WILLIAM DUVALL Felt Like He Was Part Of ALICE IN CHAINS' Creative Process 'Fairly Early On'

In a new interview with "Whiplash", the KLOS radio show hosted by Full Metal Jackie, William DuVall, who joined ALICE IN CHAINS in 2006 as the replacement for vocalist Layne Staley, who died of a heroin overdose four years earlier, was asked when and how he felt integrated into the band's creative process. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think inroads were made pretty early on. A lot of the music that you hear on [2009's] 'Black Gives Way To Blue', which is the first album that we did together, began in soundchecks and in backstage dressing rooms and long bus rides during all of the touring that we did in 2006 and the tour we did in 2007 with VELVET REVOLVER. So the ideas began there. [Jerry] Cantrell [guitar, vocals] would maybe play something and go, 'Oh, yeah, that's cool,' or I would be backstage jamming on some riff and he'd go, 'Yeah.' So that's sort of what gave us the momentum to finally go into the studio and come out with 'Black Gives Way To Blue'. So, yeah, I would say fairly early on that integration began."

Asked what people tend to overlook about ALICE IN CHAINS' compositional ability, William said: "That's a tough one, because all of this is so subjective; everyone has a different experience listening. From what I see, there actually does seem to be a pretty high degree of appreciation for the writing, but I think the earmarks of ALICE IN CHAINS sonically — obviously, the harmonies and the use of harmony and the sort of melding of dissonants with consonants, both musically and vocally, and even lyrically, kind of blending the bad with the good, the ugly with the beautiful, I see a lot of appreciation for that. Unfortunately, there are elements of the story that — history and all of that — that can get sensationalized, and maybe that's what you're referring to where for some people, some of these more sensationalist elements might overshadow the music. But for the most part, I think it's pretty on point. People are digging it, people are picking up on what we're putting down and what the band has always put down."

DuVall appears on the last three ALICE IN CHAINS albums: "Black Gives Way To Blue", 2013's "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here" and 2018's "Rainier Fog".

Prior to joining ALICE IN CHAINS in 2006, DuVall was a member of punk rock bands AWARENESS VOID OF CHAOS, NEON CHRIST, BL'AST! and FINAL OFFERING. DuVall's long musical history also includes COMES WITH THE FALL and Cantrell's solo work.

Cantrell befriended the members of COMES WITH THE FALL in the early 2000s, playing shows with the band on the West Coast, then enlisting the musicians to tour with him as both opening act and backing group in support of his album "Degradation Trip".