Following a last-minute cancellation of a show last week due to "non-life-threatening medical emergency” involving drummer Sean Kinney, Alice In Chains have pulled their entire US tour.

The band had a week of performances in their diary, including an appearance at the Sonic Temple festival, in Columbus, Ohio, that should have happened yesterday, and a slot at the Welcome To Rockville event next Friday.

The band have issued a statement that explains their decision. “After careful consideration and following the advice of medical professionals we have made the decision to cancel our upcoming festival performances and the Alice in Chains headline shows.

“While we were all eager to return to the stage, Sean's health is our top priority at this moment. Although the issue requires immediate attention, his long-term prognosis in positive. We sincerely appreciate your understanding and support during this time.”

It’s not clear whether Kinney will have recovered in time for the band’s next scheduled performance, which is at Villa Park on 5 July for the Black Sabbath Back To The Beginning event.

Thursday’s gig at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut had to be pulled after Kinney fell ill (or experienced a ‘non-life threatening medical emergency’, if you will) during the soundcheck.

Kinney is a founder member of the band, who were first formed back in 1984, long before they found fame during the early '90s grunge explosion. They have ridden out worse crises than this before. Indeed, after frontman Layne Staley died in 2002, most observers assumed that his passing marked the end of the band. But three years later, a new version of Alice In Chains rose from the ashes, with William DuVall eventually taking Staley’s place as lead vocalist.

Since then the band have released a further three albums, with their most recent Rainier Fog arriving in 2018. They haven’t played live since a show in April last year at the Las Vegas Sick New World festival.

Dave Jerden, producer of some of the most influential rock albums of the late ’80s and early ’90s, died on 5 February at the age of 75.

In a long and varied career, he worked on a host of classic albums as engineer, mixer and producer - beginning with Talking Heads’ Remain In Light (1980) and including Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock (1983), Red Hot Chili Peppers’ self-titled debut (1984) and The Rolling Stones’ Dirty Work (1986).

He was best known for producing the Jane’s Addiction albums Nothing’s Shocking (1988) and Ritual de lo Habitual (1990) and the Alice In Chains albums Facelift (1990) and Dirt (1992).

In 2020, Jerden spoke to Produce Like A Pro about the recording of the classic Alice In Chains track Man In The Box, and revealed how the song was rejected by various radio programmers in 1990 - mainly due the unorthodox style of the band’s singer Layne Staley.

“Radio stations all said Layne’s voice is wrong,” Jerden recalled.

Man In The Box, and the Facelift album, were instrumental in defining the sound of alternative rock and establishing Seattle as the epicentre of the grunge revolution.

The news of Dave Jerden’s death was announced by his son Bryan.

“Our father David Jerden passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday February 5th. It’s hard to express in words what he meant to me, my sister Michelle, and the rest of our family. He was larger than life and was deeply passionate about so many things, from history to science, but above all he was a music maker.”

The statement continued: “He worked with so many great artists and together they forged some very interesting and memorable musical pathways and of which I am very proud. We will miss his smile, his uncontrollable laughter, his mind-bending stories and great conversations. The memories will live on forever. The music will live on and so will our love. Rest well, Dad. Thanks for your love and inspiration.”

In the early ’90s, Jerry Cantrell shaped the sound of alternative rock with Alice In Chains. But in his new solo album, I Want Blood, he’s taking inspiration from the classic two-guitar bands of the ’70s and ’80s: Judas Priest, Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden and more.

In a new interview for Total Guitar, Jerry says: “With every record, it’s interesting to see what I can achieve through harmonies. I’m such a huge fan of guitar duos. I hear Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing [from Judas Priest].

"I hear the Schenker brothers [Scorpions]. I hear Kirk and James from Metallica. I hear Joe Perry and Brad Whitford [Aerosmith]. I love Thin Lizzy, what can I say? Those elements are always in me.”

Jerry also freely admits that his new song Off The Rails has an intro influenced by Iron Maiden’s 1986 track Wasted Years.

“F*ck yeah, dude!” he says. “I’m a huge fan of Iron Maiden. I wanted Alice to be a guitar duo band precisely because of bands like that. And we kinda are now, since [lead vocalist/guitarist] William DuVall joined.

"Earlier on, Layne [Staley, original Alice In chains frontman] would pick up a guitar and play a little bit, but we were mostly just a three-piece with a singer. Now we actually have two guys playing a lot of guitar, so I got my wish!

“But when we initially talked about starting a band I wanted another guitar player and that was purely because of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith [in Iron Maiden during the ’80s]. Or the guys from Priest and Aerosmith. I love the Young brothers [AC/DC]. There’s something special about bands with two guitar players working as a unit.

"And yes, I hear Iron Maiden in that intro for Off The Rails. I’m immediately drawn to those flavours, just because I love that band. It’s cool to hear your influences coming out organically, because you don’t sit down and intend to do anything. It just happens and you can tell that it’s in there.”

The full, in-depth interview with Jerry Cantrell appears in the final issue of Total Guitar, on sale now.

The Pearl Jam-inspired 1991 overdrive pedal from British brand Funny Little Boxes has been a hit – affordable (£99) and versatile, it's a great choice for alt-rock tones in general, whether from the '90s or otherwise. Then another success followed with the Queens Of The Stone Age-inspired Skeleton Key. But there was supposed to be another pedal released before that – and we wondered what that was.

The answer is coming – the challenges FLB's Andy Llgunas faced developing FLB's third pedal seem to have been overcome because over on YouTube channel Let's Play All, Matt Webster – who works closely with Andy on R&D – has used the TBA pedal in a new Alice In Chains tutorial video. And it sounds great.

Matt's decision to use it on an Alice In Chains song lesson – the deep cut Died that was included on the band's 1999 Music Bank box set and is reportedly the last song AIC recorded with Layne Staley before his passing – suggests we're still in the '90s grunge wheelhouse with some kind of drive pedal. But this sounds heavier… chunkier than FLB's previous released, and with amp-like rich harmonics the brand is known for. We're intrigued. 

 "I can't show you the pedal because I'm using the FLB prototype coming soon," explains Matt in the video. And soon is the operative word here because Matt advises we all sign up to the Funny Little Boxes Mailing list to be the first to find out once the new pedal is announced.

In the meantime, FLB recently announced a Gold Sparkle edition of the 1991 pedal. And if you want to find out what the fuss is all about there, check out our review. 

Mathematically twisting different shades of Tool, Porcupine Tree and Karnivool into their own breathtaking cocktail of noise, progressive rock quintet Klone have become one of the most respected French guitar bands of the modern age – following in the footsteps of acts like Gojira and Alcest. After a celebrated UK run with Devin Townsend last year, they've returned to these shores this week as special guests to Riverside, on this occasion armed with acoustics instead of electrics. 

It’s not the first time they’ve performed like this. Klone's 2017 album Unplugged saw them reimagine some of their most popular tracks in the same way alternative giants like Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam famously did back in the '90s. For guitarist Guillaume Bernard, who is currently overseeing mastering sessions for the follow up to last year’s Meanwhile album, the jaunt will provide a welcome break and enjoyable challenge switching things up from the electric sets his band are best known for...

“We are all very excited about this tour,” he tells MusicRadar. “It will actually be our first time playing acoustic in the UK. The dates with Devin Townsend went really well, the response was so good. We can’t wait to see people’s faces again.

“One of the venues we’ll be doing with Riverside is the Koko in London, which we played around 10 years ago opening for Gojira. I’ll never forget that night! It’s one of the most beautiful venues we’ve ever played, so it’s nice to come back all these years later. When you get to play bigger places like that, it can be fun and challenging at the same time. Of course, this time round it will be with lower volumes on stage… which means we will try even harder to get people’s attentions. And we supported Riverside in Mexico not long ago, they’re really nice people.”

As he goes on to explain, the seeds for these kinds of stripped back performances were planted back in 2016 by a French promoter who proposed Klone should open for Dutch singer Anneke Van Giersbergen in Paris, albeit in a much quieter and more intimate way. The performance was recorded and then released the following year, showcasing a band that were more than capable of breathing new life into their music without losing any of its sense of depth or impact. So how exactly do they go about transforming songs that are loud and layered, with all kinds of effects and echoes, into something more minimalistic, vulnerable and subdued?

“When we first tried it out, I would say it actually felt relatively easy because I often use acoustics to compose,” smiles the guitarist. “It wasn’t hard to find a way to make it sound natural and good. But playing like that can leave you feeling a bit naked on stage, because you don’t have all that distortion to rely on. So we were really anxious about that show and I remember my hands were trembling before we went on. It was like that for the whole band. But we went out there and played, and could see how excited people were to see us perform like this. It felt like something special for both us and them.”

You’ve spoken in the past about your electric guitar heroes, but what kind of acoustic players do you look up to?

“When I was growing up, I listened to a lot of Alice In Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. A lot of those bands ended up doing MTV Unplugged performances. So that’s what I was thinking about when it came to Klone’s first acoustic shows and I still do today. You have to make sure the song sounds clear and you convey the full emotion of the song, but with less volume and power. 

"We try to arrange both guitar parts around the voice, because that’s the first thing people hear. One thing I love about acoustic guitars is that you can actually have more dynamics in your song. They can go super quiet to extremely loud. The gap is actually bigger than when you play on an electric. I find there is more range. And a lot of people who have come to see our acoustic shows have ended up being surprised by how heavy we can sound without the distortion.”

Some might say the Alice In Chains Unplugged set worked especially well because the band often blend acoustics with electrics on their records...

“I actually picked up a vinyl copy of it not long ago, so I’ve been listening to that even more than usual. I would say I prefer the acoustic versions of songs like Would? and Nutshell to the proper electric ones. There’s even more emotion in there somehow. It’s all about finding the right approach to harmony. 

"We learnt a lot making our own Unplugged album, because it was recorded live. You only have one shot! Alice In Chains showed me how you can do more with less. Jerry Cantrell is the master of that. Nutshell has just one riff that goes round and round and yet it sounds so incredible. I love the Pearl Jam Unplugged album too, but I probably prefer the Alice In Chains one.”

How do you know which songs will fare better when reimagined on acoustic?

“We’ve tried a lot of different things to help choose the songs. On this tour with Riverside, we want to play a lot from our last two albums Meanwhile and Le Grand Voyage. We have to be careful with the vocals and make sure we’re leaving enough space. We also have to emphasise the dynamics between the verses and choruses. Some parts have to sound extra big, others require more of a background approach to guitar, so we will look at songs that suit that kind of balance. 

"There are some songs we’ll be playing that we’ve never played live at all! I find the songs I originally wrote on acoustic will work out best. If there’s a metal riff, I know it will be a challenge to get the same impact on acoustic. So I’m looking for songs that aren’t just all riffs or ones where I can try something completely different.”

Would you completely rewrite heavier sections so they make more sense when stripped down? 

“We’ve done that before, like with the song Immersion from our Here Comes The Sun album. The Unplugged version doesn’t have the same guitar parts. I was sat there one day and decided just a few simple chords would work better instead of what we originally recorded. It allowed the vocals to come through better and made it even easier for us to play. It depends on the song. 

"Sometimes you have to find something really different or it might be a case of simply rearranging the first riff so it sounds good on acoustic. There’s five of us in the band, so we always tell each other where improvements can be made. If a song doesn’t sound or feel great for us all, we can always choose another one. I think we’ll be throwing in a cover too, maybe Soundgarden or Nirvana. We’ve done Down In A Hole by Alice In Chains before, but this time we’re thinking Black Hole Sun, which works great on acoustic, or maybe even Heart-Shaped Box.”

Time to get nerdy. Do you use a different guitar pick when playing acoustic?

“I use the exact same one. It’s the green one with the turtle on it [Jim Dunlop Tortex .88mm]. I use my fingers a lot too, because I like the sound of that anyway.”

What kind of rig will you be running for this tour?

“I have a Fender Acoustic 100 amp, which they gave to me when we first started playing acoustic sets. It was my first time using an acoustic amp and I thought it sounded really cool. It’s very easy to use, you just have volume, reverb, EQ and phase. It’s very easy to make it sound good and I really like the sound of the reverb. 

