ALICE IN CHAINS Signs With VIRGIN/EMI

Steve Appleford of Los Angeles Times reports that ALICE IN CHAINS' as-yet-untitled new album will be released mid-September via Virgin/EMI.

The band began work on the CD last October at FOO FIGHTERS frontman Dave Grohl's private Studio 606 in Northridge, before moving to Hollywood's Henson Recording Studios in December. "We've been working toward this for over a year now," says guitarist Jerry Cantrell. "It's a long haul."

Among the visitors to their recording sessions was late AIC singer Layne Staley's mother, who, along with other family members, has expressed ongoing support for the band. "It was really important that it was OK with them," says manager Susan Silver, who first began representing ALICE IN CHAINS 21 years ago and now co-manages the resurrected band with David Benveniste and his Velvet Hammer firm. "There were a lot of baby steps. The first year especially was such a profound healing for everybody."

There was some initial resistance from within the industry in 2006, particularly from U.S. promoters, she says, but that has largely changed. When Benveniste, who also represents SYSTEM OF A DOWN, DEFTONES and CYPRESS HILL, began approaching record labels with a sampling from the new sessions, the offers started coming from virtually every major label; the band eventually signed with Virgin/EMI.

"The response has been amazing. We got massive offers off of four or five songs," says Benveniste. "The most important thing to me was that we position this as a new band moving forward. The band is not a heritage act — this band is a new act and we're going to market it as such. It's a double-headed monster."

Read the entire article from the Los Angeles Times.

Video footage of ALICE IN CHAINS' February 28, 2009 performance at the Soundwave Festival in Adelaide, Australia can be viewed below (clips uploaded by "backpackdave08").