Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

According to Ken Deans, “The most significant and important part of that deal was that Alice in Chains kept their publishing.” In a typical contract, Deans said record companies would ask for fifty percent ownership in the songs. Under the terms of their deal, this meant that Alice in Chains owned all the songs they had already written and would own all the material they would write in the future under this contract. “Alice got it all. Alice is probably one of the last bands to get signed that kept all their publishing.”

Timing was a key factor working in the band’s favor during negotiations. “It looked like Seattle was going to be the next big deal,” Deans said. “Everybody wanted a piece of it. So from Mother Love Bone on, the signings were virtual bidding wars. So everybody was trying to present the best deal.”

Representing Alice in Chains in the negotiations was Michele Anthony, a partner at the entertainment law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Phillips. Anthony made such an impression that she was later hired as a senior vice president at Sony Music. In this capacity, according to a 2005 press release, she “established and managed the company’s regional A&R offices in addition to overseeing special projects and new business opportunities. She was vital in negotiating and signing many of Sony Music’s most important artists and was also involved with talent development, soundtracks, new technologies, and myriad special projects.”

Don Ienner said, “When I first met Michele, she was the lawyer for Alice in Chains, who I was signing to Columbia. She was a brilliant negotiator who knew the business inside and out, and those factors, combined with her passionate, no-holds-barred approach to demanding the very best for her artists, made it clear that she had the makings of a truly great executive.”29

Nick Terzo joined the label as Alice in Chains’s A&R representative. After months of negotiations, Alice in Chains signed with CBS Records on September 11, 1989.30 With the deal signed, it was time to make a record.

PART III 1989–1996

We’ve had some interesting and hard times.

But along with success comes some of the darker things.

JERRY CANTRELL

Since our music is so depressing, everybody expects us to run around in black and whine about shit. But that’s such a misconception. We just get together and fuck around. We’re like the Monkees or something.

Sean Kinney

Chapter 9

It was a no-brainer this band is going to go somewhere.

RONNIE CHAMPAGNE

DAVE JERDEN WAS A VETERAN producer with extensive credits who in 1989 was most known for his work on Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking. In the late summer or early fall of that year, he got a copy of the Alice in Chains demo from Nick Terzo, who had sent it to other major producers.

“Everybody passed on it,” Jerden said of this demo. “This was the time of Guns n’ Roses, and everybody was looking for people with that high voice, like Dio or whatever. But I grew up a product of the late sixties, seventies. I liked deep voices, bluesy voices, and when I heard this tape, I just went, ‘Wow!’” The general reaction to Alice in Chains in Los Angeles at the time was confusion, for lack of any point of reference. “There was a lot of head-scratching going on with that band when they were first doing it, but it was something that both Dave and I had already heard in our heads. It was a no-brainer this band is going to go somewhere, because it was just old-school Black Sabbath with new-kid mentality,” Jerden’s engineer, Ronnie Champagne, said.

A meeting between Jerden and the band was arranged in Los Angeles. The band was performing at a club, where four people were in the audience: Jerden, his manager, producer Rick Rubin, and one guy dancing in the middle of the floor “like he was on acid or something.” Rubin walked out after a few songs, leaving Jerden, Jerden’s manager, and the guy on acid to watch the rest of the show. When they met, Jerden and Jerry hit it off immediately.

“I said, ‘What you’re doing is what Tony Iommi was doing in Black Sabbath.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah!’ And I was in. It was pretty much Jerry’s call who was going to produce the record.” Terzo told Jerden the plan was to have them write more songs. The band returned to Seattle and cut two demos at London Bridge Studios with Rick Parashar. A dozen songs from these demos became the basis for the material on Facelift.