. I said “what? I was jerkin´off!” but they insisted, so me and Mike (Starr) made it into something. Mike (Starr) had the metal part, I had to bendy deal and I wrote the lyrics. A cool mistake” It is a slow song with a great groove that invites to headbanging, The bass lines are shattering again in this song accompanying the main riff at the same time, which gives it even more power to riff. Layne delivers many nuances to his performance going from nasal vocals at the begginning , to lower tones in the development of the song and melodic screams in the chorus. Fantastic. Lyrics create quite visual images in our imagination (In my sight, not forgotten/ Feel as though, a tooth were rotten / Behind the smile, a tongue that's slippin'/ Buzzards cry, when flesh is rippin'). An immortal song that will never go out of style.
“Sunshine” has historically been an underrated song, perhaps because the melodies are somewhat more accessible, less harsh. However I think that despite the initial melody is actually a bit smoother, the chorus of the song is musically remarkable. Layne drags the word "Sunshine" in the chorus making very clear the direction that vocals would take in the future. Lyrically, it is a song written by Cantrell to his mother (Am I your reflection /Melting mirror smile /Am I worth the value/ Do my love defile). And in the Chorus his mother speaks to him (Sunshine...sweet love my labor) like a ghost who returns to take care of her young child. A good song in my opinion.
Pure Hard Rock is what Alice gives us on "Put you down". The riff by Cantrell is as catchy as the bands of the 80s. It has very little to do with the sound that Alice in Chains would have as a trademark years later ... and yet somehow the groove of the song you caught you. During the 93 tour it was a song that could not be out of the setlists. Overall the band shows quite blended. A highlight is Cantrell´s guitar sound in the part ".. mind / It's slower, reduction is addictive too / Personality overview". Layne is shown as the best hard rocker of the '80s, playing games with his voice and lyrics (Put you down, down, down, gon put you down) A right song, different from the classic Alice in Chains sound.
Ken Deans
Manager.
Nick Terzo
Executive.
Diamond Lie bécame more and more popular, so they decided to change their name. In Mike Starr´s words: “We had a show at Kent Skate King, and we decided we needed a new name because we were getting pretty popular. Layne was like, “Well, I made up the name Alice N’ Chains for my old band.” I’m the one who came up with the idea to put the i in Alice in Chains, so it wasn’t like Guns N’ Roses.”
Alice in Chains had been born and a number of problems begin to appear, something to what fans were always used to. Despite the good impression the band caused on Nick Terzo, the band hadn´s signed a contract yet. Ken Deans was concerned about the situation with Hauser because of his drug dealing problems, and despite Deans had a partnership with Kelly Curtis (Mother Love Bone and later Pearl Jam manager) they were breaking up at that time because of certain differences. Kelly Curtis didn´t want to be associated with Alice in Chains because they had problems already. Ken Deans handed a cassette tape to Susan Silver, who also worked with Curtis, of demos of the band in order of not losing the band that he had bet his chips for. According to Susan Silver: “Ken gave me a cassette tape of some of the songs that Alice had done, and they were so catchy and so wonderful. I went to see them live and thought they were great fun and very energetic and entertaining and spent a little time with them and they were hilarious. In a matter of time, the fellow that they called their manager, who was a hairstylist-slash–coke dealer, took a second vacation to prison. Ken asked Kelly and I if we both wanted to work on the project together, so we said we’d give that a try.”
Kelly Curtis
Manager.
Susan Silver
Manager.
Dave Jerden was in charge of the recording console of the We Die Young EP and was the choice for the album as well. According to Nick Terzo: “Dave Jerden was my number-one pick to produce. I just thought the Jane’s Addiction record he did sounded amazing. I wanted it to sound like that. He had very good chemistry with the band. Dave’s a tough guy—he’s a bit of a taskmaster—but he’s got a very good sense of humor.” Jerden had a very good musical direction and a strong personality, always trying to get the best potential of each band that produced, respecting the essence of the original sound “. In Dave Jerden´s words: “For Facelift, they got me a condo down by Puget Sound, and we did all the basic tracks at London Bridge. I was just amazed how great Jerry was and Layne was. Sean’s arm was broken, so I tried to use the drummer from Mother Love Bone, but he couldn’t play the backbeat parts, so Sean ended up playing the drums with a broken arm, and it came out good. Mike Starr was great; I liked Mike Starr a lot.”
As we all know, Alice in Chains had behind them a hair and heavy metal background and many say that the birth of the "Alice in Chains Sound" was due to the influence of the Facelift producer. Dave Hillis, productor e ingeniero al respecto: “I think Alice in Chains’ change in sound was natural. I don’t think they jumped on a bandwagon. I remember the first demo they did with Rick Parashar at London Bridge, before I worked there, sounded so good; it sounded like a record. They weren’t hair metal, and they weren’t quite the Alice you know. The most drastic change with Alice really came when they started using Dave Jerden as a producer. When they recorded with him at London Bridge, I was able to be there sometimes. What I noticed was that Dave Jerden slowed their tempos down, which made it sound heavier, and that’s what they’re most known for.”
Dave Hillis
Producer & engineer
Dave Jerden
Facelift producer
Then we hear Cantrell´s guitar with a dark ballad tone and Mike Starr´s bass supporting him with power and groove in this first part. It´s the first song of Alice in Chains which tends to play with the vocal harmonies between Staley and Cantrell, although it´s not at full time. Originally the duo sung a line together but then Cantrell supports singing the last word sung by Layne. "Bleed the Freak" has a dark and revengeful tone against people self-referred as "normal" and the establishment (My cup runnet over/ Like blood from a Stone/ These stand for me / Name your god and bleed the freak / I like to see /How you all would bleed for me) In Jerry Cantrell´words: “The song is us against the world, those people who put you down: “I put up with many years of you putting us down and watching us bleed, now I´d like to see you bleed some back” Again, Layne is sublime on lead vocals and the Cantrell solo in an a top level. The darkest part of the song comes right after the solo, when Layne starts muttering while behind his back there are sounds like from other worlds, voices and the tortured guitar of Cantrell. (All of these things you've done for me / have left me so fucking tired / I'm not saying you haven't done a lot of good /but if there's one thing you can do / you can bleed for me/ BLEED FOR ME) Great song.
