Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

Layne had expanded his musical horizons somewhat, possibly as a result of the band’s experience touring in support of Facelift. “With Dirt, I remember Layne getting into Slayer. I don’t know how much that influenced them, but I remember that because Layne would talk to me about that kind of stuff because he knew my background from the earlier metal days and that my band [Mace] had opened for Slayer.”

John Starr was hanging out at the studio while the band was working on the demo. Hillis recalls hearing that there was “kind of an issue” with him being around too much and that maybe the two Starrs were “partying together.” At one point, Mike asked for a rough copy of the material that had been recorded. Parashar told Hillis to make him some mixes. Hillis was excited, because he got to play around with and mix the songs himself. He made a rough mix for Mike, without making a copy for himself—a decision he would regret later on. He ran into Mike years later, who told him, “Man, my favorite version of Dirt is that one I have that you made me!”

Jerry, Nick Terzo, and Dave Jerden were looking at different studios to record the album. They considered San Francisco as a possible halfway point between Seattle and Los Angeles. They had an appointment to look at one studio without telling them who the band was, when the studio manager came in and told them, “Oh, no, you can’t come in today. We have a really important band in.” They passed on the studio, even though it was their first choice. Jerden doesn’t even remember the other band but said they amounted to nothing.

They also considered Skywalker Sound, located on George Lucas’s four-thousand-acre ranch about forty minutes north of San Francisco, but it was too expensive.1 Ultimately, they decided to record it in Los Angeles. Jerden thinks the only reason for this was because he wanted to do it at One on One Recording Studios, which is most known for being where Metallica recorded … And Justice for All and the Black Album.

The band rented a house in the mountains near Malibu, where they lived and rehearsed for about five days before they went into the studio. Jerry had high expectations. “We were coming up with all this stuff that was just aggro. Superpowerful, very heavy lyrical content. It was a serious step up from Facelift—I equate it, as far as artistically, [to] … Nirvana from [Bleach] to Nevermind. To many people, it’s a record unto itself,” Jerry told Greg Prato.2

One factor that affected the making of the album was Layne’s relapse. Alice in Chains had been working with the addiction specialist Bob Timmins. In a 1994 Seattle Times interview, Timmins said that since the Seattle grunge scene took off in 1991, he had been called up to Seattle to work with six musicians in three prominent bands. “Interestingly, it’s all been for heroin.”3

According to Jerden, Timmins was Layne’s sponsor. Layne got word that Timmins had been bragging at a party about how he’s “got” the lead singer from Alice in Chains. Layne was furious and started using drugs again. Jerden was critical of Timmins’s modus operandi, saying, “He was notorious for doing interventions on bands where he would just show up at a gig where the band’s playing, where someone’s got a problem in the band, and he’d charge forty thousand dollars for one intervention. AA is supposed to be for free, and this guy was charging money for what Layne could have got for free.” Timmins died in 2008.4

By the time they went into the studio to start recording, Jerden said the songs were well developed and that the demo made at London Bridge was great. Work on the album began on or around April 27, 1992. Bryan Carlstrom spent the first two days getting sounds before outside events brought the studio and the city to a screeching halt. On April 29, a grand jury acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of beating Rodney King. Angry mobs took to the streets for hours of mayhem and destruction. Stores were looted, motorists were beaten, and more than 150 fires were ignited. By the next morning, four people were dead and at least 106 were hospitalized. Over a period of six days, more than three thousand structures or businesses were destroyed, resulting in $1 billion in property damage and fifty-four deaths.5

Jerry was in the middle of it when the riots began. “I was actually in a store buying some beer when some guys came in and started looting the place. I also got stuck in traffic and saw people pulling other people out of their cars and beating the crap out of them. That was some pretty scary shit to have to go through, and it definitely affected the overall feel of the album.”6

In a separate interview, he said, “We came down to LA, started tracking the record, and that Rodney King verdict came down. The fucking town went up in flames.”7