Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

Bodenheimer dates the beginning of his involvement with Demri to some point during 1990–91, after Alice in Chains started touring. While Layne was gone, Demri and Bodenheimer would hang out at another local musician’s home and do drugs, and they became close. “I fell in love with her. I really cared for her and loved her.”

Not surprisingly, Layne didn’t like Bodenheimer at all and had his suspicions. One time he called Bodenheimer over to another local musician’s house and confronted him. “If you’re fucking my woman, why don’t you tell me?”

Bodenheimer denied it, because he wasn’t proud of it. He kept seeing Demri—mostly while Layne was touring, but occasionally when Layne was in town. Layne called him again, telling him he knew what was going on, and that—in Bodenheimer’s words—“it was out there, pretty much.”

“You could have told me the first time you were sleeping with my girlfriend,” Layne told him. “You’re not a good person. You’re a piece of shit.” For all his jealousy and anger, Layne was not a model of virtue and fidelity himself. Cat Butt’s singer, David Duet, said, “Layne and Demri had kind of an open relationship. In the position he was in, it’s probably the only way he could’ve had a lasting relationship. Layne was very true to Demri in his heart, but he related many, many wild touring adventures to me.”12 According to Bodenheimer, Demri was aware of Layne’s flings on tour. “She kind of said that they had that kind of relationship.”

“She would complain sometimes about she knew he was probably fucking other girls,” Bodenheimer said, but beyond that, she never said anything bad about him.

At one point, Bodenheimer went to Denver to visit his parents. Demri came down and stayed for about a week and a half. The next time Bodenheimer hung out with her in Seattle, “it was just kind of different.” She explained her feelings for Bodenheimer in a letter—which he has since lost—in which she wrote words to the effect that Layne was her white knight and Bodenheimer was her dark knight.

At the Singles shoot, Bodenheimer and Layne sat at a table, and Layne—presumably with long-built-up jealousies and frustrations finally reaching a boiling point—tore into him. “You’re a piece of shit. It should have been you that died instead of Andy Wood. I fucking hate you.” This comment was made with Layne knowing full well that Bodenheimer was a heroin user, and it came a little more than a year after Wood’s fatal overdose.

Bodenheimer was shocked. “Layne said that to me, and that was very hurtful—it hurt me. I wasn’t, like, a total dick. I did have feelings, I felt bad about what was going on, but I couldn’t help it, because I truly … I really did love her.” Although he wasn’t there, Bodenheimer later heard from a friend who attended the Clash of the Titans show at Red Rocks that Layne had introduced a song—he doesn’t know which one—saying words to the effect of “This is about Duane Bodenheimer, scummy drug junkie.”

The same night as the Alice in Chains shoot, Nirvana was performing a last-minute show at the OK Hotel before heading to Los Angeles to record their sophomore album, Nevermind. The show is best remembered for being the first public performance of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and has since grown to near-legendary status in Seattle grunge lore.13

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Alice in Chains landed the opening slot on the Clash of the Titans tour during the summer of 1991, literally by accident. Musically, they were the odd men out—the other three bands on the bill were Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax. The opening slot was originally supposed to go to Death Angel, who had to bail out of the tour after a bus accident.14

Asked by Riki Rachtman, host of Headbangers Ball, what it was like to be opening for them, Mike responded, “It’s really smelly, but it’s great—it’s awesome—we’re having a great time. All of the guys are really cool.”15

A more candid assessment of the experience came years later. “Slayer fans were brutal to us,” Jerry would recall. “When we played at Red Rocks, they were throwing so much shit at us that we could hardly see the crowd.

“Someone threw a huge water jug that knocked over Sean’s cymbals, and spit was flying everywhere. Layne just shouted ‘Fuck you!’ and spit back at them.”

Their toughness and willingness to stick it out in the midst of a relentless onslaught from a hostile crowd won them a few converts. “We finished the set and we were like, ‘Jesus Christ, that was insane,’” Jerry recalled. “We’re waiting to get in the bus to leave, and there were a bunch of Slayer fans backstage that had passes and they started walking toward us. We’re like, ‘We’re gonna get our fuckin’ asses kicked.’ But they walked over and went, ‘Okay, man. You didn’t puss out. I guess you’re all right.’”16