He was stalked by addiction, and it just creeps up on you again and again.” He was in the emergency room and probably died five times. “He was in and out of treatment 10 times. “He was very honest with me about drug addiction,” said Layne’s mother. His bandmates would fly to LA for weekly therapy sessions at rehab, but nothing worked. As early as the Dirt tour, the band’s management hired bodyguards to keep people away who might supply him drugs, eventually cancelling tours to keep him from harm’s way. Instead, as evidenced on songs like Godsmack, Junkhead and many others, he chose the oblivion of heroin. If only Layne could have made it easier to deal with his own memories. We’ve taken some painful feelings and made it sound beautiful, and made it easier for people to deal with those memories.” We keep them loose enough to allow others to apply them to their story and their lives. Sometimes their situation is in a completely different ball park from when we wrote the lyrics, but that’s kind of the idea. They’ve approached us, and they’ve experienced those same feelings and they identify with it, almost to the point where they are certain that that song was written for them or about them. “We’re kinda just hitting on feelings that are found in a lot of people. “We deal with a lot of painful issues, without getting too specific,” explained the frontman. But as is often the case with truly iconic singers, it was Layne’s inner torment that enabled the music to touch so many people, the knowledge that although you may be alone, someone else was in that dark place with you. Sadly, he was wrong about being at death’s bed, it just took a long time for him to sleep: drummer Sean Kinney later commented that the singer’s death was like “one of the world’s longest suicides”. The guy who was supposed to fall down and be at death’s bed or whatever people wanted to think I was doing… That guy was making records and getting his artwork into gallery shows.” “I don’t feel like I’m the type of guy who should be in front of a camera.” In another interview he added, “The same people who put you on the pedestal are just dying to fucking tear you down and write about it. “I hate it,” he says in a soundbite found on YouTube. He didn’t like doing press, and interviews with him became increasingly rare. He never gave anything less than everything emotions laid bare.ĭespite interviewing the band several times, I never met Layne. Layne was never anything less than brilliant. I saw Alice In Chains for the first time at London’s Marquee club on March 8, 1991, opening for Megadeth and blowing them offstage, and was fortunate enough to see them maybe a dozen times after that. ![]() First and foremost, he was an incredible singer, utterly mesmerising even when he barely moved. Wading through endless video clips on YouTube, it’s difficult to reconcile the goofy, happy young man with what he became, but Layne should be remembered for more than his addictions.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |