It's Official: ALICE IN CHAINS Is Back!

ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist Jerry Cantrell's official web site administrator, who goes by the name of "ceojc", has confirmed that the band will be reuniting for an appearance at the Nova Rock festival in Austria in mid-June (web site),with "a lot more" concert dates yet to be announced.

"I hate to keep on saying this, but as most of you have heard, ALICE will be performing at Nova Rock in Austria," "ceojc" writes on Cantrell's official message board. "This is true. ALICE is back.

"Europe is a long way to go for just one show, so I feel that we are going to have a lot more to do.

"Because this is Europe and a big festival, don't count on any special ALICE tickets but you never know what the future brings.

"Let me explain why things went down the way they went down. It was not the way we wanted it to happen. The festival promoter secured a bunch of really big bands like METALLICA, GUNS N' ROSES and ALICE. The promoter decided to have a big press conference on Monday [Feb. 20]. We had not finished securing the 'business side' of the show by the time Monday rolled around. Because Monday was President's Day, our office was closed and we could not make a decission regarding releasing the info to you guys. Our European agent, because our office was closed, made an executive decision to release the show info. We fully support his choice but could not say anything untill we spoke to him to get the full stroy and due to the time difference and travel we could not make the announcement untill just now.

"Guys, please remember that nothing is official unless it comes from our office. We like to surprise you but sometimes that is not always possible.

"Jerry, Mike [Inez, bass], Sean [Kinney, drums] and the managment team are doing our best to keep you guys informed. You mean a lot to the guys and they want you to know that."

ALICE IN CHAINS frontman Layne Staley died on April 5, 2002 from a mixture of heroin and cocaine. Staley was found dead two weeks later, surrounded by intravenous drug paraphernalia in his Seattle apartment. The death certificate reads Staley's death resulted from "an acute intoxication due to the combined effects of opiate (heroin) and cocaine." The death was classified as "accidental."

As previously reported, COMES WITH THE FALL vocalist/guitarist and member of Jerry Cantrell's touring band William DuVall has been tapped to sing lead vocals with ALICE IN CHAINS at the taping of an episode of VH1 Classic's "Decades Rock Live!", a tribute to HEART that will take place March 10 at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. It is not presently clear if DuVall will be joining the group on any of the other dates that are currently being scheduled.