Category Archives: Alice In Chains

Cameron Crowe “Singles” interview for PULSE! and Rock Power

Click to listen to the actual interview, conducted by phone in the summer of 1992.

Rock Power was published out of London in the early 90s, translated into ten languages and distributed globally.

Cameron Crowe2Cameron Crowe1SINGLES, a movie set in Seattle starring Matt Dillon and directed by Cameron Crowe (husband of Heart’s Nancy Wilson), brings to the silver screen the sounds of Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and more! MICHAEL BROWNING meets the director of what may go down in history as Grunge -The Movie…

Rock Power Sept 16 1992 Intl Cover

MAKE SURE EVERYBODY KNOWS we did this movie a year and a half ago,” Cameron Crowe, writer and director of Singles, emphasises. The irony is that all this stuff, which is the music I was listening to, or the music we love, has become very commercial. So it was a good investment for Epic, but still nobody’s getting rich off of this.”

Then again, you couldn’t really call it a losing proposition either, now could you?

In fact, in advance of the movie’s release, most involved are probably hoping the film itself makes as big a splash as the soundtrack {out since midsummer) already has. Heralded as a quintessential composite of Seattle tastes, if not the entire sound, the ‘Singles’ LP contains ten cuts from the city’s creme de la creme, as well as three songs from non-residents that still manage to embody the region’s musical vibe. Which, for the clueless, all boils down to honesty. Crowe, former editor at Rolling Stone magazine and screenplay writer of Fast Times At Ridgemont High, The Wildlife, Say Anything and Singles (also directing the last two), recognises the value of honesty in music and shows his appreciation of honesty (and loud guitars) by liberally adding his favourite artists to his movie making formula. “I love guitar. I love hard, guitar-oriented rock, and in the middle ’80s there was all this synth-pop garbage everywhere and I just found that guitar was still alive in the Northwest.” 1990’s Say Anything had both Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden in it and this year he’s upped the Seattle ante by including music from Alice In Chains, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Chris Cornell, Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam and, perhaps the most intriguing addition, The Lovemongers, a hometown side project of Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson. With that list, you could easily think that the movie is about the Seattle scene itself. It’s not.

While Matt Dillon does play the singer/songwriter of fictitious band Citizen Dick, Crowe likens the film to Woody Allen’s Manhattan where intense personal relations (a new direction for Allen) are played out against a colourful, cultured backdrop. With the Washington metropolis as the stage, Singles is about how six young lives intertwine within the building in which they live.

“Pearl Jam plays Matt’s band in the movie so that’s how the rumour got started that it is a movie about the Seattle scene.”

So how did Crowe come up with the idea a couple of years back to do a film in the now globally acclaimed climate of Puget Sound?

“Nancy (Wilson – she and Crowe are now married) gave me someone to visit up here, but I always loved the area. I first came here in 74, writing a story on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; I was 17 at the time. I really loved it up here and I just love music, so it was kind of a natural thing to get hooked into some of these bands.”

Now wait a minute: Smashing Pumpkins and Paul Westerberg (of The Replacements fame) aren’t from Seattle. What’s with that?

“The incongruities serve to show that we’re not in the business of selling Seattle music. (Sub Pop’s) Bruce (Pavitt) and John (Poneman) have done an amazing job with their samplers and the truth is, this is just the music that I love and that worked in the movie.”

The rest of that truth is these artists have a kind of soul connection to the Northwest. Firstly, Seattlites seem to dig all things Butch Vig (the Pumpkins’ producer, and Nirvana’s as well) and “Paul Westerberg really is the spirit of the movie. Paul was one of the first guys to have pretty melodies built into hard, thrashing rock and punk attitude.”

Westerberg also got the job of scoring the film, with some incidental guitar work from Chris Cornell. You may have noticed that this is the first solo work ever released by Cornell, although the deeply personal Temple Of The Dog LP comes close This was no easy feat for Crowe “I don’t want to start a thing with A&M (Soundgarden’s label), but they have fought putting music in stuff I’ve written for years and I don’t know why. They had the Soundgarden music from Louder Than Love pulled out of Say Anything, so we used stuff from Ultramega OK!, a Sub Pop label Soundgarden release. They’ve had a nasty attitude towards us whenever we’ve wanted to use some of their music, and the truth is only with great jockeying from Susan Silver (Soundgarden’s manager) and Chris Cornell were we able to get a new Soundgarden song and Chris solo in this movie.”

