Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

By late 1999, Susan was in what she called “my own private hell” dealing with her husband’s addiction. She was also undergoing fertility treatments and eventually got pregnant. Jerry had new management and was dealing with his own addiction issues during this period. During this period of inactivity, there was a major milestone in Susan’s life. On June 28, 2000, she gave birth to a daughter, Lillian Jean Cornell, the couple’s first and only child.26

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About a week after the end of the Boggy Depot tour, Jerry started writing material for a follow-up album. “In ’98, I locked myself in my house, went out of my mind and wrote 25 songs. I rarely bathed during that period of writing, I sent out for food, I didn’t really venture out of my house in three or four months. It was a hell of an experience,” Jerry said in his official biography for Roadrunner Records.27

Degradation Trip was originally conceived as a double album, with potentially as many as thirty songs for a triple album—Jerry had been given a copy of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.28 He put together a backing band consisting of the former bassist for Suicidal Tendencies, Rob Trujillo, and the former drummer for Faith No More, Mike Bordin. At the time, both of them were the rhythm section for Ozzy Osbourne’s band.

Nearly a year after the Music Bank recording session, Jerry decided to work with Jerden again for Degradation Trip. According to Jerden, Jerry and his band arrived at the studio, set up their gear, and tested levels on the first day. By that point, it was getting late, and Jerden said, “We’ll come back tomorrow. We’ll start fresh, and we’ll start recording.” When Jerden came back the next morning, they were still there, having recorded as many as seventeen songs overnight.

“What the fuck is going on, Jerry?”

Jerry played him some of the material, and Jerden didn’t like it. “It was horrible. It was all out of time, the songs went on for, like, I don’t know how long. They were like really bad jam sessions,” he said. “We got to do this right. You and I both worked together before.”

“No, I like it.”

At that point, Jerden said, “Jerry, this isn’t going to work,” and effectively ended his role in the project. With Jerden having bailed out, his manager—who also owned the studio—called Elan Trujillo and gave him explicit instructions not to do or record anything with Jerry. Trujillo knew something had gone down but was not privy to specifics. At one point, he was alone in the control room with Jerry in the studio, saying, “Come on! Let’s fucking record this, man! Roll the tape, dude!” Though it pained him because he very much wanted to, Elan had to tell Jerry he couldn’t do it on his boss’s orders. Jerry was furious and stormed out of the studio. Jerry later said, “I started with Dave Jerden. I worked with him for one day, and then I fired him!”29

In retrospect, Jerden said if Jerry liked the material so much, he should have been producing it himself, which is what happened. He also said they have since patched things up. “Jerry and I have discussed it since then and there’s no hard feelings. I will never say anything bad about Jerry Cantrell. Jerry Cantrell is a great guy.”

The making of Degradation Trip wouldn’t get any easier. Jerry left Columbia Records in the middle of production. “After we realized it wasn’t going to be on Columbia, we just settled accounts and walked away and called it a good ten years,” Jerry said. In order to settle accounts, Jerry mortgaged his house to reimburse Columbia for money already spent and used the rest to finance the album. He signed with Roadrunner Records. Label executives complimented Jerry on his ambitious idea but said they didn’t think the market would be receptive to double albums. The decision was made to trim down Degradation Trip into a single album’s worth of material.

“It was difficult to make it one album,” Jerry said. “But I was on a new label, and I’d already been through a year of trying to find a fucking company that wanted to put it out. Nobody wanted to do it. So I made a compromise, which was to put it out as a single album first, with the promise that, at some point, it would be released as I intended it.” Lyrically, Jerry described the material as “what I was going through with Alice coming to a stop, looking at a situation where I had to move on, and not really being happy about it.” The album was scheduled for release on June 25, 2002.30

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