JERRY CANTRELL Talks About ALICE IN CHAINS Reunion: 'We're Making It Up As We Go Along'

ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist Jerry Cantrell has confirmed to MTV.com that "there will be some ALICE IN CHAINS shows this year — that's a fact." At this point, the guitarist said, all he can really say is that the band is active, and that the remaining members of ALICE — himself, bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney — will be taking the stage this summer to perform songs from the band's catalog.

"We're making it up as we go along," Cantrell explained to MTV.com. "It's what we always did in the past. We're writing the book as we live it. We feel confident that we will have a good time and that it's something that will live up to the same level. It's an exploratory thing, and we're just having fun with it. We'd like to go out and play for the people that supported us and love the music as much as we have all these years. We want to celebrate what we did and the memory of our friend." [Referring to late ALICE frontman Layne Staley, who died in April 2002 from a mixture of heroin and cocaine.]

"We have played with some [singers] who can actually bring it and add their own thing to it without being a Layne clone," Cantrell explained, adding that the three remaining AIC members will be meeting with several would-be Staley proxies in the coming months, to front the group at European festival gigs. ALICE IN CHAINS have been listed as one of the acts performing at Austria's NovaRock Festival in June, but the guitarist said nothing's been confirmed yet.

"We're not interested in stepping on [Staley's] rich legacy," Cantrell said. "It's a tough thing to go through. Do you take the LED ZEPPELIN approach and never play again, because the guy was that important?" (In 1980, ZEPPELIN broke up after the death of drummer John Bonham.) "That's the approach we've taken for a lot of years. Or, do you give it a shot, try something? We're willing to take a chance on it. It's completely a reunion because the three of us who're left are back together. But it's not about separating and forgetting — it's about remembering and moving on."

"We're going to go and play the songs one more time," said Kinney. "It seems like the right time, so I figure we'll go out and play a few gigs and see where it goes. I think we might just show up in assorted places in the U.S. in the next few months without much notice and play some clubs and little theaters, and then go to Europe and play these festival gigs. Beyond that, we don't know at this point."

Read more at MTV.com.