In all, Crowe and co-producer Danny Bramson have compiled a collection of songs that truly captures the essence of Singles. Effectively sidestepping his idea of the current trend in soundtracks, which for him is like,

“What is this? is this some tangential sampler that has ‘something’ to do with the movie? Cos it’s not a soundtrack. It’s weird, the soundtrack has turned into a really crass marketing tool.”

Although there’s a ton of other music from John Coltrane to REM in the movie, every song is prominently used in the film. Most importantly, they deserve to be on the soundtrack and they effectively conjure up the appropriate images. This soundtrack exactly fulfills the aim of the director.

And hopefully it fulfills the listener as well.

Van Halen at The Tacoma Dome: In Concert [City Heat – February 1992]

VAN HALEN at The Tacoma Dome
Wed.Jan.22

Well. first off, the miserable drive down to the Tacky Dome is always enough to get a rainy winter evening off to a foul start. This night was no exception. Couple that with typical TicketMaster annoyances and a mighty ensemble of over zealous south end security and you’ve got a fairly representational Tacoma Dome event.

Due to the distance, we completely missed Alice In Chain’s set, which, opening for Van Halen, was something we’d looked forward to. Due to the wet cattle run/reptilian maze that stood between the tickets and the entrance, we missed the first half of Poundcake. No biggee, but we still gotta find our seats. On the other side.

By the time Judgement Day had started we were set. Runaround completed the initial greet from For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge then they went into several Sammy tunes, One Way To Rock and the solo acoustic Give To Live.

For me, the highlight of the evening by far was when they spontaneously launched into Rock Candy (from Sammy’s early days in Montrose) after picking up a local [RKCNDY nightclub] flyer thrown onstage.

Hearing Rock Candy done live suddenly made it all worthwhile. After having witnessed the Van Hagar production three or four times now, and feeling they are rather uninteresting live by this point, I realized that they still can swing flashes of brilliance.

They touched on the last couple VH albums, OU812 and 5150, with Black And Blue, Finish What Ya Started, Best Of Both Worlds and Why Can’t This Be Love. After I Can’t Drive 55, Sammy went into some angry rant about the state of society as an intro to This Dream Is Over. Then they took their traditional unified bow and left the stage. But you knew the old guys were coming back at least once; just like by looking around you knew they hadn’t lost their ability to pack throngs of scantily clad teenyrockers into arenas.

And they did. Returning with a silly Jump during the chorus of which Eddie was only able to get one foot off the ground at a time. Top Of The World was supposed to be the last, but Sammy, feeling good the first night back from a rest that began when they cancelled the show scheduled here in December, just didn’t want to leave.

So getting back at him for throwing the rest of them into Rock Candy earlier, the three original VH members dove headlong into Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, a song Sammy finished by apologizing with,

“We haven’t played that one in five years!”

Sounded okay to me.

Alice In Chains – Facelift: Fresh Blood [RIP – December 1990]

Something different, something new. Something fresh to sink your teeth into. Something familiar, yet not. Isn’t this what we are all looking for?

RIP Fresh Blood: Alice In Chains

RIP Fresh Blood: Alice In Chains

Unchain Alice, and that’s precisely what you’ll find. Although true to Seattle’s trademark grunge style, Alice brands it with their own personality. Heavily influenced by other Emerald City stars like Soundgarden and Mother Love Bone, their music reflects the close-knit camaraderie between the bands working the Seattle scene. With the big family attitude of the bands up there, it would mean there was something wrong if they didn’t.

However, Alice’s influences certainly aren’t limited to locals only. Their Columbia debut, Facelift, expresses their interest in The Cult and vintage Judas Priest as well. It’s a heavy, crunchy album rounded out by some slower tempos artfully produced by Dave Jerden.