"Another benefit for playing live is that it has a direct out on the back, which makes everything easy for the sound engineer because they don’t need to mic anything up. I also have another reverb pedal, the Strymon BluSky, for a different kind of reverb. I don’t use compression because I prefer to keep the dynamics in my sound, though maybe the sound engineer might.”

And how about the guitar in your hands?

“The guitar I’m using is a Takamine TAN15C. It’s not an expensive one but I really like it. I found it for sale privately online, so I went to the seller’s house to try it and was really impressed. I don’t want too much, I just want wood that sounds good, with strong bass frequencies. In terms of action, I need versatility – so there needs to be good definition and depth, but if I need to play any higher notes, I don’t want too much tension. So I keep it kind of in the middle. 

"The only pedals I’ll have will be a tuner and the extra reverb... which is exactly the same as my electric rig! I don’t like to have many pedals on stage because when something goes wrong, it’s a lot harder to find out why. Our other guitar player (Aldrick Guadagnino) has a much more complicated rig and he tends to have more issues, because more gear means more potential problems. Checking everything mid-show is difficult as we don’t have stage techs. You are alone up there and if you can’t get it to work, there’s nothing you can do!”

Obviously you’ll be leaving it at home this time round, but what’s your main electric at the moment?

“We currently have a deal with Vola Guitars. The one I have is very easy to play. I’m also very lucky to be endorsed by them, which means I didn’t have to pay for it. They are sending us some new models soon which have been completely customised – we chose the colours, pickups and everything else. I’m very excited!”

• Klone are currently on tour supporting Riverside. To stay up to date with the band visit Instagram and Kscope. 

Here is a rare good news story to start your day. After being posted missing, presumed stolen, and desperate appeal launched into its whereabouts, Jerry Cantrell’s 1985 G&L Rampage, his iconic ‘Blue Dress’ electric guitar, has been found.

The guitar was certainly missing but it was not stolen, just momentarily lost in transit between photoshoot and the studio, as a visibly relieved Cantrell took to his Instagram page to share the news of its return, and thank fans for spreading the word. 

This was an occasion where he was “happy to cry wolf” over the misplaced guitar and furthermore, he revealed that he is working on some new music – though he did not say whether this would be with Alice In Chains or a follow-up to his 2021 solo album, Brighten.

“It is so amazing to me everyone’s outreach and support, and willingness to get the word out,” he said “I have been through a stolen guitar thing before with an EVH and it took me 18 years to get it back. So many of my brothers like Zakk [Wylde], and [Tom] Morello and [Billy] Corgan have similar stories, and I was worried to death that this thing was gone over the weekend.” 

There are many guitars in Cantrell’s life but the ’85 ‘Blue Dress’ Rampage is the one that he is most closely associated with. It has been on every record that Cantell has made, and had been enjoying semi-retirement, on show at The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. It might be spared the rigours of the road but it still has its job to do in the studio.

G&L has made tribute replicas of the guitar featuring the pin-up artwork of Alain Aslan, but nothing replicates the wear and tear on the original. As Cantrell explained to MusicRadar in 2021, the G&L Rampage and a Les Paul combination is “the meat in the meatloaf” of his sound.

A single-pickup platform, with a floating vibrato, Aslan’s graphic more down to a smudge, with tattered stickers on both sides of the body, the ‘Blue Dress’ Rampage is one of the most recognisable guitars in rock and metal. And as this episode proves, one of the most loved too. It would be unthinkable that Cantrell would not have it in his arsenal.

“I think the headline here is how important this guitar is, not only to me but everybody else, and it just makes me feel fucking special to have so many great people in my life, and so many people who care,” said Cantrell. “So happy to cry wolf! It was misplaced! I hope you understand my concern. The thing is okay. There it is. And we will be rocking together shortly, for you.”

More news on what form that music will take as and when we have it.

Jerry Cantrell’s iconic 1985 ‘Blue Dress’ G&L Rampage has been stolen. One of the most important electric guitars in rock and metal history, the beat-up custom double-cut is instantly recognisable even if its graphic finish has been worn down over years of heavy use as the Alice In Chains guitarist’s go-to electric.

A post on Cantrell's Instagram page says the Rampage was taken from his car sometime over the weekend, when either in Los Angeles or in Highland, in San Bernardino County, California. It was in a black G&L gig bag. 

A reward is being offered to anyone who can help with its return, with Cantrell asking for information regarding its whereabouts to be sent to info@velvethammer.net.

Cantrell lists the serial number as G016467. G&L and Cantrell have teamed up for replicas of the instrument over the years. Around 12 years ago there was a limited edition run of the ‘Blue Dress’ Rampage. That collectible signature guitar was limited to 50 units worldwide. 

Those will have Cantrell’s actual signature on the back of the headstocks, and will no doubt be in a lot better condition. The original has been through the mill, and bears the scars of decades of use onstage and in the studio, and it has been further customised with a whole load of stickers, including a Soundgarden Louder Than Love banner decal on the back.

Cantrell's sound on record has always been a mix of the Rampage and a Gibson Les Paul. “Yeah, well, I’ve always liked a healthy dose of the G&L Rampage and Gibson Les Pauls," he told MusicRadar. "That’s been the meat in the meatloaf of my sound."

Speaking to Total Guitar in 2021, Cantrell said he might switch up the acoustic guitars from record to record but the ‘Blue Dress’ Rampage was always deployed in the studio, even if the guitar was now “semi-retired” and on display at The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. This is the guitar he wrote most of his songs on.

“For electrics, it’s definitely my 1985 G&L ‘Blue Dress’ Rampage,” he said. “Funnily enough, I’ve semi-retired that guitar. It’s up at a museum in Seattle right now. When we started making this record, and maybe even the last AIC album, I had to request them to send it back to me for the studio sessions. That guitar has been on every record I’ve ever made, in one form or another.”

A guitar this unique and with this amount of history behind it can’t stay hidden for too long. Someone somewhere will recognise it. G&L has helped spread the word through its social media channels, with Dave McLaren, the company’s CEO, responding in the comments with an offer to help in any way they can. 

“So sorry to hear this, Jerry,” he wrote. “That guitar is irreplaceable but we’d like to build something that’ll help ease the pain.”

Send any tips on the guitar’s whereabouts to info@velvethammer.net.

Alice In Chains marked their final date on their tour by inviting Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan onstage to join them in closing out their set with a super-heavy performance of Rooster.

AIC were supporting GNR at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, and fan-shot footage captures the moment when McKagan, armed with a Les Paul in cherry sunburst rather than his regular squeeze, the P-Bass, joins Jerry Cantrell and William DuVall on guitar – the three electric guitars in unison a la Lynyrd Skynyrd giving the Dirt-era track extra oomph, making it even more doomy.

Written in tribute to AIC guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s father, a Vietnam veteran who was nicknamed “Rooster” as a child, the track is for many the ür-AIC jam, a song that could scarcely be any more personal to Cantrell, and appropriately brings all of his key influences to the fore. It has the swampy wah pedal fatalism of Black Sabbath tracks like Electric Funeral, that early ‘70s sense of bespoiled promise. It has a groove.

And in some people’s opinion, namely the great Seal, it’s sexy, too. When he popped up on one of Amoeba’s What’s In My Bag YouTube segments, Seal fished out Alice In Chains’ Dirt on vinyl and discussed the seminal 1992 album’s impact, singling out Rooster.

“There are some great songs [on Dirt], the obvious one being Rooster that Jerry wrote about his father coming home from Vietman,” he said. “I love their artistry obviously but there’s a real sexiness to their music – it’s dark, it’s beautiful, it’s melancholic but it’s really sexy. It’s weighty.”

If McKagan’s Vancouver cameo with Alice In Chains brought the unfamiliar sight of the Guns N’ Roses bassist with a Les Paul, DuVall and Cantrell’s instrument choices on the night were more as we might expect, with DuVall on his Framus signature guitar and Cantrell playing his go-to G&L Rampage, which has been a stalwart through the years.

Rooster might be one of Cantrell’s most personal compositions but it has historically offered him and Alice In Chains the chance to welcome a guest onstage. 

This wasn’t even McKagan’s first time. In 2006, when DuVall made his live debut with AIC, McKagan joined Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart onstage with Cantrell and co for Rooster. He played a black Les Paul on that occasion. In 2018, Robby Krieger of the Doors – and hero and sometimes golf partner to Cantrell – guested with the band. 

If Cantrell can hit the golf course today, McKagan is still on tour across the US. See Guns N’ Roses for dates and tickets. His latest solo album, Lighthouse, is out on Friday through BFD.

If you were disappointed with the $15,000 price tag that was attached to the Mike McCready Custom Shop 1960 Strat in 2021, we have some great news. Fender has a Mexican Roadworn version that is much, much cheaper and it's the most ambitious relic from the Esenada factory yet.

Mike McCready's 1960 Strat looms large in his and Pearl Jam's history; it's clocked around 1,000 performances in his hands with the Seattle band, creating glorious sonic runs on Even Flow. It's shown up frequently both onstage and on every Pearl Jam record since second album Vs, it was also the guitarist's key instrument for his 1995 Mad Season project alongside late Alice In Chains vocalist Layne Staley. It's part of his musical DNA, but the appeal of this guitar should extend to anyone looking for a '60s-inspired relic Strat. 

As far back as 2013, McCready told this writer that he had been in discussions with Fender and stated early on how important an affordable model was to him; now it's delivered and seems to be as close as the company can get while keeping the price sub-$2,000. Even though there's no getting around this as the priciest Mexican-made Fender guitar to date, above the Jason Isbell Road Worn Telecaster. 

"The thing that stands out for this Fender initially which is super important to me is the feel of the neck, and it feels identical to my original one," notes McCready. It even looks like it, so the wear pattern on it – how there's not a ton of finish on it. It feels like it's been played a million times. The frets feel great when I go across time. That's a super important part for me."

High praise; because something the critics of relic'ing often miss is that it's a feel thing as much as a cosmetic experience. But this also has the headstock damage McCready sustained in an unspecified stage incident – we're going to wager it could have been near the end of the Mad Season's 1995 Moore Theatre show performance of November Hotel above, and McCready hasn't ruled that out either. Pearl Jam's firebrand hasn't mellowed with age in that regard. 

To match McCready's guitar, the 'slim' C-shape neck also features a 9.5" fretboard radius that is slightly flatter than Fender's usual vintage-style. And by the way, that's a rosewood slab 'board. Lovely stuff! 

The nitro-finished Road Worn Sunburst alder body guitar looks and feels the part, and the McCready pickups should ensure it sounds it too. "This custom pickup set is voiced to sound like his beloved 1960 Stratocaster," assures Fender. "Warm and articulate, this custom pickup set nails McCready’s signature tone and sounds great for any style of music."

A vintage-style six-point tremolo with bent-steel saddles and cold-rolled steel block also features and just like Mike's guitar, the middle tone knob is aged cream, rather than the white of the other two. 

"I want them to have a great experience with it," McCready hopes for potential future owners of his signature model. "I want them to have fun with it – that's number one. But I want them to be creative. I want them to get out of it what I get out of it. That's what makes my life better and I want it to make their life better…that's the icing on the cake. But I want them to know that they're getting a quality product and that it plays as well as it possibly [can] for me. I love it, so I want them to know that they're going to get that, and they'll be able to create themselves."

The Fender Mike McCready Strat is $1,899.99 / £1,649 / €1,899. More info at Fender

Seal's appearance on Amoeba Records' long-running regular What's In My Bag finds him ruminating on some of his favourite artists – and reflecting a broad taste that his own back catalogue has often reflected. But we didn't have him down as a big Alice In Chains fan until now. Picking out their second album Dirt from his bag, alongside records from Kate Bush, Neil Young and David Bowie, he reveals that he discovered the band at a seminal time in his life.

This band were really significant for me because when I left England at the beginning of my career, grunge had just kicked off," the British singer-songwriter reflects. "I remember coming to Los Angeles and being in a cab, talking to the driver and we got talking about music. And he said, 'We what kind of music do you like? What are you into' And I said, 'I'm really curious about this grunge thing, I really like it.'"

