Thanks to the many producers and engineers who worked with Sleze/Alice ’N Chains, Alice in Chains, Mad Season, and Jerry Cantrell over the years—Peter Barnes, Tim Branom, Bryan Carlstrom, Ronnie Champagne, Annette Cisneros, Dave Hillis, Sam Hofstedt, Dave Jerden, Jonathan Plum, Elan Trujillo, and Toby Wright—who were critical in explaining how the bands developed their sound and how their records were made. I’d like to praise Annette Cisneros for sharing with me her production calendar from the Dirt sessions in 1992, as well as her photos from the Music Bank session in 1998. I was fortunate to interview Bryan Carlstrom extensively about his role in making the Facelift and Dirt records before his passing in January 2013. My sincerest condolences to his friends and family for their loss.
While researching this book, I had hoped to interview Rick Parashar, only to discover that he had a strict policy of not giving interviews. He passed away in August 2014 as this book was in final edits. When he and his brother Raj cofounded London Bridge Studios in 1985, they created a place where many young up-and-coming local musicians could hone their craft and record their material, including Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell in their respective pre–Alice in Chains bands. The list of bands that recorded at London Bridge from the late 1980s through mid-1990s reads like a who’s who of the era. As if this weren’t enough, Parashar’s formidable producing talents were critical for many of these bands: Alice in Chains’s demo that got them signed to Columbia Records, as well as Sap, “Would?,” and the Dirt demo; Blind Melon’s debut album; the Temple of the Dog album; and his best-known work—Pearl Jam’s Ten. It is not hyperbole to say the Seattle grunge scene would not have been what it became without Rick Parashar. My condolences to his family and friends.
Tim Branom was a wealth of information about the Music Bank and the days of Sleze, Alice ’N Chains, Gypsy Rose, and Diamond Lie. His research and personal archive from the period are the source for many of the dates for events in the story. His network of contacts was also instrumental in getting me in touch with several sources.
David Ballenger, Scott Hunt, and Darrell Vernon were encyclopedic sources of knowledge about the history, day-to-day operations, staff, and bands at the Music Bank. I’m extremely grateful to David for letting me spend some time with him in Dallas going through his records from his days running the Music Bank. His spiral-bound notebook, which guests had to sign when visiting the Music Bank, also helped confirm accounts from other sources that Demri had been to the building and thus helped date her relationship with Layne.
James Burdyshaw was a great source in his own right about the Music Bank and the early days of Alice in Chains, and he was invaluable in helping me track down other sources.
Thanks to the surviving members of Sleze/Alice ’N Chains—Johnny Bacolas, James Bergstrom, Morgen Gallagher, Byron Hansen, Nick Pollock, and Ed Semanate—who provided crucial perspectives and insights into this formative period of Layne’s life and career. I’d especially like to thank Nick Pollock for his photos from the 1985–1989 era, which included some truly historic finds. Thanks to Ron Holt and James Bergstrom for shedding light on the short-lived 40 Years of Hate project. Thanks to Paul Plumis of the Shoreline School District for taking me on a tour of the old Shorewood High School building, where Layne did his first public performance as a lead singer with Sleze in February 1985, shortly before its scheduled demolition in the summer of 2013. Thanks to the staff at Meadowdale High School in Lynnwood who helped me review Layne’s old yearbooks and provided me with the dates he was enrolled there. Thanks to Rick Throm for sharing his stories of Layne as a student and employee.
Thanks to Matt Muasau, Bobby Nesbitt, and Scott Nutter for their memories of and insights into Diamond Lie and Jerry Cantrell’s life in Tacoma before he moved to Seattle. I’d also like to thank Bobby Nesbitt for the band publicity shots that he provided.
Thanks to Randy Hauser, who, in addition to being the first to discover Alice in Chains, provided insights about the band’s early days when he was their manager and showed me his priceless collection of Polaroids from this period.
Thanks to Lori Barbero, Randy Biro, Martin Feveyear, Maureen Herman, Jimmy Shoaf, and Aaron Woodruff for their stories of Alice in Chains on tour.
Thanks to the many journalists, editors, photographers, and publishers at The Rocket, The Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Seattle Weekly who provided real-time coverage of the music scene happening in their backyard. I would also like to give credit to the reporters and editors at Rolling Stone for their coverage of Alice in Chains over the years, which I have cited extensively. I would also like to give credit to Faceculture.com for their seven-part interview with Jerry Cantrell and Sean Kinney, which is one of the best firsthand accounts of the band’s history I’ve ever found, especially about the early days.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge other works about the grunge scene, all of which are worth reading or watching: Scot Barbour’s Malfunkshun: The Story of Andrew Wood, Charles R. Cross’s Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, Jacob McMurray’s Taking Punk to the Masses: From Nowhere to Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Pearl Jam Twenty book and documentary, Greg Prato’s Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music, Doug Pray’s Hype! and Mark Yarm’s Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge. Justin Henderson’s Grunge Seattle is a fantastic guide to the key dates and places of the era, especially to someone like me, who approached this book as a complete outsider and who had never been to Seattle before.
I’m extremely grateful to Jacob McMurray for providing me with scans of the band’s 1988 submission packet, prepared by Jenny Bendel, as well as the transcript of the Experience Music Project’s 1995 interview with the late John Baker Saunders. Thanks to Joseph and Henrietta Saunders, who provided many details about Baker’s life story, as well as photos from his private collection. Thanks to Evan Sheeley, Dan Gallagher, and Kim De Baere for their insights into Baker’s final years.
Thanks to Toby Wright, Phil Lipscomb, and Stephen Richards for their accounts of Layne’s planned collaboration with Taproot, which was supposed to happen around the time of his death in April 2002.
Thanks to the many Alice in Chains fans who uploaded, scanned, or transcribed audio and video bootlegs, interviews, articles, and photos and put them on the Internet. There are too many to list individually, but the content was invaluable source material for the historical record. Thanks also to the Jane’s Addiction, KISS, Megadeth, Metallica, Ministry, Slayer, and Van Halen official and unofficial Web sites that helped to corroborate specific dates for Alice in Chains shows and tours.
Humberto Fernandez and Therissa A. Libby’s Heroin: Its History, Pharmacology, and Treatment was an invaluable reference in helping me understand the history and medical effects of the drug. Twelve years after Layne’s death, heroin addiction is still making news and claiming lives. While this book was being written, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cory Monteith, Peaches Geldof, and Dave Brockie died of heroin-related causes. During the same period, several news organizations have reported on the heroin epidemic in Vermont. History keeps repeating itself.