Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

“I’m like, ‘Fuck, dude…’ I remember them doing it at sound check, going, ‘Holy shit, another one…’ because of the vocal part. Layne busted that shit out at sound check in front of me and six other people. He’s singing that stuff, and I’m like, ‘Holy moly…’ I was ready for that second record by October of 1990.”

After a show in Denver, Biro saw a girl get on the band’s tour bus, which he and Shoaf were following in a rented Ryder truck full of gear. By the time Biro and Shoaf arrived at the hotel where both Extreme and Alice in Chains were staying, someone had a video camera and was filming what Biro characterized as a sex tape in that pre-Internet era. Members of Extreme were in the hotel room watching the mayhem. According to Biro, “They were watching, and the video camera got them a few times. They waved at the video camera, laughing—you know, showing a beer, being, ‘Yeah, we’re cool. We’re one of the guys.’”

A day later, they approached the Alice in Chains crew, begging them to get rid of the tape. “They didn’t want anything of them being in those situations going public, ever,” Biro said. They didn’t do anything on the tape, Biro said, beyond possibly posing with the girl. Not long after this incident, Alice in Chains was doing an interview with Z-Rock, the Dallas-based syndicated radio station. The band was taking questions from callers on the air.

“Hey, I met you guys once in Denver,” a female caller said, according to Shoaf’s account of the conversation.

“Yeah, really?”

When she mentioned the debauchery that had taken place in the hotel room, the station cut her off and hung up on her.

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While the band was on tour, Susan celebrated a personal milestone in her life. After five years together, she and Chris Cornell got married on September 22, 1990, during a ceremony at their Seattle home, according to a brief mention in The Seattle Times. They went to Victoria, British Columbia, for a short honeymoon before Cornell had to go back to work on Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger album.3

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For the next leg of the tour, Alice in Chains would be supporting Iggy Pop and playing in small theaters with a capacity of one to three thousand. There was a noticeable improvement in the relationship between the headliner and the opening act. “They were much more welcoming. They treated us a lot better on ego stuff. We got cut back on lights somewhat, but it’s Iggy’s show, and the sound was boosted up a little better,” Shoaf said.

Both bands were in Louisville, Kentucky, for Thanksgiving and stayed in the same hotel, where they would be spending a day off. Coincidentally, Pantera was touring with Prong and Mind over Four, and they were staying at the same hotel. After eating their Thanksgiving meals, the bands and crew members had to wait until one o’clock for the hotel bar to open.

“Envision this: thirty to fifty rock guys, band and crew, standing outside the door of the bar waiting for it to open, and there’s this poor little girl thinking she’s going to be at the hotel bar and have a nice, easy day bartending because nobody’s going to be at the hotel for Thanksgiving, [and she] has got Prong, Pantera, Mind over Four, Alice in Chains, and Iggy Pop’s band and crew ready to watch football!” Shoaf said, laughing. “Within thirty minutes, she gave up and just put bottles up on the counter, with the money flowing.”

“We started drinking at one in the afternoon, and you can imagine as it went on into the night. We tore that hotel apart. They were like, ‘Please, leave. Everybody leave.’”

Around Halloween, the tour hit New York City, and Alice in Chains booked a headlining show at the Cat Club. In the audience that night was Paul Rachman, a music-video director who had worked with punk and hardcore bands during the 1980s. “I just fell in love with the band and the music,” Rachman said. The next day he called the woman in charge of commissioning music videos at Columbia Records and told her he wanted to work with them.

At that point, Rocky Schenck’s “We Die Young” video had been airing on MTV’s Headbangers Ball and 120 Minutes but hadn’t really caught on. The label was getting ready to release “Man in the Box” as the second single and offered Rachman the chance to do the video. Since it was Layne’s song, the label put him in touch with Layne, so the two of them could talk. Layne briefly touched base with Rachman by phone while on tour. They talked about not making it a typical live-performance video. Rachman told him to write down any specific ideas he had and send them via fax, in that era before cell phones and e-mail. Shortly after, Layne sent Rachman a fax consisting of a scribbled handwritten note, which read:

Rainy drippy barn.

Farm animals.

Baby with eyes sewn shut.