ALICE IN CHAINS Guitarist: 'LAYNE STALEY Is With Us All The Time'

Sauli Vuoti of Imhotep recently conducted an interview with ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist Jerry Cantrell. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On the last two songs ALICE IN CHAINS recorded — "Get Born Again" and "Died" — which were featured on the "Music Box" compilation:

"We wanted to put some new songs on the box and also create something new for ourselves since we hadn't done music together for a while. I definitely intended to do another ALICE album. Even when I did my solo albums (1998's 'Boggy Depot' and 2002's 'Degradation Trip'),I always wanted to be the guitarist of ALICE IN CHAINS. That's the band I founded. I've played with great people but nothing matches up to the level of ALICE IN CHAINS. There was something magical in it. It was fun making a bunch of songs that turned out to be records. We wanted to do exciting stuff that we hadn't done before and those two songs were great. 'Get Born Again' I like more — it is really 100% ALICE. We were fully intending to do another album but losing Layne didn't make that a possibility. I mourned my friend, but also my band. It took some time to go through that, but by spending time together and getting together in rehearsal rooms here and there we realized we still love to play. And we play amazing together. We created great stuff together; for me it is unique as fuck. So playing this shit together wasn't so far-fetched of an idea for me. We've gone through the process and here we are. One of the best experiences of being in a band is that you make it all up as you go along. For us we are writing our own book and there are a lot of pages left and we don't know how those are going to turn out. I am really looking forward to putting new pages down in our book, so I can't tell you where this is going, but we are together and the shit sounds great. And we are gonna bring it around and have fun with anyone who wants to come and check us out. We aren't doing this for us, we are doing it for Layne and for anybody who loves the music as much as we did."

On Layne Staley:

"Layne is with us all the time. We talk about him every day, joke around and he is with us all the time. When we play the music he is with us there in that room and it is totally cool, I wouldn't have it any other way. This is about us, about him, about the music we did together and people who digged it. We had great success and spoke to a big audience. We weren't for everybody, but it is OK, we weren't the baddest thing there is to this planet to everyone. Maybe to some people, but not to everyone. But to us we were and that was all that counted. It is also great to go somewhere else and create some more. And we certainly had that and will have in the future too."

On whether there will be another ALICE IN CHAINS album:

"We are trying to figure that out now. It is a natural process and creative, cool things have always come out by me spending time with my friends and just playing. When we sit down we come up with ideas, ideas become into songs, songs happen, songs form albums, the direction changes. We are now doing something that wasn't a possibility to us two years ago. Now it is happening, and the upcoming possibilities are pretty exciting. I still get a kick out of writing, I still enjoy doing it. I get a lot of satisfaction. I have compiled a bunch of tunes during the last few years fully intending to put out my third record. It will happen at some point. But it is an avenue outside of the band that is completely different; it is an opportunity to grow. I also have to say that when I was doing those solo records, I always felt like the guitarist of ALICE IN CHAINS and that was and always will be my first and foremost love. Who knows what's gonna happen? We could continue, or we could turn into something else. I don't know, I don't have any idea. The possibilities are out there, and we are taking one day at a time and try to feel what is the best thing to do. We made some good decisions in the past and I couldn't imagine us making stupid ones in the future. Of course you make some mistakes along the way, but that is part of the game. But we stand behind our stuff; if we are gonna put a record out or stand on the stage, we are gonna be 100% behind it, that I can promise you. That is the way it has always been and that's the way it is always gonna be."

Read the entire interview at this location.