Though Seal was familiar with Nirvana and Pearl Jam at that point, he hadn't heard their North Western Pacific peers. "He said, 'Have you heard of this band called Alice In Chains?' He put on Man In The Box and that was it; I heard Layne [Staley's] voice, Layne and Jerry [Cantrell] singing together with those close harmonies. Out of that grunge period, they were by far, by far, my favourite. And I think the most underrated. 

"There are some great songs [on Dirt], the obvious one being Rooster that Jerry wrote about his father coming home from Vietman," added Seal. "I love their artistry obviously but there's a real sexiness to their music – it's dark, it's beautiful, it's melancholic but it's really sexy. It's weighty."

For Seal it set AIC apart.

"They had something that all of those other bands from that era, that grunge era, they had something truly unique – they had a soul, almost like an R&B type soul. Even though it didn't sound like R&B but that guttural soul, as opposed to just being in your head… they had stuff that got you right down here. I'm a big fan of Alice In Chains and Layne's voice – his approach, god rest his soul." 

Seal also goes on to reflect on David Bowie's influence on his life, musically and personally as a friend. So much so that Five Years from the Ziggy Stardust album was a direct inspiration for Don't Cry from 1994's Seal II. Check out the full interview above. 

Epiphone Jerry Cantrell 'Wino' Les Paul Custom and Les Paul Custom Prophecy: What is it?

Epiphone's Jerry Cantrell signature guitars offer two divergent takes on the Les Paul Custom, both spec’d generously for the price. 

The ‘Wino’ Les Paul Custom will be the more recognisable to Cantrell fans, offering a more affordable approximation of his legendary Wine Red model, recently replicated exactingly in Gibson’s Murphy Lab, and duly selling for megabucks. 

The Prophecy, meanwhile, is a more modernistic Les Paul Custom, finished in Bone White with active Fishman Fluence humbuckers offering multi-voice performance, and a 24-fret fingerboard a positively vertigo-inducing proposition for the Les Paul purist. 

Both are Chinese-made, and in keeping with the QC we have seen from recent Epiphone guitars these are immaculately finished, retaining much of the aspirational lustre of parent brand Gibson. As signature models go, these are likely to have a wider appeal too. You needn’t be an Alice In Chains superfan to find merit in these builds.

Fundamentally, the construction is ostensibly quite similar. Both models have solid weight-relieved mahogany bodies topped with a maple cap, although the Ultra Modern weight relief of the Prophecy leaves it a noticeably lighter instrument than the Wino model, which has traditional nine-hole weight relief. 

These being Les Paul Customs, the glued-in mahogany necks, multi-ply bodies and bound headstocks with the MOP split diamond inlay are the order of the day, and there’s something uncanny about the latter to endow a guitar a sense of prestige.

And yet these are quite different guitars. Where the Wino model defers to the house style with its ebony fingerboard inlaid with pearl blocks, the Prophecy model has a minimalistic ‘Circle in Diamond’ inlay. The look of the Prophecy model, its chrome hardware on Bone White, is cleaner, almost surgical. The Wino model is opulent, with gold hardware in exquisite contrast to the deep red of the finish.

Both guitars are outfitted with a LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge and tailpiece, with the Prophecy model option for locking Grover Rotomatic tuners with the Wino model has Grover Rotomatic 18:1 with kidney buttons.

Choosing between both models, however, is not about hardware and finishes. It’s about whether you want the modernity of the Prophecy, the 24-fret fingerboard and the multi-voiced Fishman pickups that offer hot humbucker, PAF-alike and single-coil tones from push/pull functions on the usual dual-volume, dual-tone control setup. 

Or, is the classic performance of the Wino more your speed? A guitar on which the bridge position’s exposed coil 98T PRO humbucker is the Mr Hyde to the Alnico Classic Pro’s Dr Jekyll at the neck.

Epiphone Jerry Cantrell 'Wino' Les Paul Custom and Les Paul Custom Prophecy: Performance and verdict

Let’s tackle the Wino model first. Besides the G&L Rampage, this is the guitar most associated with Jerry Cantrell, and while the spec has been scaled down for this – there is no Fishman piezo on the bridge for those blended electric and acoustic guitar tones, it nails the look. 

Cantrell’s name adorns the truss rod plate cover, while his initials can be found on the back of the headstock. Otherwise, this is simply a real classy Les Paul Custom – the acme of its pro-quality at accessible price range.

The medium-jumbo frets and the healthy curvature of the neck profile would welcome anyone who likes their Les Pauls to feel substantial in every sense. 

Plugging in through a tube amp and hitting a chord and there’s an authenticity to the Wino’s voice. The Alnico Classic Pro has that artery-clogging quality, a rich warmth and thickness – tone for a special occasion – that nonetheless has a trebly chime that articulates your notes. Flick to the 98T PRO and dial in some drive and it soon shows its teeth with a tone capable of chewing its way through the Cantrell back catalogue. 

You’ll be thankful for the quality hardware when alternating between Drop D and standard tunings and there’s something so solid and dependable about the performance here. While there is enough grunt to heave into a grunge/metal riff, rolling back the volume cleans these pickups up nicely; even with Jerry Cantrell’s name on the back of its headstock, the Les Paul Custom can still operate as a blues guitar with pedigree.

This might be beyond the Prophecy model’s brief. Sure, the multi-voice pickups expand your options tonally but there is something explicitly metal about its design. Fans of the Fishman Fluence design swear by their enhanced attack and output. Trivium’s Matt Heafy is particularly evangelical, describing them as having a faster attack that improved his playing. This quality comes into its own in high-gain scenarios, especially if you tune the guitar down below D. 

There’s an immediacy about the Prophecy’s hot voicings. It ain’t subtle. It might even be overkill. But metal is an art form that rewards overkill. They’ll chug all right. 

But then there’s the other side to the Fishman Fluence’s design. The vintage PAF voicing parks its sound on the Wino’s lawn, muscling in on the old-school Les Paul’s territory, which, again, puts the prospect of blues guitar tones on the menu. This is the most authentically Cantrell of all the Prophecy voicings, with its hot modes arguably more suited to sounds more extreme than those heard on AIC records.

Finally, the single-coil modes, while not in danger of sounding like a Fender Stratocaster, do nonetheless offer something unorthodox and quite thrilling to hear coming out of a Les Paul Custom, and it’s the sort of mode that could prove invaluable when playing a set that needs such a diverse range of sounds. 

There’s no questioning the Prophecy’s versatility. The 24-fret format and multi-voice pickups will be too modernistic for some. It also seems like an unusual guitar for Cantrell to put his name too. But in the stifling conformity of the modern world, it pays to be different, to be hard to pigeonhole. Those looking for a do-it-all metal guitar – with range and sophistication if needed, blow-torch lead and rhythm tones as standard – for a grand will do well with the Prophecy. 

Those who prefer the refinement and stateliness of old-school Gibson design will find that blue-blooded DNA to their tastes on the Wino. It’s also a few hundred bucks cheaper, which always sweetens the deal. Whichever you choose, you’ll have a typical example of Epiphone’s high-end approach to affordable guitar-making, serious quality at semi-serious prices.

MusicRadar verdict: Cantrell’s Wino Les Paul Custom translates well as an affordable but top-quality electric, offering a classic LP performance with the refinement you’d expect from the model, while the Prophecy is a faintly thrilling, made-for-metal singlecut that has hidden depths, with multiple pickup voicings making for one formidable instrument.

Epiphone Jerry Cantrell 'Wino' Les Paul Custom and Les Paul Custom Prophecy: The web says

"It doesn’t cover vintage tones quite as well as its claret-hued counterpart – active pickups are typically less smooth and less dynamic than passives – and players who dabble in blues or jazz may find that a bit of a turn-off. Those dialing in higher gain sounds all the way from Rammstein and Slipknot through to Code Orange and Periphery, however, will arguably feel more at home on the Prophecy." 
Total Guitar

Epiphone Jerry Cantrell 'Wino' Les Paul Custom and Les Paul Custom Prophecy: Hands-on demos

Epiphone

PMTVUK

Peach Guitars

The Trogly's Guitar Show

Epiphone Jerry Cantrell 'Wino' Les Paul Custom and Les Paul Custom Prophecy: Specifications

Specs – Jerry Cantrell ‘Wino’ Les Paul Custom 

• PRICE: $849 / £749
• BODY: Mahogany with plain maple cap
• NECK: Mahogany SCALE: 24.75”
• FINGERBOARD: Ebony
• FRETS: 22 
• ELECTRONICS: Alnico Classic Pro (neck), 98T PRO (bridge)
• CONTROLS: 2x volume, 2x tone, three-way toggle 
• HARDWARE: Gold 
• LEFT-HANDED: No 
• FINISH: Dark wine red

Specs – Jerry Cantrell Les Paul Custom Prophecy 

• PRICE: $1,149 / £899
• BODY: Mahogany with maple cap
• NECK: Mahogany
• SCALE: 24.75”
• FINGERBOARD: Ebony
• FRETS: 24
• ELECTRONICS: 2x Fishman Fluence
• CONTROLS: 2x volume with push/pull coil splitting, 2x tone with push/pull voice switching, three-way toggle
• HARDWARE: Brushed nickel
• LEFT-HANDED: No 
• FINISH: Bone White 
• CONTACT: Epiphone

We're celebrating 30 years since Alice In Chains released their masterpiece Dirt with a bumper set of lessons to show you how to learn every riff and lick from the entire album!

Get the tones 

Jerry Cantrell's main guitar at this time was a G&L Rampage so you want something with a high output humbucker in the bridge. 

Tone-wise the Dirt sound is tricky to replicate, as it's a blended sound of three amps (Bogner Fish Preamp, Bogner Ecstasy and Rockman headphone amp) but there could have been others used too. I'd set your amp just on the very edge of breakup and use any decent high gain pedal – I've used the Friedman BE-OD in some of these videos. 

You'll also need a wah pedal for some riffs/solos and a flanger is used in the clean parts in Rooster.

Tuning 

Jerry always tunes his guitar 1/2 a step down, but Them Bones/Dam That River areh in Drop Db so you'll need to detune your 6th (low Eb) string down a further step for that one. 

Technique tip 

Jerry's calling cards here are plenty of palm muting, wide vibrato, bends, trills and crushing riffs to get your fingers around so have fun!

1. Them Bones

2. Dam That River 

3. Rain When I Die 

4. Down In A Hole 

Down In a Hole MTV Unplugged version

5. Sickman 

6. Rooster

8. Junkhead 

9. Dirt 

10. Godsmack 

11. Hate To Feel 

12. Angry Chair 

13. Would? 

How to play guitar like Alice In Chains: Jerry Cantrell's secrets unlocked 

Jerry Cantrell’s collaboration with Gibson brands continues apace as Epiphone has unveiled a pair of signature guitars for the Alice In Chains guitarist. 

One is a premium-build version of his legendary ‘Wino’ Les Paul Custom, which was given a Murphy Lab Custom Shop release by Gibson last August, and the other is a Prophecy Les Paul Custom model in Bone White. These models join a pair of Gibson Jerry Cantrell signature Songwriter acoustics which were unveiled in February.

The silhouettes and the fundamentals of these new Les Paul Customs are quite similar. Both have weight-relieved mahogany bodies (the Prophecy Ultra Modern, the ‘Wino’ nine-hole) with a maple cap, glued-in mahogany necks and artist profile necks topped with 12” radius ebony fingerboards. 

Their fingerboards are bound, with multi-ply binding on the body and headstock, and you’ll find both come fitted with an LockTone tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece. Cantrell’s name is on the truss rod cover and his JJ logo is on the headstock’s rear.

But these are quite different guitars. The Prophecy model promises a more contemporary feel courtesy of its 22 jumbo frets (the Dark Wine Red model’s are regular medium jumbo), and a wider range of sounds courtesy of its multi-voiced Fishman Fluence humbucker pairing.

Like the other Prophecy models, this Cantrell Les Paul Custom has a two volume, two tone setup and the customary three-way pickup selector mounted on the shoulder, but there are alternate voices available for the pickups, with a push-pull on the pots splitting the coils and accessing a more classic sounding PAF-style electric guitar pickup sound.

