Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

Johnny Bacolas remembers the engagement and thinks it happened in 1991. He recalls one time while working at his father’s Greek restaurant in the U District when Layne, Mike, and Demri came to see him. Layne told him he was engaged. He also recalls Mike taking a shot of whiskey and saying, “I’m going to be his best man! He’s my bro. I’m going to be his best man at the wedding!” Bacolas assumed this to be true, because he was saying this openly with Layne and Demri right there. In terms of Layne’s demeanor, Bacolas said, “They seemed happy. It just seemed logical because he loved her and that was the next logical step.” Neither Jim Elmer nor Kathleen Austin had ever heard that Mike was to be Layne’s best man. “It never got that far,” Austin said. “There wasn’t a date. There were colors picked out, and nobody told them to me. But I do know that they were very happy at that time.”

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Coming off the success of “Man in the Box,” Paul Rachman traveled to Seattle to direct Temple of the Dog’s video for “Hunger Strike,” which was shot in the spring of 1991. It was during this period that he met Demri. One night she came up to Rachman and told him, “I’m an actress up here and I’d love to audition or whatever.” On a napkin, she wrote down what Rachman described as “a handwritten head shot” with her name, contact information, and adjectives such as “good-looking,” “short,” “loud,” and “exotic” to describe herself.

Demri told him she was modeling and wanted to do music videos and then movies. “She really needed to move to LA but didn’t—she thought she could get gigs with contacts in LA and fly there to work but that doesn’t really work,” Rachman wrote in an e-mail. Of the note’s significance, he wrote, “That note does give proof of her professional dreams.”22

After the “Hunger Strike” shoot, Rachman went out in downtown Seattle with members of Temple of the Dog, where Rachman ran into Layne, and the two hugged. Rachman remembers Layne looking “a little more worn down” than a few months earlier.

By early June 1991, with “Man in the Box” in heavy rotation, Columbia Records was pushing for a follow-up single to capitalize on their breakout hit. It was also Rachman’s impression that the label wanted another single “in case ‘Man in the Box’ ran out of steam.” He got the nod to direct the video for “Sea of Sorrow,” which he says the label wanted to be “a little more conceptual.”

Columbia wanted to make the video while the band was on the Clash of the Titans tour. Rachman was pushing back, trying to postpone it until the band finished the tour and could travel to Los Angeles or New York, where he had people and resources to make the video properly. But Columbia was adamant, asking Rachman to shoot the video in Salt Lake City on the band’s day off from the tour.

The video was “very high concept” in terms of stage design, with a production budget that was probably double what he had for “Man in the Box.” But according to Rachman, the label’s insistence on shooting the video immediately affected the production. “It was probably one of my most nightmarish shoots. I’d never had so many problems. We shipped the lights there, and we shipped one extra in case something happens, and I needed four minimum, because there was one for each guy in the band. They were going to be each their own color. Of course, two of them get there broken, so we have to find another one. The local crews are really slow, so setting up the stage took forever. We’re hoping to start shooting at like eight in the morning, nine in the morning. We didn’t start shooting until five P.M.”

Rachman said the band members were “more cranky. They were kind of bigger rock stars.” Another difference was they wanted their girlfriends at the time to appear, but Rachman didn’t want to do a “cheesy rock chick” video. Demri did not travel to Salt Lake City for the shoot, although Rachman said other members’ girlfriends did. For the others, they cast local girls from Salt Lake City.

The change in attitude wasn’t just toward Rachman. “They weren’t listening to Susan as much anymore. They all had their own ideas. They were all taking advantage of a little more power and influence. And that affected me indirectly.” Rachman remembered Susan and Jerry arguing about Jerry’s choice of jacket he wore in the video.

“What happens to this video is just tragic,” Rachman said. He was under pressure from the band and the label. “So stupid ideas were coming from the band a little bit, and I’m getting challenged by the label to deliver this high concept in a difficult situation and the shoot was a nightmare.” He didn’t feel good about the shoot when he returned to Los Angeles, but to his surprise, he liked the footage. “It was very dark and moody and kind of trippy. There was a psychedelic tone to it. And if you listen to the song, it has this very psychedelic drone to it.”