Thanks in part to him, Layne Staley’s nasal-inflected vocals have matured into a strong, tough, streetwise sound; while Jerry Cantrell’s guitar injects painful emotion into cuts like Sea Of Sorrow and Love/Hate/Love, then fills Sunshine and We Die Young with raw, boisterous energy. The pounding rhythms come via Sean Kinney’s enthusiasm-filled drumming fleshed out with Mike Starr’s thick ‘n’ meaty bass licks.

The sometimes morbid, always thoughtful lyrics focus less on sex than the world in general, as viewed from the perspective of youth specifically. Staley attributes much of the band’s sound to the fact that they are all young and somewhat angry about the state of our society. But this does not mean that they have no sense of humor. Quite the opposite! They try to deal with serious subjects in their music while retaining an irreverent attitude about themselves. They like to have fun.

As for the name, they just don’t know. The stories range from Warrell Dane (Sanctuary’s singer) once wanting to form a thrash band that wore dresses on stage, to a recent quote from Staley that starts with the band owning a cat named Alice and concludes unprintably. Their name’s origination is generally credited to Staley, so I asked the major prankster Kinney what it means. He said, “For some people it sounds like a girl’s name, like Allison Chanes,” then he turns the question over to Cantrell, “What’s it mean, Jerry?”

“Alice In Chains could very well have been Herbert In Chains or Herbert In The Mud, for that matter. It actually means nothing.” Then, as an afterthought, “Actually, it sounds like the title to a really good porno movie!” To which Kinney adds, “we’re hoping to make one.” Alice will be touring the states in the months (which did turn into years) ahead, so remember: You’re never too young for a Facelift.

Seattle Times Tempo Section: Word by Patrick McDonald

Remembered in RIPAndrew Wood of Mother Love Bone

November 2, 1992 Tempo Seattle Post-Intelligencer

November 2, 1990 Seattle Times Tempo Section: Word column by Patrick McDonald

is remembered in an interview in the December issue of Rip Magazine. Conducted by writer Michael Browning, the interview took place last March 15, one day before Wood was found unconscious from a heroin overdose. He died four days later when taken off life support systems.

Wood is open about his drug problems, saying “I’m lucky to be sitting here.”He talks about getting out of rehab and insists he is clean. “I was a druggy until I went into treatment,” he says, “I’m not doing it anymore.” He’s upbeat and positive about MLB’s future.

A companion piece includes an interview with Xana La Fuente, Wood’s girrIfriend, who found him unconscious. “It’s really cool and weird, ’cause he wrote so much religious stuff in the weeks prior to his death,” she is quoted as saying. “All these songs about heaven and dying.” Incidentally, the Seattle Times Tempo Word Patrick McDonald 11.2.90same issue has articles on Queensryche and Alice in Chains.

Word by Patrick McDonald

Soundgarden: “Meet Ben Shepherd” [City Heat – August 1990]

August 1990 CityHeat Cover

August 1990 CityHeat Cover

Soundgarden. Yeah! City Heat’s got ’em. Had to travel for it tho. You think these guys would make it easy for Seattle’s Music Magazine by granting an interview in Seattle? No way! So we motored down to Portland for their show with Alice In Chains at the Melody Lane Ballroom on July 25th. Okay, truth is we were stoked for the road trip and the killer double bill!

Getting dinner and a photo shoot behind them, we sat down with Kim, Chris and Ben to get the exclusive poop. What’s that? Ben who? you say? On their records you know Hiro Yamamoto was playing bass. Then after the release of Louder Than Love you heard about Jason Everman dropping six in Nirvana to play four in Soundgarden. Now, who’s this Ben chap of which we speak?

Briefly, 21 year old Ben Shepherd has lived and played on Bainbridge Island for the past 18 years. Some of you relics out there may remember him from the days of Gorilla Gardens and The Metropolis when he was in, what he termed, a melodic punk rock band called March Of Crimes. Laying low, he’s since sang, played nad wrote for a band (who shall remain nameless) that played a very few shows in island towns before its swift demise.
Then from out of his relative obscurity, he is suddenly an integral cog in the critically acclaimed machine that is Soundgarden. We asked Ben to tell us the whole story of his transformation into SG’s ‘politically correct’ bassist.