The Bone White model is a bold look. Where the ‘Wino’ model has traditional block inlays on the ebony ‘board, this has the Circle in Diamond custom inlays that reference the Jerry Cantrell Songwriter acoustic electric guitar, and the knurled metal control knobs give it a more metal vibe. That, after all, is what the Epiphone’s Prophecy series is all about.

As for the ‘Wino’ model, it looks the part in Dark Wine Red. The gold hardware might lack the locking Grover Rotomatics of the Prophecy, but we still have a set of stable Rotomatics here with kidney bean-style buttons.

At this price point, it’s no surprise we don’t have the Fishman Powerbridge piezo and the stereo dual output jack of the Murphy Lab model but then that is a little niche. 

What we do have is a dual-humbucker pairing of an open-coil 98T Pro in the bridge and an Alnico Classic Pro at the neck, with the typical two volume, two tone control setup.

The ‘Wino’ has a single-ply pickguard and Speed Knobs in black. Both guitars ship in a hard-shell case with Cantrell’s name stencilled on the front. It will be interesting to play both side by side to see how the feel compares, and in particular what effect the different weight-relief patterns have.

The Jerry Cantrell ‘Wino’ Les Paul Custom is priced £749 / $849. The Jerry Cantrell Prophecy Les Paul Custom is priced £1,049 / $1,149. See Epiphone for more details.

• Jerry Cantrell interview: “I’ve always liked a healthy dose of the G&L, Rampage and Gibson Les Paul. That’s the meat in the meatloaf”

Ever since Jerry Cantrell was spotted playing a custom Gibson Songwriter in the video for Atone, speculation has mounted that another signature collaboration was in the works. 

It seemed inevitable that Gibson would give one of its most high-profile brand ambassadors a signature acoustic guitar to partner his “Wino” Les Paul Custom. Well, we were half-right; there were two signature Songwriters in the works, and now they are available to buy.

The Jerry Cantrell Signature “Fire Devil” and “Atone” Songwriters offer two takes on the classic cutaway acoustic electric guitar, both finished in Ebony with solid Sitka spruce on top, solid rosewood on the back and sides. 

There are some aesthetic differences, however, with the “Fire Devil” model, however, arriving with a decorative pickguard, and the “Atone” model matching that played by Cantrell, with a cream ‘circle in square’ design around the soundhole.

Choosing between the two might be tough, but if you like the “Fire Devil” you had best be quick – it is limited to 100 units worldwide. 

Otherwise, there is not much to separate these. Cantrell’s Songwriters have a slightly shallower body depth, which might take a bit of the boom out of them. The scale length is 25.5”. The nut width is listed as 1.725”, which is similar to the G-Writer model from the new Gibson Generation Collection acoustics.

Both feature mahogany ‘Advanced Response’ profile necks that join the body with a compound dovetail neck-to-body joint, affixed by hot hide glue. The Indian rosewood fingerboards have a 16” radius and house 20 Small Crown frets. MOP split parallelograms count out the frets, and there’s a “12” inlay at the 12th fret. 

Industry standard LR Baggs VTC electronics have been installed on both, with the controls mounted discretely in the soundhole, and an endpin 1/4” jack taking the signal to your acoustic guitar amplifier.

Signature flourishes include the Alice In Chains guitarist’s signature on the truss rod cover, with a “JJ” decal on the rear of the headstock. And for hardware, there’s a set of Grover Mini-Rotomatics in gold, a reverse belly Indian rosewood bridge, with TUSQ saddle, nut and bridge pins.

While there has been no official release from Gibson just yet, with its website yet to be updated, the Jerry Cantrell “Atone” and “Fire Devil” Songwriters are widely available to order from Gibson retailers. The “Atone” model is priced £3,299. The “Fire Devil” is £3,499 / $3,999.

This is the second signature Gibson release this week. On Friday, to mark the release of Slash ft Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators’ fourth album – titled 4 – Gibson released a Translucent Cherry version of the Slash Les Paul Standard, limited to 250 units worldwide, and it looks like most of them have gone already.

For more details, head over to Gibson.

Jerry Cantrell helped define the sound of rock music in the ‘90s but his ear for melody, the riff and for the speculative business of songwriting goes back to the ‘70s. You can hear that across Alice In Chains’ discography, a sense of golden-hued classicism applying light and shade. But it’s writ large across Brighten.

Cantrell’s first solo album since 2002’s sprawling double long-player Degradation Trip, Brighten is a 21st century album that in some respects belongs to another era. The process, as Cantrell describes it, was guided by the spirit of discovery; an old-school project requiring masses of audio hardware, guitar amps and instruments, plugging in to them all until a tone presented itself. 

But it also belongs to another era in the sense that Cantrell had been living with some of the song ideas for many years. Atone, for instance, can be dated to the mid-‘90s. A few tweaks to the music, some new lyrics and in 2021 it made sense. As Cantrell joins us from his home in LA, his cat protesting the interruption with a squawk, he explains that it’s not necessarily that he has to sit on a song and wait decades before it can hatch. What’s more important it that whenever the idea visits you, you’ve got to get it to tape.

“If you get an idea, then you want to get it down,” he says. “You want to record it, at least so that the idea doesn’t dissipate into the fucking void, y’know? I would say that, to any aspiring writer, fucking write shit down! Record everything.”

Cantrell’s reasoning is that, if you are so motivated to record an idea in the first place, some way down the line, your instincts will be proved correct – “You’d be right more times than you’d be wrong” – and his have done all right by him so far.

Brighten sees Cantrell joined by a cast of top players. He has Duff McKagan on bass, Dillinger Escape Plan alumni Greg Puciato on guest vocals and Gil Sharone on drums. Abe Laboriel Jr drums on the record, too, with Jordan Lewis playing piano, Michael Rozon on pedal steel, Lola Bates on background vocals and Matias Ambrogi-Torres on strings. But it sounds like no one else.

So infused with Cantrell’s songwriting DNA, it’s sometimes hard to see where his solo material ends and Alice In Chains begins. 

Once more, those layered textures that Cantrell specialises in, seem to conspire in an omnipresent drone that sets the emotional register for the rest of the arrangement. All this is captured with a rich production from Tyler Bates and in a typically three-dimensional mix from Joe Barresi, but it’s typical of Cantrell that these songs have it both ways, playing on the ambiguity between the downbeat and the uplifting. This, he explains, is what keeps him interested. This is what makes the songs human. 

You’re sound has got this Mona Lisa quality to it. Listening to Atone, it’s got that light and shade, darkness and positivity. Is that something you get off on, that ambiguity?

“Sure. Yeah, it’s like the fucking drama sign, man, with the fucking smiling mask and the fucking crying mask, y’know what I mean? Drama is drama, and it is all emotions in-between, from one end to the other. If I am trying to create, I would revisit that theme. That is what’s interesting to me. 

“Man, I love a good comedy! I love going to see some stand-up. But even within that there’s edge, and there’s reality, and there’s impact. And then, taking it to the other side of the scale, you can extract something positive out of something that is really fucking bleak and dire, and heavy. That can have a lot of light in it, too, because there is a point of light that someone is trying to struggle to, that they’re trying to get out of. 

“I like things that are multi-levelled. I like things that are multi-faceted. People are flawed. Nobody is fucking perfect, and so a song should have all of those elements in it. The cool thing about art and music is that, maybe every once in a while, you take that humanity, all of that ‘stuff’, and maybe somehow, just the chemistry of you all together, and what you put into it and your experiences, you hit on something that elevates it, and maybe reaches a level that you couldn’t do on your own. 

“There is some ethereal shit there. There’s some magic to it. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of a body of work, and records, and be part of a band that I think has gotten close to touching that a few times.”

And where does the layering come into it? Because a lot of these songs can be boiled down to a simple melody or idea, but then it’s nested within all these different textures. 

“Well it’s a process, man. Once you put a couple of parts together and you have got the basic feel, the bones of the song or an idea, you can maybe have a clearer picture of where you are going. I think mostly it is just one foot in front of the other. ‘Okay, cool, I’ve got this fucking great riff here. Okay, we’ve got a good bridge. We’ve got a good chorus…’ And you start warbling… [Laughs] Warbling some nonsense lyrics to sing a melody line with it! And it is just a process. You try things out and, for me, it is always music first. Not always, but pretty close to 100 per cent of the time, it is the musical idea first, and then of course the lyrics are probably the last part of the puzzle, like, ‘What do you want to say?’

“A lot of that is just happenstance on where you are in life, what is impacting you at a moment, what you are going through, what you extract or reflect back to and from the world, and also what the music makes you feel like. Sometimes the music sets the tone. Using Atone as an example, the music definitely influenced the direction of the lyric, for sure.”

There is something cinematic about the writing on this album. Was that something that you were explicitly looking for in these songs?

“I am a huge fan of cinema so that is something that is definitely that I am into, and I really like the marriage of images and music as part of different layers of storytelling. But sometimes, y’know, music is really visual to me, period. Without any reference to that or even trying to get there; it is a trip. And that is what I was saying in my reference to Atone, and with coming up with the lyrics, it sounds like a fucking movie, y’know? It sounds like a visual landscape. It gives you imagery. 

“When you hear that first fucking downbeat, it sounds like a pack of fucking dudes on fucking horses in the middle of the desert of something! Like, fleeing some sort of pursuit, or pursuing something in a hostile environment. These are all elements of what it makes me feel, and so when I hear that, that gives me a lot of direction of where I can go lyrically with it.”

Well, maybe when they finally adapt Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian for the screen it might get picked up. Speaking of things being picked up, there’s been a lot of excitement about Gibson prototypes and what might be coming down the line. Did you use any of these on the album?

“Yeah, well, I’ve always liked a healthy dose of the G&L Rampage and Gibson Les Pauls. That’s been the meat in the meatloaf of my sound. [Laughs] From early on. It has been really fun working with Gibson over the past couple of years and making the switch to the other guitar that I have been relying on over the years. 

“They have been really great. They have sent me a bunch of cool instruments for making the record, and of course we had been in the process of recreating one of the guitars that I play, and which I’ve always dug, and that’s my ‘Wino’ Les Paul, and the guys at the Custom Shop did a really great job replicating that, with a couple of little tweaks that me and my guitar tech, Brian Herb, made to it.”

That is an incredible guitar – and with a piezo, too.

“Well I was thinking that my band does a lot of stuff where we do loud gigs, and we can do quieter moody gigs with Sap and Jar Of Flies. We can operate in a lot of different venues, so I thought it would be really cool to be able to design a guitar where you could do both easily, and get in an acoustic or a clean sound, but also have the playability of an electric, and to be able to go back and forth. That was the plan, and the execution of it was Brian Herb putting it together, and it turned out to be a pretty useful little tool.”

What acoustics did you play on the record?

“Uhh, it’s been a minute and I am not a great one for remembering which paintbrush we used on which painting but we used a ton of the Gibson Songwriters. I have a couple of Guilds that we used. I have a Martin, which I think we played, and there might have been a couple of other guitars, but that was the bulk of it.”

You have been using your signature Friedman heads but do you still go round the houses and use other guitar amps in the studio?

“Oh yeah, y’know, I’ve always been a guy who likes to use a lot of different tools. Whatever tool is necessary for the job gets used. It has nothing to do with endorsements or anything like that. You need variety. You need different tools. Different brushes. Different tints. Different colours. All of that – anything goes. 

I love experimenting when we move into a recording environment. I will try to bring everything that I have in, a lot of varied heads, a lot of different cabs, effects pedals – every guitar I have – and then… We’ll get more! [Laughs] But we’ll hook up, I dunno, eight or nine, 10 different heads, and a bunch of different cabinets, we’ll mic them all up so it’s really easy to mix and match and plug and play. That's a system we’ve developed over the years. 

"Dave Jerden was really great at working like that. Nick Raskulinecz, Toby Wright, Paul Figueroa, we really perfected it, making it so that everything is available, so it’s not muss and fuss to be able to just say, ‘Okay, well that head doesn’t work but the cab’s cool. Let’s plug it into that head. Different guitar…’ Just to be able to be agile, to be agile and just try things out.”

Sure. Because even sometimes the room will react to one amp better than another, or a tube amp might be blazing one day and less so the next. 

