New ALICE IN CHAINS Singer: 'At The End Of The Day, All I Can Do Is Just Be Me'

Steven Rosen of Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with new ALICE IN CHAINS singer William DuVall. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: "Black Gives Way to Blue" is the first ALICE IN CHAINS album in 14 years. Was there some unspoken burden placed upon you to really step up to the plate and create something monumental in terms of the past legacy of the band?

DuVall: At the end of the day, all I can do is just be me. I think when you just rely on your own instincts and your own wherewithal, you usually end up OK. I kinda got into this band under circumstances where it wasn't like there was some master plan in early 2006 when they asked me to do those initial shows that eventually led to a full year of touring. At that point, it was really kind of one event at a time. And so the very first thing I did with them was the VH1 show honoring HEART. That was filmed in an arena for television and it's like it doesn't get any deeper than that. The water doesn't get any deeper and you just have to swim. I think, from that moment, it was just kind of a thing of, "Look, I'm gonna go out here and I'm just gonna be myself." That's all you can do and let the chips fall where they may. Then a week after that VH1 show, we were standing on a stage in front of 40,000 people in Portugal. And I was like, "Wow, how did we get here? OK, just go out and do this." And that's kind of been the approach every day. We all have very high standards for ourselves. I set sometimes unbearably high standards for myself [laughs]. But that's how you excel in anything and that's how you grow as a person. And this experience has taught all of us a lot about personal growth individually and collectively.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Can you talk about what you bring to ALICE IN CHAINS that is different than what [late ALICE IN CHAINS singer] Layne [Staley] brought?

DuVall: One thing is ALICE basically become sort of a two-guitar band whenever we want to be. I started out as a guitar player; I never started playing music with the idea of being a singer. That came much, much later in the game. And so that sensibility of me being a guitar player first in my mind and the interaction that that creates with [Jerry] Cantrell and [Mike] Inez and Sean [Kinney], I think, lends itself to a different kind of jamming than they perhaps used to be able to do. Just the other day, we finished soundcheck and Kinney and I just didn't want to stop. We went into a frickin' BAND OF GYPSYS-meets-WHITE STRIPES jam. Those are the kinds of things that happen night after night. You get home from the tours that you do and you assess what you have. We actually had enough at the end of '06 that we were considering taking all of 2007 off and then VELVET REVOLVER asked us to go out. We said, "Sure," and once again you're on tour and there's stuff happening. And that tour we actually took one step further and had a dedicated jam room backstage every night. Because we were playing these sheds with VELVET REVOLVER and so there's enough backstage area there where you can have your dressing room and you can have your tuning room. So we had a full-on setup every day; you could just roll off the bus in your pajamas and go rock if you wanted to. And it was cool; sometimes only one of us would be in there; sometimes all four of us would be in there; and sometimes any combination of two or three; and sometimes Duff [McKagan] would show up or Slash. It was just a rolling musical circus every day.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Can you explain the chemistry between Jerry and you and the other guys?

DuVall: I don't know, man; that is a tough thing to try to put a fine point on. When I moved with my band from Atlanta to Los Angeles back in 2000, he was one of the first people I met. My band, COMES WITH THE FALL, came out there and we had our first album ['Comes With the Fall'] that we recorded in Atlanta and we came armed with that to drop a bomb on Hollywood. And we did; we played every dive that would have us. At some point, a mutual point had turned Jerry onto that album and he just flipped out over it and was hanging out with every moment practically after that. He was jumping onstage to play our songs with us. He would learn 'em and he'd be in our apartment and ask me to show him how this one went or that one went. Or I'd say, "What are you doing on 'Sickman'?" or whatever. I don't know why it happened; I think there are a lot of characteristics that we share in terms of just being really kind of certain of what we're doing musically. Maybe that was part of it. I really don't know beyond that. It's been a much of years; it's been a lot of personal changes that have gone down over the last decade with both of us. We've stuck together and it's finally led us to this point. I just think that maybe it was in part what you just said — that I'm not Layne, that I'm not somebody who would try to be Layne. All of those things to me are unthinkable to even attempt — I'm too busy just being me and that's enough, that's enough to contend with.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: What does go through your head when you sing the old Alice songs that Layne sang on? Are you consciously trying to make them your own or attempting to stay faithful to the original? Is Layne looking over your shoulder?

DuVall: Yeah, you know, he's there, looking.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Did you know Layne personally?

DuVall: No, I didn't; I only know him through his work. When Cantrell and I met and actually started touring together, my group COMES WITH THE FALL did double duty backing him up and opening for him when he was getting the "Degradation Trip" record off the ground. And so we were actually the touring band for that as well as the opening act. We did it for two years straight, man, all of 2001 and 2002. We went all over the place and that's how he and I kind of bonded on the road beyond the initial bonding that took place in Hollywood, right? So, we'd be on a ride somewhere and he'd have some story or somethin' from the past about Layne. There were a lot of times where he'd say, "Man, you guys would get along so great." Of course, Layne was still living for most of that time. When we were on the road during the 2002 run that we did, Layne passed while we were on tour. So I was with him [Cantrell] for all of that. I didn't know him but I feel like I do because of the work and because of being around these guys who carry him with them everywhere that we go. And all the stories and the funny stuff. And it just seemed like I would have liked him a whole lot. I certainly loved his work; I loved his singing. When I'm singing those tunes, I'm just trying to sing 'em from my own place of truth. Again, that's all you can do. I'm gonna get inside (the songs) in terms of melodic liberties. I do a little of that occasionally just if it hits me to do it just because I'm inside of it. I don't do it consciously. In other words, I'm not trying to consciously stray away from it and just putting my stamp on it and getting all "American Idol" all over it. At the same though, even if I'm faithful completely note-for-note to a certain part of a tune or something like that, it's still coming from me. I'm in it, you know what I mean? The fact is, Layne was singing a lot of songs he didn't write. He did it from his own place of honesty and truth and he was himself and he was amazing so why would I do anything other than that myself? Even songs that he did write that were very much from a personal experience, what's cool about those songs is the feelings behind those personal experiences are universal feelings. It's just different shades of the blues. I understand that; I get that, man! So, there's no problem there, no disconnect there. Just get it done, you know what I mean?

Read the entire interview from Ultimate-Guitar.com.