Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

In retrospect, Serletic said, “I think there’s a ghostly quality to the final vocal that he delivered that I think is really haunting and moving in its own right. From a production standpoint, he was a guy that had lost all his teeth; he was not in good shape. It was really sad.”

Asked years later about working with Layne on the Class of ’99, Morello tweeted, “Mostly sad. He was not well bless him.” There are two things worth noting about this session: first, this was probably Layne’s last studio recording—it’s unclear whether this session or the Music Bank sessions happened first; and second, it was the last time Susan saw him.20

*   *   *

After the Metallica tour, Jerry scheduled a U.S. headlining tour that would run through October, ending with a Halloween homecoming performance at the Showbox in Seattle.21 Layne went to the show but kept a low profile. According to Jimmy Shoaf, Layne watched the performance from backstage and possibly from the audience. He did not perform. During the after-show party, Layne, Shoaf, and a third person posed for a picture together, which surfaced on the Internet several years later. This is one of the last photos of Layne known to exist. That night was the last time Shoaf saw Layne.22

*   *   *

On July 19, 1999, Jerry, Sean, and Mike were scheduled to appear on the nationally syndicated radio show Rockline to promote their greatest hits compilation and box set. Jerry and Mike were in the studio, while Sean was participating by phone from Albany, New York. There was a surprise twist midway through. Layne, who was listening from home, called in the middle of the show and stuck around for the duration of the program.

Asked about the possibility of the band regrouping to record new material besides the two new songs, there was a bit of a disconnect. Jerry said, “We’ll let you know.” Layne responded, “Okay,” without hesitation.

“Layne, what’s your attitude toward that? Are you ready to record?” the host, Bob Coburn, asked.

“Sure, I’d do it anytime.”

A caller asked, “I want to know who Alice is and how does she like being in chains?”

Jerry deferred the question to Layne, noting he had never asked that question. “That story is basically a bunch of drunken guys who had plans to start a death metal band who dressed in drag. The band never was formed, and so I took the name,” Layne said. There is no evidence of Layne ever making plans to start a death metal band with anyone, according to his former Alice ’N Chains bandmates Johnny Bacolas and James Bergstrom. “No, we were never going to start a death metal band. Probably him trying to sound cool instead of saying he was in a glam band,” Bacolas wrote in an e-mail. There is photographic evidence of at least one early Alice in Chains show where the four founding members took the stage wearing what Mike Starr described as “bad 70s dresses.”23 Only Layne would know how and why he turned all of this into a story about a death metal band that dressed in drag.

Layne’s sense of humor was firing on all cylinders. A female caller asked, “Out of all your CDs and songs, what do each of you consider your most successful work?”

“No, baby,” Layne interjected. “What do you consider my most successful work?” The other band members and host Bob Coburn were cracking up.24 This was the last interview Layne ever did.

*   *   *

At some point in the late 1990s or early 2000s, Layne made a rare social appearance at a party at Ann Wilson’s home. In the Wilsons’ memoir Kicking and Dreaming, she wrote, “He wasn’t quite the recluse he would become in the months before he died in 2002, but it was still rare enough to see him that his presence was the talk of the party.”

After the other guests had left, it was just Layne and Wilson, and Wilson decided she wanted to go for a swim. Layne followed her to her pool but did not jump in. He sat in a lounge chair looking at the sky and drinking a beer while Wilson was swimming. He told her that as a kid, he had excelled at swimming and diving. “I loved to dive into water,” he told her, adding that it was a whole “different world.”

“Suddenly, a huge meteor went over us,” Wilson wrote. “It looked like a bright piece of burning coal, and for a second it lit up Layne’s face. He looked young again, like a kid who loved nothing better than to dive into water. In that moment, there was nothing dark in his life.”

“Did you see that?” Layne asked with great excitement, according to Wilson’s recollection. “How close do you think that was to us, Ann? Do you think that almost hit us, Ann? How lucky are we to have seen that?”

“It was really beautiful,” Wilson said.

“Do you have any idea … how rare it is for a meteor that big, and that bright, to come that close to us? We are really, really lucky people, Ann. You and me.”

That was the last time she saw Layne.25

*   *   *