“That’s true. Music, writing songs, it’s real trial-and-error stuff. It is like running it up the flagpole and seeing who salutes it. Throwing the spaghetti on the wall and seeing if it fucking sticks. [Laughs] Pick your analogy! You go through the process and that is part of the fun. 

"You are making it up out of fucking nothing. There aren’t any rules. There is no playbook. You can do whatever you want. I think, if there is any rule, it is: what does the song need? What is the song asking you for? And, sometimes, what does the song not need? Removing the clutter to let the thing be what it wants to be. But, as my good friend Joe Barresi says, how do you know you have gone too far unless you have already been there? [Laughs] You know!? You fuck around.

“Luckily I have been surrounded by a bunch of really talented, cool people, and I have been doing this for a while, and we are all in pursuit of the same thing, trying to make the best fuckin’ tune. And, in the bigger picture, trying to make the best record that we can. For that moment in time, you never want to walk away with a regret. ‘I coulda done that better I coulda done this.’ I’m glad I have never been in a situation where I have felt that, because I wouldn’t have put it out. 

“You want to walk away knowing that you did the best that you could do for that particular period of time, and that you made something you were proud of. And if it was the last record you ever made, you could be good with that. I can say that about every record I have recorded. If this is the last one? It was fucking killer. It was great.”

It’s reassuring to hear that you are still fishing around for tones every time. It’s nice to know the pros are still chasing the horizon, too. But this whole thing is the business of seeking, isn’t it?

“Yeah! Well, it’s really challenging, it’s fun, it’s a helluva journey, and it can be a grind sometimes. There are some patches where you are crossing the desert where you feel like, ‘Fuck, man! [Laughs] We've got a ways to go before we see some water again.’ But you know by experience that you are going to get through any rough patches, that you can. 

“Mostly, it’s an exciting and exhilarating process because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You make your little plan and you go in with your handful of ideas, maybe a couple of songs that are completed, and you know where it starts, you don’t quite know where it ends.

“But I am glad I followed my gut years ago, and this was something that always spoke to me. I have been lucky enough to have a career doing it, writing songs and feeling like I did what I was supposed to do with my life. And I am still at it. I am still operating at a level that makes me satisfied and I feel like I am still making good music, and I feel like I made another great record.”

We have to talk about Sir Elton. Where do you start? In some ways, perhaps because of the guitar player POV getting in the way, he can be a bit overlooked in rock circles. Do we overlook his genius because the piano is the lead instrument?

“Yeah, well, it’s just the writing style of he and Bernie [Taupin], Bernie’s words and Elton’s music, and of course Elton’s performance of said lyrics and music. His band is amazing. Nigel Olsson and [ the late] Dee Murray and Davey Johnstone – that core band was fucking sick. And there is so much great guitar work.

“Of course, Elton is the lead instrument – as he should be – but fuck, there is a lot of cool guitar shit on the early records and Davey has been a big influence of mine.”

Davey Johnstone is one of the best guitar players whom we never talk about as being one of the best guitar players ever.

“Absolutely. He is so versatile. And for all intents and purposes, he is the band leader. He is the man who keeps the band together. There is a lot of guitar to Elton’s music and I think that does get overlooked.”

It does seem nuts to talk about a man who played Madison Square Garden to celebrate his birthday is in any way under appreciated, but there is so much to learn from him. And those ‘70s records are of a piece with New Hollywood, in terms of doing something new and bold with an art form.

“Yeah, that era of music, the way that music was recorded, and just the warmth, and the volume of creativity of all sorts of styles and artists, there are just too many to count. It’s really hard not to get too fucking romantic about that era, and those influences that I gained, or those connections that I made during that decade, that was a really impactful decade of music for me. 

“The ‘70s was something that would just naturally come through in the way I go about making songs, the type of emotions. Each era has its tools for how you can make make music and elements that are worth keeping; the [‘70s had] warmth, the ‘make it up as you go along’ attitude, new instruments, new ways of recording. The changes in music are a constantly changing river. It is changing but it continues to flow in the same direction in the present and on into the future.”

Nostalgia can be a little too persuasive and is sometimes best resisted, but there is something about the ‘70s that seemed to be a magic period for art in general, for cinema, for music. What made the conditions right for that?

“Well you have to remember that the 20-year period from the ‘60s to the ‘70s, that was when it was all being made up and done for the first time. I think that’s part of it, part of the impact. There are so many artists and sounds, and changes of music that have never happened before. But you can extrapolate that to today, and any era really. There is always change, there is always something that has never existed before, and there are only a handful of notes, man, and we all use ‘em! 

“The thing is, it’s the individual, and the individual as part of a greater unit, like a band. That is still happening today. I don’t look at it like it’s nostalgic to celebrate that because it is a process that is still continuing today. I am part of a generation that is a continuation of something that was started before me, that I was inspired by, and there are many artists who have come after me, and many who will come after them. It’s fucking great.”

This record definitely has a ‘70s feel.

“I think you are right on point there. I think that, without me intending to do it, you can hear that. Maybe the roots are a little exposed, they are a bit more exposed than on other records, and that’s cool. I love that. It’s interesting, you could probably talk to a lot of artists and they’ll tell you their influences, and some are easier to pickup than others, where they emulate it out and you can hear where that artist came from, what era or style of music. But a lot of times you can’t because it is obscured by the identity of the artist, by the sound.

“I could go back through all of my music and, to me, it’s pretty clear where it is all coming from, what group of artists who might have made their way through and inspired me to write something. Maybe not while I am making it but after the fact. Maybe this record offers a clearer look of those influences.”

Brighten is out on 29 October via Warner Music. Preorder here. 

Jerry Cantrell has shared the second single and title track from his forthcoming solo album, Brighten, and for those jonesing for the next Alice In Chains album there's a lot to get into here.

Brighten is quintessentially Cantrell, but of course his imprint on the Seattle grunge pioneers' sound is so great that there is naturally a lot of crossover. 

That said, Cantrell has dialled down some of the more acrid fatalism of AIC's most-famous works. Brighten opens a sun-kissed classic rock melody in the foreground and lets a sense of baseline anxiety haunt the song as the riff builds towards the song's climax.

It finds Cantrell on a something of a more even emotional keel than on the first single to be released from the album, Atone. That track was inspired by old Morricone western film scores, and has a rich seam of darkness running through its arrangement.

“As a fan of Ennio Morricone scores and Sergio Leone movies,” he explains. “It’s been kicking around in my head for like 20-plus years, haunting me. Sometimes it takes a while for a good idea to find its best form. Such was the case with Atone.”

Brighten has more of a 70s vibe and that is in keeping with the idea behind the project, which sees Cantrell enlist the a supporting cast of musicians including Guns N' Roses legend Duff McKagan on bass, and vocalist Greg Puciato and drummer Gil Sharone formerly of the Dillinger Escape Plan.

A cover of Elton John's Goodbye, from Madman Across The Water, closes the album out, and Cantrell sought the Rocketman's blessing before including it on the record.

“Madman Across The Water is one of my favourite records of all time,” he said. “Out of respect to Elton, I wouldn’t include it unless he said it was okay. He’d played piano on Black Gives Way To Blue, which I wrote for Layne, so I reached out to Elton, he listened to it, and told me 'You should absolutely use it.' I got the sign-off by the man himself. I couldn’t think of a better way to close the record.”

Produced by Tyler Bett, Brighten is scheduled for release on 29 October, and is available to preorder now.

Also available is Gibson's Custom Shop Murphy Lab-aged replica of Cantrell's 'Wino' Les Paul Custom, which is destined to be the ultimate collector's item for AIC fans. It is a Les Paul Custom like no other, with a Fishman Powerbridge piezo system complementing a pair of 490R/498T humbuckers with some on-tap acoustic guitar tones. You can watch Cantrell talk about the guitar below.

Gibson's epic 2021 launch schedule has just dropped one of its biggest-ticket items yet, a Jerry Cantrell signature guitar that's been aged by the Murphy Lab to meticulously replicate the Alice In Chains guitarist's Wine Red 'Wino' Les Paul Custom.

This is no ordinary Les Paul Custom. Setting aside the eye-watering price tag – the services of Tom Murphy's team do not come cheap! – Cantrell has some very interesting specs on his guitar, from the fundamental to the radical.

We'll take the fundamental first. Cantrell's 'Wino' Les Paul Custom has a plain maple topped mahogany body with nine-hole weight relief to show your lower back a little mercy, a Custom Cantrell mahogany neck that joins the body with the hide-glued long neck tenon, aged gold hardware, and a pair of 490R/498T humbuckers at the bridge and neck.

Now, here's where it gets radical. The Cantrell signature model comes equipped with a Fishman Powerbridge piezo for on-the-fly acoustic guitar tones, and a stereo output jack for routing the signal separately.

As you might expect, the control setup is a little different, with the three-way pickup selector joined by a pair of volume controls for each of the humbuckers, a master tone control, and a third volume control positioned in the bridge tone knob's place that controls the output of the piezo.

Elsewhere, there are all the touches you'd expect on a Les Paul Custom, from the 12" radius ebony fingerboard with MOP block inlays, Black speed control knobs, multi-ply binding and a matching 'guard, a bound neck and headstock.

Cantrell's Les Paul is fitted with a set of Grover kidney bean-style tuners, has a Corian nut, 22 medium jumbo frets and a regular Gibson scale of 24.75". Under the hood, Gibson has used 500K CTS Audio-Taper pots and ceramic capacitors, and on the rear of the guitar there is a compartment for a 9V batter to power the piezo.

Inside the case you'll find a certificate of authenticity reassuring you that you are one of 100 players lucky enough to own this guitar, which has a street price of £7,899.

Jerry Cantrell has just announced the release of his forthcoming solo album, Brighten, which was coproduced by Cantrell with film composer Tyler Bates, and arrives on 29 October via Warner Music and is available to preorder now. 

Check out new single Atone below.

While it's been 18 years since Jerry Cantrell's last solo opus Degradation Trip, he's certainly not been slacking – bringing back Alice In Chains to acclaim with four studio albums and world tours. Now he's returning to that side of his career with the new solo album Atone on 29 October, but bringing plenty of friends along for the ride too.

You can hear the first song from the nine-track album above. Atone is definitely going to ring true for fans of AIC – dark and brooding just as we like it from the man we call the Grunge Gilmour around these parts. And this one has been brewing on his songwriting stove for a long time.

“As a fan of Ennio Morricone scores and Sergio Leone movies, ,” he explains. “It’s been kicking around in my head for like 20-plus years, haunting me. Sometimes it takes a while for a good idea to find its best form. Such was the case with Atone.”

The album features a very impressive cast of musicians. Alongside old friend and Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan are former Dillinger Escape Plan members; vocalist Greg Puciato and drummer Gil Sharone, alongside fellow drummer Abe Laboriel Jr, Tyler Bates (co-production with Cantrell / strings / percussion / guitar), Vincent Jones (piano, keys, & strings), Jordan Lewis (piano), Michael Rozon (pedal steel), Lola Bates (background vocals) and Matias Ambrogi-Torres (strings). Joe Barresi (Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age) mixed the record.

“It was like an old school ‘70s record where a multitude of musicians played,” notes Cantrell, who worked with Faith No More's Mike Bordin and Metallica's Rob Trujillo on 2002's Degradation Trip. “So it’s not a set band. I got to make music with a bunch of people I never had before, along with friends like Duff, Tyler and Gil who I’ve worked with previously.”

While eight of the songs are Cantrell originals, the closing track Goodbye is a cover of Elton John and Bernie Taupin's 1971 song.  And Cantrell even got the blessing from the man himself. 

 “’Madman Across The Water’ is one of my favourite records of all time,” Cantrell says of the icon's fourth album. “Out of respect to Elton, I wouldn’t include it unless he said it was okay. He’d played piano on Black Gives Way To Blue, which I wrote for Layne, so I reached out to Elton, he listened to it, and told me “You should absolutely use it.” I got the signoff by the man himself. I couldn’t think of a better way to close the record!”

