Chapter 29
There’s a history not to be forgotten, and there’s a history about to be made.
BECAUSE LAYNE DIED WITHOUT a will, was not married, and had no children, his biological parents had to go to court to be named coadministrators of his estate. According to a court document, Layne’s assets were valued “in the approximate amount of over $500,000” and his liabilities at “less than $100,000.”1 There are no publicly available estimates for the current value of the estate twelve years after Layne’s death.
The process of going through Layne’s apartment and taking inventory of his personal effects was not easy. Because of health concerns surrounding the drug paraphernalia found in the apartment and Layne’s hepatitis C diagnosis, a special cleaning crew was hired to sanitize the entire apartment so they could start packing up Layne’s things.
Mike Korjenek, an employee at a waterproofing company that had previously done work in Layne’s building, was hired to do some work in Layne’s apartment less than a week after his death. When Korjenek and his colleague walked into the apartment—knowing the identity of the previous owner—they noticed the carpeting had been changed and all the furniture had been removed.
“It was pretty much empty, and it looked like there had been some work done already on the interior,” Korjenek recalled. As he was working, the apartment was already being shown to potential buyers. “One of the realtors, a woman realtor, turned to me and in so many words she said, ‘Don’t mention anything about that rock star dying here.’”
After his death, it was discovered that Layne had several storage units broken into, with personal effects missing or stolen. Among the items taken and later recovered: Layne’s artwork, which the estate found itself in the frustrating position of having to buy back from someone who thought “Layne would want them to have it”; his Harley Davidson motorcycle, which was driven for fifty miles on two flat tires and displayed in someone’s living room; and items from his car, which was also extensively vandalized. After hearing of his death, the Lynnwood Police Department contacted their Seattle counterparts to inform them they had Layne’s MTV Video Music Award in their evidence room. Also taken but not yet recovered as of this writing were Layne’s journals.2
Susan later said, “I had been through an incident in 2002 with another client who had been a very serious drug addict who had a lot of his belongings in different storage lockers that were broken into. And at one point, a box of his belongings made its way to the hands of some guy that tried to extort $50,000 for himself and his bandmates for this box of belongings, and that was a terrible feeling.”3
Some of the items might be missing for reasons other than theft. Layne was very generous, according to multiple sources. An example: several years earlier, he had given Ron Holt handwritten lyrics and artwork, items that Holt has since lost. There is a market for Layne Staley memorabilia, and it is potentially very lucrative. According to Darren Julien, president and CEO of Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, the lyrics and art could be worth several thousand dollars each. Depending on their content, his journals could be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Layne’s original artwork for the cover of Above, along with the corresponding handwritten letters from Layne to the record label, sold at Christie’s for more than ten thousand dollars.4
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Less than a year after his death, Adriana Rubio’s book, Layne Staley: Angry Chair—A Look Inside the Heart and Soul of an Incredible Musician, was published in January 2003. The book was poorly written, and its only news value was a series of quotes attributed to Layne that Rubio claimed were from an interview he gave during a 3 A.M. phone call on February 3, 2002. Because the book was published after his death, Layne was never able to comment about the quotes attributed to him. Evidence suggests the conversation never happened.
In the updated e-book, retitled Layne Staley: Get Born Again, Rubio said she spoke to Layne for two and a half hours and was going to publish the complete transcript of that conversation. Based on what Rubio wrote, it is clear she did not speak to Layne for two and a half hours. The portion of her book detailing their conversation runs approximately six pages. In contrast, my interviews with Randy Hauser—two hours and thirty-three minutes—run 101 pages; with Paul Rachman—one hour and twelve minutes—run thirty-three pages; with Mark Pellington—twenty-seven minutes—run eleven pages. There is no way what Rubio published is anywhere near a two-and-a-half-hour transcript.
During my research, I have read or listened to Layne’s comments in many interviews over the years and obtained quotes attributed to him. In doing so, I became familiar with his way of speaking, his word selection, and the types of subjects he would and wouldn’t discuss. If you set aside the substance of the comments in the Rubio book, it is necessary to look at the language. It doesn’t read or sound like something he would have said. She quotes Layne at least ten times making specific reference to lyrics and titles of Alice in Chains or Mad Season songs. During my research over the course of three years, I have not found a single instance of Layne’s referencing his own lyrics or song titles the way Rubio claims he did in her interview.
In the first edition of her book, there is a quote attributed to Layne in which he speaks of Jim Morrison’s poetry, which concludes, “Please do me a favor, go and read about Morrison and God, go and see how the government of all countries kill us, go and watch the news … then let me know if I’m wrong: Can I be as my GOD AM?” In addition to the lyrical reference to “God Am,” Layne is alleged to have touched on a pet topic of Rubio’s: she wrote a book titled Jim Morrison: Ceremony—Exploring the Shaman Possession, and it should be noted that, for it, she tried to interview a man in Oregon claiming to be Morrison, who had allegedly faked his own death decades earlier.5
Rubio and John Brandon were collaborating on a biopic about Layne, with Rubio writing the screenplay and Brandon directing and contributing to the script. According to Rubio, one of the producers involved received a letter from the law firm that represents Alice in Chains. A partial excerpt of the letter, quoted on Rubio’s blog, reads, “The literary work upon which your project is based contains misleading information about our clients and portrays our clients in a negative and false light. Since our clients cannot be involved with your film and will not support any project based in whole or in part on any literary work written by Ms. Rubio and Mr. Brandon, our clients would prefer that you cease developing your project and move on to one that does not require our clients’ input or the literary work written by Ms. Rubio and Mr. Brandon.”
According to Rubio’s blog profile, the project was derailed because “The Staley Estate did not authorize it.” In an e-mail, Rubio said she had passed my interview request on to John Brandon but had not heard back. She declined to be interviewed, citing her mother’s poor health. “With all due respect,” she wrote, “both Layne Staley and AIC are not a priority in my life now.” Rubio’s book further contributed to the misinformation about Layne, enough that more than a decade later, her “interview” is still cited on his Wikipedia page as of this writing. Layne’s family has disavowed her book.6