Rare Recording Featuring Late ALICE IN CHAINS Singer LAYNE STALEY Up For Auction

According to The Pulse Of Radio, a rare early recording made by late ALICE IN CHAINS singer Layne Staley has been put up for auction on eBay. Seller Ron Holt posted that the tape was made in 1988 and is from a band called 40 YEARS OF HATE that he and Staley were in together prior to the formation of ALICE IN CHAINS. Although future ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist Jerry Cantrell was also part of the project, he did not contribute any guitar to the recordings on the tape.

There are six songs in total with Staley singing on them, and Holt noted that he is selling just the physical tape, not the publishing rights to the tunes, which he will consider separate offers for. He wrote: "The music was a mix of industrial, rock and funk rock. The songs were never fully recorded and exist here in an unfinished state." The bid at the time of this writing was $500, or a buyer could purchase the tape outright for $5,000.

Holt also noted that alternate mixes of the songs were leaked onto YouTube over the years, while one track, "It's Coming After", was recorded by Seattle act SECOND COMING.

Cantrell told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that Staley, who died in 2002, was a singular talent. "Layne was a very unique, one-of-a-kind guy," he said. "There's, like, a handful of those guys in music, for every generation, that are that unique and that hard to cop, but a lot of people try. [Laughs] But there's a lot of people that feel the weight of what that guy brought to music and have been influenced by it."

Staley's well-publicized battles with drug addiction brought ALICE IN CHAINS' career to a virtual standstill in 1996, with his death seemingly putting an end to the band as well.

But ALICE IN CHAINS regrouped in 2006 with vocalist William DuVall, who had been part of Jerry Cantrell's solo backing band. ALICE IN CHAINS has since cut two studio albums and may release new music in 2017.