Brighten tracklist

For preorders head to jerrycantrell.com

Post Malone has rock chops – 2020 saw him covering Eric Johnson's Cliffs Of Dover and a whole set of Nirvana songs with Travis Barker. Now he's flexing his love of it again; teaming up with his producer / guitarist Andrew Watt, Slash, Chad Smith and Chris Chaney to deliver covers of Black Sabbath's War Pigs and Alice In Chains's Rooster. 

The surprise Bud Light Seltzer Session NYE livestream saw the five-piece play in an eerily lit empty and undisclosed venue in LA. 

The covers were the encore of a 12-song set that also saw performances of PM's hits Sunflower, Better Now and his hit with Ozzy Osbourne, Take What You Want.  

You can watch the full 50-minute set below.

He's played Gibsons his whole career but Alice In Chains' Jerry Cantrell was only recently named as an official endorsee with a signature model sure to follow. When he sat down with the company's Cesar Gueikian to talk golf, his ranch, riffs and guitars, he also revealed some 2020 musical plans – namely a new solo work.

"There's gonna be some cool things happening this year," he confirmed to Gibson TV as he revealed Alice In Chains were taking a break in 2020. "We we gonna take a year off so I thought maybe do some shows and work on some music as well.

"There's gonna be some exciting things. I don't want to say just yet what's happening but I can tell you there's going to be some cool shit happening this year." 

Cantrell played two shows in La late last year with a band including Marilyn Manson collaborator Tyler Bates. The duo worked together on the song A Job To Do for the John Wick 2 soundtrack in 2017.

His last solo album was 2002's Degradation Trip, reissued later that year in its intended expanded double disc format. 

NAMM 2020: Gibson's efforts to turn their artist roster into a who's who of great players carries on apace as Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell signs up.

Now, to properly consummate this union, the master builders at the Gibson Custom Shop are going to have put on a fresh pot of coffee, sit round a table with Cantrell and draft some kind of carefully spec'd signature model. In the meantime, though, Cantrell will be at NAMM on official Gibson/Cantrell business, and will sign your stuff if you head to the Gibson experience space, 3rd Floor, Ballroom A for 4pm local time today.

Sadly, there is no news just yet as to what Cantrell will play yet – though he is playing an SG in the accompanying press release, has played a number of SGs and Les Pauls in the past, and is a big fan of the Hummingbird acoustic. But it sounds like there will definitely be something.

“I’m very happy to announce that I am officially joining the Gibson family,” says Cantrell. “I’m looking forward to what we can create together in the future.”

“Bringing Jerry to the Gibson to family is a dream come true," says Cesar Gueikian, chief merchant officer at Gibson. "He is one of the riff lord heroes that personally influenced and inspired me to play guitar. It’s a privilege to have such an icon become one of our ambassadors. He continues to shape sound in a way that is unique to his artistry. Together we will be a on quest to make music matter more than ever.”

What would you want to see from a Jerry Cantrell signature Gibson?

Check out our NAMM 2020 hub for more gear news.``

Dimebag day: To mark the 15th anniversary of Dimebag Darrell’s passing, we’re revisiting classic interviews to celebrate his legacy

In this interview from 2014 Jerry Cantrell reflects on the friendship he forged with Dimebag in the early days of Pantera and Alice In Chains.

You knew Dimebag early on in your careers, how did you first meet?

"I graduated high school in 1984, and was in a band with a couple of guys from Tacoma, Washington, going to college. About halfway through the first semester we decided to quit college – or at least put it off for a year – and go try to put a band together. The drummer, his dad had an insulation company in Dallas, Texas, so we basically packed up our shit in a van and fuckin’ drove there! It was their idea, and I was actually the one that followed through with it.

"I picked up my books in the middle of the class and put them on the teacher’s desk he’s like ‘What are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I’m outta here, I’m quitting’. I went back to the desk where my buddy was sitting and he’s looking at me kind of horrified and I’m like ‘Hey man, that was your idea, motherf***er. Let’s go!’

"So we ended up in Texas, and we got jobs working for the insulation company, and we’d go to the rock clubs and see bands play. We jammed a lot but we never really did a whole lot, as far as gigging, you know? It was kind of more like a year of taking it in and learning from other bands playing live, and one of the bands I saw was Pantera."

So how did you get to know Dimebag?

"There was a bar called Matleys Phase II that they used to play. I remember meeting those guys at the gigs and being completely blown away by how badass they were. We’re the same age, so would have been 18-19 years old, and I started hearing a lot about [Dimebag] while I was down there before I’d actually seen the band, about how amazing this guitar player was, and of course being a guitar player that’s really where my focus was.

"You know, he was like that then, he was a badass when I first met him. I’d hear s**t like they had these contests every year, he won a bunch of them in a row and they kind of started asking him, ‘Hey dude, can you let somebody else win this thing?’. There was nobody that could touch him."

Did you tour together?

"No, that's a common misconception. We did a few shows near to each other, but we never did a proper tour together. I wish we had, but they were always off and we were always off and we’d just kind of cross paths out there. Mostly I would see him on the road about twice a year. I’d normally fly into Dallas and drive up to Oklahoma for Christmas and New Years, and the first thing I’d do when I arrived in Texas would be to go and see Dime and Vinnie."

Did you ever jam with the guys?

"Sure, you know, I’d go and stay with them, we’d f*** around with some stuff . We’d mostly just go have a good time and hang out you know, set his kitchen on fire trying to cook food! We had a great time, he was really a very good friend.Another part of him – beyond being the amazing guitar virtuoso that he was – he was a f***ing great guy, a great dude and we had a lot of really good times."

What sort of stuff would you play?

"Oh, just messing around with ideas, I’d be playing something that he’d be interested in and he’d be like ‘What the f**k you playing there?’ or vice-versa. You know, he’d be f***ing around with something and I’d ask ‘F***ing play that again!’"

Is there any particular techniques you picked up from Dime?

"Not really, we’re two different players, you know? He’s far more skilled than I’ll ever be…I always admired that. That’s the cool thing about doing what we do, you’re an individual, and that really shines through when you play guitar, you can hear the dedication and the time and the soul of a person. It comes from the head and the heart and comes out the flesh and through the wood and metal. That stuff makes you who you are."

Even though your playing styles are different, you share a lot of the same influences...

"Yeah, we kind of had a similar arc. Our major label debuts came out the same year – Cowboys From Hell and Facelift. Dirt came out in 92, and so did Vulgar…So we rode the same arc at the same time. I’m glad I had the chance to spend as much time with him, and I’m still hearing him everywhere I go!"

Do you have a favourite Dimebag riff or solo?

"God! That’s so tough! I always liked the solo from Cemetery Gates, there’s a lot of vibe in there, but riffs? Jesus, I was obviously a fan of Walk, A New Level, the riff from Cowboys From Hell sounds like a f**king machine!I’m a fan of simple, I like all those shifts they did, but that one in particular really stuck with me."

There’s been a lot of talk about potential Pantera reunions and tribute shows. Is that something you’d be interested in being a part of?

"I don’t know, I don’t think I could play that fast! I’d go see it! I love all those guys, they’re an amazing band, and from my own experience I know it’s a tough ride sometimes. And it’s not really meant to last.

"That’s the beautiful thing about it existing in the first place, hitting so hard and making a mark and being remembered the way that it was – the way that it is. It’s their music, they have the right to do whatever the f**k they want with it. Nobody really has the right to say anything about it. It’s their s**t, if they want to go out and play it I’d go and see it!"

You’ve proved that it can be done

"Absolutely. We’re an example of you can go on and do it, and you can do it the way that you want to do it, for your reasons and not for anybody else’s. I’ve heard Zakk’s name mentioned probably more than anybody else, and also his relationship with Dime and the guys in Pantera, I think that would be great. That would be very cool. There’s a lot of bands that go through s**t, and f***ing get it back together, it’s nice to be a signpost for that, to give some hope on the otherside of some darkness."

Though well known as grunge pioneers, Alice In Chains are heavily influenced by metal and hard rock, with a sound that sets them apart from the loud-soft cliches of some other early 90s alt-rock acts. 

A big feature of Jerry’s playing is dissonant harmony and a fondness for that staple metal scale, the Phrygian mode - take a listen to the main verse riff in Would for an example.

He’s also no slouch when it comes to soloing, and early influences from Eddie Van Halen to Jimi Hendrix shine through in tracks such as Grind, which features speedy legato and lyrical pentatonic lines. 

Jerry normally plays his guitars tuned down a semitone to Eb to allow for deeper riffing and more aggressive vibrato, but we’ve recorded our lesson in standard EADGBE tuning for convenience. Try out our riffs and licks to get a little of Jerry’s magic.

You Never Cantrell

There’s a great mix of some of Jerry’s favourite chords here - F#7add11 and E5dim will help you capture some essential AIC harmonies. Alice In Chains employ odd time in tracks such as Them Bones; count an eighth note pulse to keep time with the unusual feel of our 3/4 and 4/4 time change.

Somebody Check My Bends

This riff features Jerry’s penchant for headache-inducing Sabbath-influenced string bends that sound like there’s no pitch centre - listen to Check My Brain for a typical example. It takes control to execute these kinds of bends without overcooking them, so make sure to support the strings with any free fingers.

Soloing, In A Nutshell

Jerry’s solos often fuse elements of traditional blues phrasing with fiery hard rock attitude, resulting in a mix of Gilmour-esque melodies and fast legato that sounds truly epic in slower tracks such as Nutshell. Aim for a wide vibrato here, and dial in a wash of reverb and delay, ensuring that any idle strings are muted by your pick hand.

Mike Inez talks us through his thunderous career as bassist for Alice In Chains and beyond...

“Man, we’ve got warehouses full of basses and guitars. I love anything bass, it’s an amazing instrument. Bass gets overlooked so much and it’s such an interesting, important, sexy part of any band.

“I’ve got some old Fender Jazz basses that I’ve collected over the years; I’ll be in a town without anything to play, so I’ll go to a shop and buy one and bring it home. My basses are tools; I don’t just buy them to sell later. They’re like memories for me.

“I usually play four-strings. I have some fives, and we’ll drop them in there for some songs, but for the most part we go to drop-D if I need to detune, as our default tuning is half-a-step down. The blueprint in Alice In Chains is pretty solid now.

“Old Ampegs are my thing for that nice fat sound. I use a ’69 in the studio with a newer, hollow-body bubinga bass on a couple of songs. It’s the Star Bass 2 that Leland Sklar plays. He’s an old friend and we had a nice discussion about that bass; it’s such a good instrument. Whenever I do autograph signings at the Warwick Bass Camp, I always try and sit next to Lee, because he’s who I want to be when I grow up, haha! He drives around LA in a hotrod and writes pissed-off Facebook posts; he’s amazing. Him and Chuck Rainey tell these stories that leave me in awe. 

“The thing about bass players is that we’re friendly to each other, whereas singers hate each other, and guitarists will pretend that they like each other - but then talk shit about each other, haha! It’s a great community. I travel around the world and I try to represent that, because I think that being like Lee or Chuck or Larry Graham or Robert Trujillo is important.

Strong Streamer

“I did most of our new album, Rainier Fog, on an old Warwick that Ozzy Osbourne bought me back in 1990 when I was in his band - a Streamer with some old EMGs in it. It’s a Moonburst or Silverburst finish and completely beat to shit. It’s on its fifth headstock!

“The other one that he bought me was an old Spector, and that one’s on its fourth headstock. Of the 50 basses that I have, you can tell that those are the two that have been on world tours for the last 30 years. Nothing sounds like them either - they’re my favourites.

“I’ve been a Warwick endorser since 1990 and I love what they do; they’re great woods. They just made me two Streamers. The first one is based on this old go-kart helmet that I had when I was five. It’s sparkly blue with some pinstriping on it and a number 14, and they made a bass with the exact same paint job on it. Then they made me a pearlescent white one as well, which I used in London recently. I’m gonna make sure they get beat up on stage a lot, because I think beat-up basses sound better, somehow. I think it’s all the spit and blood and sweat that gets on them.

“When I was a kid, my uncle was the keyboard player in a Top 40 band in the San Fernando Valley. On the day I was born my family drove me home, and when we got back his band was rehearsing in the house next door. They had to shout at him to shut up because the new baby was there, so I literally came home from the hospital to a live rehearsal situation. I grew up surrounded by musicians, and I always knew I’d be one myself.