An acoustic guitar chord that seems to immerse us in a dream is the beginning of “I can´t remember” Suddenly the dream becomes darker due to the power of Mike Starr´s bass. This song shows us for the first time a combination of acoustic and electric guitars that qualify this song as a perfect dark song. According Cantrell in Music Bank, this is one of the first attempts for AIC to find their sound. Layne talks to us about how sad his childhood was due to the lack of his father and problems at school (Remember identity / the visions in my mind from / Screamin 'at me / And mama, mama, ooh ... my angry brains of infancy). A song that shakes.
Layne has an excellent vocal performance on "Confusion". This time the backing vocals wouldn´t be performed by Cantrell, but Mike Starr, who gives a more serious tone to the chorus in a song that has quite depressive lyrics (Love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering / You're there crying, I feel not a thing/ Drilling my way deeper in your head /Sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead). Despite being a great song, I've always thought that maybe something is missing, as a twist in the middle. Somehow becomes a little monotonous, mostly because of its duration (about 6 minutes).
"I know somethin (bout you)" is a funky song more into the style of the first albums by Red Hot Chili Peppers than AIC. This song in my opinion is not in line with the other songs. It gives the impression more of filler than a song written for this album. It may be a leftover from the first times of the band which is in tune with the street rock of 80´s. Layne sings fun and surprises with the sound he does at the beginning of the song. The lyrics are not too deep either (Why don't I take it all OK? / I like to dig and fuck around with your day/ I'm gonna tell your mamma / Yeh I'm gonna blackball your name / Ain't now way you'll go without me/Every chance I'll make you pay) But the chorus is pretty well done, making it clear that the exploration in the search for their definitive sound was just around the corner.
The album ends with "Real Thing" a song that, like several on the second half of Facelift, has a clear influence of metal riffs from the old school. But also has exploration dyes for their own sound. In vocal terms, Layne is actually a monster in this song, delivering the best of his mid-range. The lyrics set a precedent for what would be the second album, Dirt, and express the effects of the drugs in a person, in this case cocaine (You know the doctors never did me no good/ They said son you're gonna be a new man/ I said thank you very much and / Can I borrow fifty bucks? / 'Cause I'm goin' down the steps on a white line/Goin' down the steps on a white line/ Goin' down the steps on a white line/ Straight to nowhere) Layne about this song: "That song was written about a friend of mine who was addicted to cocaine really bad and he ended up going insane from doing so much and was locked up in a psychiatric ward for about eight months. When he was released he was clean for a couple of months and then started doing coke again." The band does a right job in this song, however this one is far to be one of the best on the album.
Facelift definitely is not the best Alice in Chains album, but it definitely is their heaviest album in musical terms. I also think not to make a mistake in saying that it has the best vocal performance of Layne Staley in his career and that has the best bass sound. Perhaps the most gratifying thing of hearing an album like Facelift, is the tremendous honesty of the band, who didn´t hesitate a second to put the best of themselves in it, with all the influences that they brought on their background, they didn´t jump in the bandwagon of the "alternative" that was already taking off. With Facelift you understand the contempt of the band felt against the "Grunge" term, they always considered themselves as a rock band rather than a “label” that music industry put to determine what is fashionable and sell more records. Facelift is somehow a statement of principles, to say “We´re Alice in Chains, we play dirty rock and we have come here to stay”. Facelift is the beginning of an affair that continues to this day and has not fallen a single minute, Facelift have glimpses of how great it would be Alice in Chains a couple of years later and mainly shows a young band, before all the bad and dark, hungry for success, full of potential and mainly with a unique and undeniable talent.
By: Schulz
When Hauser was out, a management of three people started; Kelly Curtis, Susan Silver and Ken Deans. This new association management got a tour for the band with Soundgarden and Mother Love Bone, increasing their popularity and acceptance.
Nick Terzo, the ASCAP executive was now working at Columbia and maintained an excellent relationship with Susan Silver. It was time then that the long-awaited signing of Alice in Chains could happen. Nick Terzo about: In Nick Terzo´s words: “On that same visit to Seattle, I’d also met Susan Silver and Chris Cornell. I stayed in touch with everyone, and actually when Mother Love Bone did their demo, I helped shop it. Alice would send me a demo when they did a demo. I had committed to ASCAP for one year. I stayed there for one year and two weeks and got a job as director of A&R on the West Coast at Columbia Records in spring 1989. I signed Alice in Chains that summer.”
Alice in Chains band becomes a priority band for the label because they had the youngest president in its history, Don Ienner, which at that time was only 36 years old. Ienner wanted to dive into the 90´s betting on emerging bands and leaving in the freezer some established bands. Ienner didn´t hide his sympathy for Alice and made unique movement for the time; He put Alice to record their first EP for Columbia . It was gonna be just 15.000 copies and they would be given or sold to fans of heavy metal in the record stores. The EP was released in July 1990 ly it was called "We Die Young". It was released on vinyl and cassette format and contained 2 new songs "We Die Young" and "It ain´t t like that" plus "Killing Yourself" which was known due to it was released before. It turned out to be a very successful appetizer that would leave the road open and paved for the big debut of the band with a full-length album.
This way, the schedule is established for the recording of the first álbum of the band: Facelift.
