ALICE IN CHAINS Drummer Discusses ELTON JOHN Collaboration On 'The BJ Shea Morning Experience'

ALICE IN CHAINS drummer Sean Kinney was interviewed yesterday morning (Monday, August 24) by "The BJ Shea Morning Experience" on the Seattle station KISW 99.9 FM. The entire program is now available for download as an MP3 audio file at this location. The chat can also be heard using the audio player below.

A rough transcript of the conversation follows.

Q: We heard that Elton John makes an appearance on the [new ALICE IN CHAINS] CD ["Black Gives Way To Blue"]?

Kinney: He does make an appearance.

Q: How did all that come together?

Kinney: That was weird. We have a guy that has worked with us for 20 years or so and he worked with Elton for a while and got a couple other people that worked with us in the past that work in his camp, so over the years I've got to meet him a few times and Jerry's [Cantrell, ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist] met him. He was the songwriter that Jerry kind of first got into, and the first concert that [late ALICE IN CHAINS singer] Layne [Staley] went to, actually, by coincidence, was Elton John, as a kid. And we're all huge fans, and we did this tune and we did this demo and there was some piano on it and then there was one without it. And then we were thinking maybe we should put some piano on this, talking about it in the studio and we were like, "Who are we going to get to play?" and our buddy piped up and said, "Call Elton." We were, like, "Yeah, right," you know. Got a laugh out of it. And he was like, "No, seriously. Call him." So I think Jerry sent him a little e-mail, told him what the song was about and if he wanted to check it out, you know, [to make sure] it's cool. They got back with us and we sent him the song and he totally dug it and said he'd do it. We were like, "Whoa!"

Q: So did he actually come in there and do it with you guys?

Kinney: No, we'd actually finished the record, and you know, he actually has a job so he was a little busy. He was finishing up the run of his Vegas thing, "The Red Piano", and it was like the last two shows or something in Vegas and the record was done maybe two or three weeks and we knew he was going to do it but we had to schedule it so we all went up to Vegas and went to his show. Then he came into the studio and just played the track. It was a real trip, man. You walk in there and there is the piano and we had to have the song charted out for him, so you walk in there and see our song on his piano and it was like, "This is way surreal."

Q: It's interesting how you mentioned that it was Layne's first concert and read that the song he plays on is about Layne.

Kinney: It is, you know?! It's kind of like a song about saying goodbye, you know, closing some doors and opening others and it's the last song on the record. It's a real heartfelt tune, so it's amazing, and that's one of the reasons I think Elton wanted to do it too. It's really one of those kind of weird things that you can't imagine [ever] to happen, so it's cool when those things go down, and he was such a gracious guy with his time and so cool, you know, and it couldn't have worked out any better.