Oz-test

“I played rhythm guitar for years before my uncle gave me a 1955 Fender P-Bass that I wish I still had. I traded it for something else and went from there. I was in a couple of bands in LA, and then I was at a rehearsal studio one day in 1989 with my band, when a guy came in and told me that Ozzy Osbourne was auditioning bass players just around the corner.

“I was about 22 at the time and I knew it would be my one shot, so I phoned in sick for work on the day of the audition and went over there. Every bass player in the world was there, and I thought there was no way I was going to get the gig, but I played a bunch of songs with Ozzy and Zakk Wylde and had a blast. I was playing a Fender PJ at the time, the one that Duff McKagan plays. I heard they had over 200 guys try out, but I got down to the final three, and then Sharon told me I got the gig and I was off to Dublin, Ireland.

“We did a three-year tour for the No More Tears album and Alice In Chains, who supported us, asked me if I would fill in for their bass player Mike Starr. I did 27 gigs in 32 days in 16 countries while I was filling in. After that they asked me to join full-time, and here we are all these years later!"

Rainier Fog is out now on BMG.

Alice In Chains laugh when they’re together. A lot. However mired their story as a band has been in loss and struggle, they’ve maintained and strengthened a bond that’s clear to see spending time with them ahead of their UK live return in Leeds.

And they have a big reason to be cheerful; new album Rainier Fog validates yet again that their 2006 return with William DuVall began one of the great comebacks of rock history, even though, as DuVall admits to us, 2009’s Black Gives Way To Blue was a band “fighting for our right to exist”.

But it was also their new era as a full two-guitar dynamic; DuVall came into the band when his own trio Comes With The Fall backed Cantrell on the tour for his 2002 Degradation Tour solo album. While there’s a strong case to be made for Cantrell as the greatest lead player of the 90s alternative scene, DuVall’s achievement in thriving alongside him over their three albums together is easy to take for granted.

For this one, there’s a clue in the title. The 14,000-foot Mount Rainier is a towering landmark for Pacific North West residents and Alice In Chains returned home to Seattle for the initial tracking of the album. A place where ghosts of the past reside, even in the summer climes they spent there.

Recording took place at the studio formerly known as Bad Animals where the band laid down what would be their last album with Layne Staley in the fall of ’95. But they carried the legacy of a more recent loss with them too. DuVall reveals to us before we leave that they used an acoustic on the record that formerly belonged to their friend Chris Cornell, and was a songwriting guitar for him. The past is never far away from Alice In Chains, but it’s being carried proudly on into the future…

Going home

The album title conjures up the Pacific north west and the band’s roots. Was that on your mind a lot on this record?

William: “We were able to have more fun through the entire process than I think we’ve had before and I think going to Seattle had a little bit to do with that. There’s this thing of let’s try it, it will either be really, really bad in terms of baggage and stuff you’ve got to confront or it will be really, really cool. And it turned out to be really, really cool. 

“Seattle in summertime becomes one of the most beautiful cities on earth during those few months. And going to this studio where they’d had this history and other bands had this history – Superunknown was done there. So there were ghosts but they were benign ghosts. I hesitate to say friendly ghosts but they were. Anytime we felt ourselves confronting that stuff it was positive not negative. It helped fuel instead of restrict.”

Jerry: “It made sense because we made a conscious decision and said, ‘Let’s go home to Seattle and make this record.’ We had history at the studio, we recorded the self-titled record there and that’s when it was Bad Animals – Heart’s studio. It was cool to come back there after many years and still have the place be there and be home in Seattle in the summer, which is fucking amazing – it’s the best time of the year to be there.

“I had that song [the title track] and it seemed to make sense to me that we should call it that. And that song is an all-encompassing song as well; a life and a community where we come from. It’s important to us, looking back at where you come from and also looking at how far you’ve come. Being proud of that and owning it all.”

William: “And I think we’re getting to a stage, especially with all the things that are going on in the world with all these losses of people that have meant so much, I think just getting to a stage of realising, man, we’re not going to be doing this forever.

“No matter how you look at it, this is all ephemeral. We have to take our pleasures while we can. We have to not take this for granted. And you’d think that would be very baked into this group anyway, and it kind of is but I do think it takes repeated slaps in the face to really hammer that home. And it was very well hammered home this time.”

Community

It’s poignant as well because you come from a remarkable community of bands that have now become classic rock for a generation. And it’s a community that has experienced loss again even in recent years.

Jerry: “The middle section of that song touches on that. I was personally talking about Layne, but all of the fellows that we’ve lost and all of our friends are included in that section.”

You’ve both come from bands where you’re the main guitar player, how has that journey as a two-guitar band been for you in the last 12 years?

William: “It’s one of these things, man, we can both do all of whatever we want to do on a record. It becomes a thing of trying to create room or leave room for one another out of respect and admiration. What ends up happening when you do that is something that you couldn’t have achieved on your own if you’d elected to do everything. It would sound different so where we find these places to leave room for one another it really elevates the material, at least in terms of making it something it would never have been otherwise.”

Jerry, did William’s presence change your songwriting process when he joined the band?

Jerry: “No it didn’t change my style or writing. He’s his own unique dude and he’s got his own vocal sound. The way he writes and plays guitar is extremely different from me. Both rock so that’s cool but he adds elements of what he does but I’ve been doing things the same way for 31 years so I’m not really gonna change now. So I wouldn’t say it really changed anything about my writing style but it’s nice we can incorporate a lot more with William because he plays and he’s a really good guitar player. It gives us a little more opportunity.

“Layne started up guitar and wrote a couple of riffs and wrote a couple of really important tunes in our catalogue; Hate To Feel, Angry Chair and Head Creeps, those are the three songs that he wrote on guitar. And he would play a little bit but, actually, William is kind of like I am. We’re both guitar players at heart and we never intended to be lead singers. We were happy to be playing guitar, writing tunes and singing backups.

“He’s had a little more experience fronting his band than I had but we’re kind of cut from the same cloth in that respect just by circumstance. And this requires both of us to guide the ship vocally. Both of us will equally be the lead singer. Alice has always been a two-voice band and that’s why the transition works, because the mechanics work, even though the personnel has changed.”

Them tones

William and Jerry’s 2018 rig highlights

Voices

With the importance of vocals in mind – do you believe it influences your approaches to guitar leads?

William: “Yes and possibly even more so in this band, just because there’s something about living and recording in this environment that brings that out. I used to think of solos more as a ‘rave up’, that expression you guys have over here that I really like. You’re just going for it in this gonzo moment and you may never play it that way again. You’re not really worried about duplicating it again that way onstage.

“But then there were a few songs, even with the Comes With The Fall records, where it was even more of a composed solo and I think that approach lends itself better to this band. Where you think of the solo as another part of the composition so I labour over it a little bit more than I used to most of the time. 

“It can even become a little bit of orchestration because in the So Far Under solo there are parts where a lower or higher octave come in and I’m playing the same thing. You hear different things coming at you from different sides of the stereo spectrum during that little solo. So it’s a cool thing and a completely valid approach that bakes the solo into the song. You really couldn’t play it another way because if it’s done right and it really does become part of the composition then you want to stay faithful to it.”

Jerry: “I always half-heartedly joke that I wish I was a better guitar player so I could play some more blistering technical shit but I’m also totally happy that I didn’t do that. I made a decision to do it the way I’ve done it and I do okay. But I do approach it as a writer in the band, I kind of approach solos in the same way; I write them. I’ll do it in the same way I’ll do vocals and lyrics; a lot of times I’ll hum stuff and then start playing it.

“So a lot of my solos will start with my mouth, they won’t start with the guitar. I’ll be singing – it’s like horn runs or something. Then I’ll start replicating them on guitar, do a bunch of shit and then pick out the best bits and construct them.

“Once I really feel like I’ve got it pretty much together then I’ll perform them for real. But there’s a construction phase to a lot of my solos and I’ve always looked at solos as being a unique part of the song. And it can really lift a song to a place it hasn’t been before. And being that our band is so vocally focused it makes more sense for me to continue that process in the solo sections that I write.” 

This is Nick Raskulinecz’s third album with the band, and obviously you want to bring in new things each time. We heard it was his idea to bring a cigar box amp into the studio?

Jerry: “He’s a gear head, he’s great. He’s that kid you smoked pot with in junior high and went over to his house and jammed out in his room to Rush records. We all did that and he’s that guy too. And he loves it. He’s still that way today and that’s why it’s so fun to work with him and why he makes great records with bands, because he really fucking cares about the rock.

“We were up in Seattle and I think Nick went down to the Pike Place Market and they had these little cigar box amps and he bought one. It was like $150 and we used that thing on four or five songs on this record, as a thickener and it’s not that it sounded great, it’s like a Pignose-y kind of sound, that kind of honky, fart kind of amp, but when you mix it into something like on Drone especially, when those powerchords hit [hums riffs], it’s so fucking ratty and nasty because that cigar box amp is in there. It’s not that you can hear it and that’s why it sounds great, but when you take it away you know it’s gone. It’s like the balls went away.”

Baritone zone

Baritones have always been important in the studio for you for a rhythm foundation, when did that start?

Jerry: “I have to give credit for that to Dave Jerden. When we were recording Facelift and Dirt, he’s the guy who turned me on to them. He had a couple of Jerry Jones baritones and we would use them to thicken up the choruses, just a little bit behind it. A similar thing again in that it’s not so much that you hear it but you know when it’s not there when you take it away.

“And I learned a lot from Dave as far as layering, doing multi-tracks and doing the same thing with different amp combos for frequency and painting a picture. And I’ve picked that up and kind of expanded on that throughout our career.”

One of the interesting things about your playing is the way you’ll contrast upbeat parts with discordance…

Jerry: “A mix of ugly and beautiful.”

Exactly, did that just gradually come into your playing subconsciously over time when you were younger?

Jerry: “I think we’ve always had that and I think that’s one of the hallmarks of Alice. The fact that you can take something so nasty, something tilts your perspective a little like Check My Brain or something. I still get seasick listening to that and that’s my Sabbath influence.

“From the get-go that’s always been a part; something really powerful, dark, ugly, minor and then shove that into a major. Or having a major over a minor – that kind of rub. That’s been a hallmark.

“I’d probably give some of that credit to my choir teacher in high school. I always loved classical music but I was kind of raised on country. My mom and dad were both huge country music fans so that was one element but my teacher, Joanne Becker was her name and I run into her every once in a while and I just ran into her recently, but she used to have us do dark quartet baroque-style stuff. We did a lot of that stuff in high school and we actually did state competitions. So I think a lot of that stuck. And she was also a rocker, so she would play Police records and all sorts of cool music in class. I think some of that darker classical stuff stuck a little, too.”

All I Am at the end of the album is certainly dark, and a very emotionally heavy song. What does it mean to you?

Jerry: “That’s a cool song, man. When we recorded it, all of us knew it was the song to end the record on because it’s that big seven-minute kind of epic thing and also it’s a tear-jerking lyric.

“It’s written from the perspective that every one of us has at some point in our life, especially as you get older and you’ve been around for a while you’re going to see some shit and go through some shit. You’ll have to question your faith moments throughout life and that’s what that song speaks to I guess. Not in a bad way, this is what I am for better or for worse.

“The character asks, ‘Is this all I am?’ The drudgery of doing something for 31 years. But it’s also a beautiful thing to have been committed to do that. Everything has costs. No matter what you do in life, there’s a price for everything. Maybe [it’s] questioning the prices and whether it’s still worth it. But obviously it is because I’m still here doing it!”

Rainier Fog is out now via BMG.

Alice in Chains drummer Sean Kinney looks back on recording the deeply frustrating, label exec-confusing classic that is Them Bones.

How did 'Them Bones' come together?

"I remember that one p**sing me off because it was a pretty straightforward sort of metal-edged tune. I remember working on it but not wanting it to be straightforward. I had to figure out what kind of groove to put on it. The grooves were disjointed, timing-wise. I remember getting pretty frustrated, knocking over the drums and wondering what I could do there. It took a little time to figure it out and make it more unique than it could have been. I had to wrap my head around it and once it clicks you think, 'Ah, I'm gonna try it this way.'"

