Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

Randy Hauser had been involved in the Northwest music scene in management, promotion, or production capacities off and on since high school. According to court documents filed by Hauser and his attorney in 1991, he was arrested and charged with cocaine distribution in federal court in 1977. In addition to dealing, he had a cocaine addiction. In the summer of 1979, he walked into another person’s deal and was arrested. He pled guilty in federal court to conspiracy to distribute cocaine, for which he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, to be served concurrently with the 1977 conviction. He was paroled in 1985.8

In 1986, he was back in Seattle and decided to enroll in a local beauty school. While a student there, he met Melinda Starr, with whom he developed a friendship. After finishing the program, Hauser kept in touch with her and would occasionally see her.

“She was just amazing, and I got a little tired of hearing her talk about her boyfriend’s band,” he recalled about a conversation that took place in early 1988. (Her boyfriend at the time was Sean.) At the time, Hauser was involved with all-age dances and managed or booked thirty acts, mainly local bands that would never make it. He booked bands to play at small venues in the Seattle area: Patterson’s West, the Federal Way Skate King, and the Kent Skate King. The venue owners allowed him to do it because Hauser assumed responsibility for security and insurance.

Hauser estimates he would see between three and six bands play live each night and would often get two or three cassettes. One day at Melinda Starr’s beauty shop, she handed him a cassette of her boyfriend’s band and asked him to listen to it. He took it home and threw it in the box with the others.

About a month later, Nick Loft—at the time, an A&R man for Atlantic Records—was staying at Hauser’s home. He was going through the tapes in the box to gauge the potential of each band. He would listen to the first four bars of a song, and if he didn’t like it, would make a game show–esque buzzer noise and eject the tape. Hauser stepped out of the room while Loft was going through the tapes. Eventually, Hauser noticed Loft had listened to the first song on one cassette all the way through and was beginning to listen to the second.

“Who are these guys?” Loft asked him.

Hauser checked the tape and saw it was blank—no label with the name of the band or a contact person. “If my life depended on it, I had no idea where that tape came from,” he recalled. Loft made a copy of the anonymous demo and returned to Los Angeles. Within a few days, Loft called asking about the tape.

“Jesus,” he told Hauser, “I went into the office and put that on the intercom system. Everybody’s calling my office wondering, ‘Who is this? What kind of music is it?’”

Hauser still had no idea who the band was, and he was trying to figure it out. “I’m on the edge. I know I’ve got an act,” he said.

A few days or possibly a few weeks later, Hauser went to see Melinda Starr. When he got to the shop, she asked him, “Did you listen to my boyfriend’s tape?”

He put two and two together, matching the unnamed tape with Melinda’s boyfriend’s band. He named a few songs from the tape, which she confirmed was her boyfriend’s band.

“Okay, where do I find these guys?” he asked her.

“They’re practicing at the Music Bank.”

He arranged a meeting with the band, during which they would perform for him. When he arrived, his initial impression of them was, “Four more lowlife rejects you’ve never seen in your life.” He said they had been banned from several venues, including the OK Hotel, the Vogue, and the Grand Central Tavern. During a performance at a VFW, Layne had thrown a milk shake into the crowd, effectively blacklisting the band. Sean had allegedly punched the owner of another club. Hauser was able to get the bans lifted at these venues by cosigning for the band.

Hauser sat on the couch as he watched the band perform their five-song set. “My exact thoughts were, ‘What the fuck do I do now?’” Hauser said. “I’m sitting in front of what I know is the real deal, and I have no idea. I’d never been there.”

Hauser and the band went outside and sat under the Ballard Bridge and began talking about the future. Hauser was direct. “I’d love to work with you guys. I’d love to manage you,” he told them. They were excited, but one member expressed skepticism. “Well, what are your plans for us?” Layne asked. “What do you do?”

“You kind of got me off guard ’cause I’ve never been here,” Hauser responded. “What I’m going to do is promote the hell out of you, get a demo done, and when you guys get big enough, I’ll hand you off to one of the big LA agencies that knows what to do.”