Did you realise it would be a big hit?

"I think people latched onto it because we pick our songs, not the record label. The label would have never in a million years picked that song as a single. We were like, 'Yup, put that one out.' They didn't think it would be a hit but they put it out."

You were never a band to appease the label executives...

"It was the same with Man In The Box back then. Facelift [1990] wasn't blowing up or anything, it had sold about 40,000 albums. When it came to the next single, they were really pushing one and we were like, 'No, this is the song.' They said it was a career-killer. We were like, 'Well it's our career, we wanna f**king kill it.' They weren't used to that. That song changed everything, it changed MTV and took off and the album sold half a million albums in a month or something. From then on the people doing the business realised that these dudes, crazy as they are, might know something."

Do you remember the kit you used?

"I've used DW kits on all of the albums. That one I still have. It had deeper toms. It was a 24" kick and probably a 14" rack with 16" and 18" floor toms. It's a purple sparkle kit."

Do you still play it the same way?

"It's under three minutes, so there's not a lot of time to turn it all around. Plus, because of the timing on it, it's structured around that. It's a cool one to play, it has energy. We have a lot of spaced out, bombastic tunes, so it has this cool energy and people seem to like it. It's one of our more metal-ish tunes. Sometimes we'll start a gig with it, it's a nice quick way to get warmed up."

A lot of people are talking about the subject matter of the title track to Alice In Chains' forthcoming album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here (due out 28 May). The song deals with intolerance and the willingness of those who reject facts for political purposes. The band's guitarist and co-vocalist, Jerry Cantrell, is surprised to discover that some are surprised at all. To him, the group has never shied away from writing music with a message.

"It blows me away," Cantrell says. "Those two words: 'social commentary.' It seems as though everybody's flipped out that we have something to say. We've been saying shit all along. It's not a subject we haven't written about before, although we never had the Devil going around the Earth putting dinosaur bones in our lyrics. That's a new one, I guess."

Clarifying the notion that the lyrics are, in some ways, an attack on religion, Cantrell explains that the band is simply "saying something about blind hate - teaching stupid shit that doesn't equal up to fact. There's a lot of good truths to be learned in any belief system. It's the human application that makes it go fucking wrong."

One thing that can't be disputed is that the classic Alice In Chains sound, which the band upheld on 2009's Black Gives Way To Blue, its first with vocalist William DuVall, remains as biting and compelling as ever on the new set. Cantrell's mix of pulverizing electric guitars, contrasted on a trio of songs with a neon-rainbow-like blend of acoustics and electrics, is the engine that drives the band's rapturous aesthetic.

Cantrell talked to MusicRadar recently about how he constructs the Alice In Chains guitar sonic structure, his artful use of the wah pedal, what producer and eternal fanboy Nick Raskulinecz brings to the table and how departed members Layne Staley and Mike Starr live on through the band's music.

I have to imagine there's a discovery process that is the result of making any record. What do you think you might have learned about yourself, or even the band, when making this album?

"You're right - every record is like that. It's kind of similar to lots of elements to this job: You get together and play shitty clubs, and you're working for years before you finally become an overnight success. [Laughs] There's so much shit that happens before anybody even knows about you. It's massive amounts of time, months and months of demoing; putting gear together and sharing stuff; pulling everything apart, learning how to play - it's a lot. Then there's the actual recording, mixing, the packaging. By the time you all get the music, we're already done with it and thinking about something else.

"I respect the process because I know how hard it is. As individual musicians and as a band, it's something we care about a great deal, because it's all about the journey. Each record is like a chapter of a book or a time capsule - not just the music but also the collective lives. We're in a different place, and this is a different record, but it's similar; it's recorded for posterity and shared with everybody. Part of it will remain private, and it's what nobody will ever know [laughs]. And that's meaningful. And a lot of it is there for you to listen to and decipher and pick through."

The overall sound of the band has never been monochromatic - there's always been a "beauty and the beast" aspect to the contrasting sonics. Where did that come from?

"There's a lot of influences to the band. One of the elements is the power and heaviness and kind of a darkness, but there's always melody and beauty mixed in with that. Personally, I grew up listening to everything from country to pop to soul to rock - you name it. I would say that the other guys have similar influences, as well.

"I had a healthy dose of choir in high school. We got to do a lot of classical music, which has a lot of dark elements to it. I think all of those influences stuck, and they shine through in what we do."

Alice In Chains, 2013 (from left) William DuVall, Sean Kinney, Cantrell and Mike Inez © Johnny Buzzerio

It's always good when band members come from different musical places. If everybody in a band loves only AC/DC, they're probably going to sound like a bad imitation of AC/DC.

[Laughs] "That's a great point. I mean, you have to start from somewhere. AC/DC is one of my favorite bands and one of my biggest influences for doing what I do. We don't sound like them because we're not those guys; only those guys can sound that way. You can pick many bands that tried to sound like them - like Krokus, you know? There were a couple of Krokus tunes that I was sure were AC/DC inspired.

"Nobody can do it like them, and that's the goal. The goal is to try to find your voice. You begin by emulating your heroes - those guys are one of many - and then you find out who you are; then who you are is what you become to them - a signpost, maybe a direction to go in before they find their voice. Or maybe some signposts which way not to go." [Laughs]

I'm curious about your use of the wah pedal. To me, you've never used it as mere color - it's always been a real part of your vocabulary.

"It is, absolutely. From the very beginning, that's the one I fell in love with. It gives a guitar a voice; it makes it speak. I've always admired guys who incorporated that heavily into their sound. So it was and remains the one effect that I use the most. I also liked the way it changes a guitar's tone; when you have it on and it's sort of held wide-open, it makes the sound squashed and dark."

What was the evolution of your use of the wah? Was it a lot of trial-and-error? Did you incorporate it into your sound very naturally?

"It was just a lot of time spent, you know? That's really what it was. You have to have a guitar in your hand, and you have to spend a lot of time doing it. From the moment I first had a really decent guitar, it remained in my hands constantly. Throughout my life, it's been the number one thing to me. And it's remained the most constant thing in my life; it's been my longest commitment. You would hope that the time spent would mean that you're growing and getting better."

This is your second album with Nick Raskulinecz. What does he bring to the band's music that you feel is noteworthy?

"There's a couple of key elements: The first thing is that he never stopped being a fan of music; he loves it; he really loves it. He's in your face with a drumstick around, fake singing while you're doing tracks - it's a little ridiculous at times. [Laughs] I'll be like, 'Dude, chill out!' And he'll go, 'Fuck it, man. It's killer!' He's so into it.

"And two: He's a player. He's a rocker; he has the player's element. He plays drums, bass - he has knowledge of the instruments. He has insight into what you're capable of getting and when you can do more. The sign of a great producer is somebody who makes a band sound the best that they possibly can, not somebody who puts their stamp on the band. 'I'm so-and-so, and this is my sound; this is how we're gonna do it' - that's not a good producer to me.

"But there's producers who are like that. They have a formula; they have a sound; they'll work with multiple bands, and you'll pretty much hear the same sound on all the records. With Nick, whether he's working with the Foo Fighters or Rush or the Deftones or us, each band sounds like them."

The riff for the song Hollow could probably be played a number of different ways, and it would still sound cool. Did you work out the phrasing over time, or was it immediate?

"That one was pretty immediate. It came about on the last night of the Black Diamond Skye tour we did, our headlining run with the Deftones and Mastodon. It was the very last show, we were in Vegas and I was sick as hell - I was about a click above pneumonia. But I was warming up in my dressing room, and I started playing that riff.

"Right away, I knew it was a good one to store away for later, so I recorded it. Nick happened to be at that show, and so were my managers. Everybody perked up when they heard me playing it. 'What's that? That's pretty good!' [Laughs] I was like, 'Yeah, it is.' So I tucked it away. It was pretty immediate the way it came to me."

Songs such as Voices, Choke and Scalpel feature that gorgeous blend of acoustics and electrics that has been such an identifiable part of the Alice In Chains sound. Do you have any go-to acoustics for recording?

"It's kind of whatever works. There's a handful of guitars that gets used over and over. For years I've borrowed acoustic guitars from Nancy Wilson because she's got one of the best collections there is. There's a Hummingbird that I've used on a couple of records - I used that again. At Henson Studios, I borrowed some guitars from John Shanks - a couple of old Gibsons and an old Martin. There's a Guild on the record and some 12-strings…

"The way I look at it is, you don't know what you need until you go in and start doing the job. Then the song starts telling you what needs to be there. It's a bit of trial and error. You start playing the guitar - or, if you want to take it a step further to the electric side, a guitar-and-amp combo - and pretty quickly you can figure out if it's going to work or not."

When recording guitars in the studio, Cantrell says, "Things have to be set up right, and I've got to play tight as hell." © Â Chris Schwegler/Retna Ltd./Corbis

With your all-electric sound in particular, there's a great wall of power, but it's never muddy - each note rings through and is articulated.

"Taking it from my end, certain things happen in the studio where you'll come up with a part that sits on top of something else real nice. Generally, I have a good portion of my stuff laid out beforehand - what the rhythm track is, if there's a color line between that; I have a knowledge of the parts.

"Now, how to record those parts and make them a reality, that's where Nick and Paul Figueroa, our engineer, and I sit down and work as a team. Things have to be set up right, and I've got to play tight as hell. But that's always been one of my strengths - playing to myself and playing extremely tight. That probably comes from all the time I've spent demoing over the years.

"With any track, you might be hearing anywhere from two to five different cabinets with different amp heads running at the same time. We had a stack of amps: a Marshall; my Dave Friedman amps, which I've been using for the last couple of years; we had Bogners hooked up; we had an Orange head; a Laney Clip; a Hiwatt; and we had an AC30 for all of those songs you mentioned that are a mix of acoustics and electrics.

"When you stack all of that up, you have to make sure that everything is in phase, and you have to make sure that each guitar is intonated and in tune. That's a time-consuming process. I think people would be amazed at how long it takes to do a lot of stuff that's pretty tedious. But we're willing to go through the process; you don't want to leave any nail unhammered."

And then there's the band's vocals, that special blend that was you and Layne and now you and William. Where did that come from? Growing up, were you a fan of great vocal groups like Crosby, Stills & Nash and the Eagles?

"Absolutely. The Who, The Beatles - there's a ton of bands that had two voices. Roger Waters and David Gilmour, and before them there was Syd Barret. I've always been a fan of bands that had multiple voices. The Cars were another one. You can pick out individuals on certain songs, but on others it's like they're one voice. That's the trip; it's kind of the thing we created.

"I have to give all credit to Layne. From the first time I heard him sing, I knew that I wanted to be in a band with him. I always thought that he was the most amazing vocalist I'd ever heard, and I still think that. He would take whatever I gave him and make it so much better. And vice versa: He would write, later on with guitar and stuff, and I would help him, too. I started out as a backup singer, and then I started singing leads. Probably on Sap is when I started singing leads.

"That continued to grow, and now that's what this band is based on. I needed, and the band needed, a partner, and I've been very fortunate to continue that legacy without shitting on it. William has been a big part of that and has come along with how we work, getting to know how to do that.

"[Drummer] Sean [Kinney] and I have been here all along, so we know how this thing goes. And [bassist] Mike [Inez] has been here a long time, too. We know how this band is supposed to sound. I just think that there's a collective body or a consciousness. Layne and Mike Starr are a part of that. I like to think that they still have a voice through us."

Alice In Chains have just debuted a brand-new song, Hollow, via a lyric video created by fans who contributed images through Instagram. The song will be featured on the band's upcoming, Nick Raskulinecz-produced album, which will be released next spring.

Talking to Revolver magazine about the new record's sound and direction, guitarist Jerry Cantrell said, "I don't think you'll be surprised by anything you hear. It's us. But it's also really unique. It's got all the elements of any record we've put out, but it's unlike any record we've put out. Basically, it's the next chapter in the Alice In Chains book, and it's going to be a big one."

The group's last release, 2009's Blue Gives Way To Black, was their first with singer William DuVall, who replaced original singer Layne Staley, who passed away in 2002.