Soundgarden

Soundgarden

Ben Shepherd: “Well, I’ve known Kim for a while, so he hunted me down and asked me to try out.”
City Heat: “Then what?”
BS: “Then they, ah………they fucked up (laughter all around).”
CH: “Like how?”
BS: “They took the wrong bass player.”
Chris Cornell: “Actually I had a dream, Ben. Did I tell you that? I had a dream I was in a room with your brother, apologizing to him for not choosing you in the first place. [Again addressing me] That was after we’d already chosen him.”

After Louder Than Love came out they held auditions for bass players. When Hiro decided to travel a different path it left the band in a lurch with not-a-lot of time to spend deliberating over a replacement.
BS: “I practiced or jammed with them a couple of times, I didn’t even know their songs worth a crap tho at all. But it was totally fun jamming with them. I hadn’t jammed with anyone for a while and it was flattering as fuck.”
CH: “Then what happened? You came in, jammed about a week….”
BS: “Not even a week, twice. Then Jason knew the songs better and they were in a really awkward bind at that time. They had the record out and needed to tour immediately, so they had to make a quick choice. So they chose Jason and the chemistry didn’t work.”
By the end of the tour they’d made up their minds to give the job to Ben.
CC: “We made the decision to play with Ben simultaneously with deciding that Jason wasn’t the right guy.”
Although both players had auditioned at the same time last year, member replacement is seldom easy and far from an exact science.
CC: “You can’t predict from a few meetings exactly what someone’s gonna be like and how they’re going to interact with the band. Mainly musically, but in most ways, we just didn’t click. It wasn’t anything necessarily ‘wrong’ with Jason. Band chemistry is really fragile so you can’t just make a choice and be one hundred percent correct.
CH: “So they got home and Kim called you up?” What did he say to you, ‘you’re on the team’?”
BS: “Actually Chris asked me. We were all looking at his little dog, hanging out at Chris’ place and he said, ‘Well, we were wondering what you’d think about playing with us?’. I just looked at my shoes real quick, ‘Fuck yeah!'”
So they had a few days to practice and after playing a couple opening numbers for Alice at the Lake City Concert Hall, were whisked off to Europe. The opening date of that tour happened to be the festival in Roskilde, Denmark.
CC: “His first actual show with us was in front of about 5,000 people.”
Karen Mason: “Was that a rush, first time going out?”
BS: “Well it was definitely a rush knowing my bass was plugged into a direct recording thing. That tripped me out ’cause the could hear every little sound.”
CC: “We were being recorded for broadcast by some radio station over there.”
After playing another big festival and a few more club dates, they’re back stateside and working up new material together. The band as a whole seems to gel well and all are contributing to the new songs. They’ve got a song on the soundtrack fro an upcoming movie and for those fortunate (intelligent?) enough to be members of Sub Pop’s Single of the Month Club, a tasty surprise.
The seven inch featuring H.I.V. Baby (produced by their sound man, Stuart Hallerman) will be available only to those elite peoples. But that’s not to say you may never find the tunes on a future full-length. Cornell likens Sheperd’s contribution (“H.I.V. Baby”) to a 90’s feeling “My Generation”.
CH: “What’s on the B-side?”
Kim Thayil: “Room A Thousand Years Wide.”
CH: “So you wrote H.I.V. Baby and play on both tracks?”
BS: “Yeah.”
CC: “Actually we were deciding between three songs that were his, but we have trouble with that kind of thing. If somebody writes for a movie or a single or something, a lot of times the songs will end up better than we’d expected and we want to save it for a record. So we kept juggling all these songs and couldn’t decide what to use.”
Next up is another (another? yes, another) U.S. leg supporting their Louder Than Love tour. Once the tour is finally over, they’ll be thinking about a new album which will be recorded either here in Seattle, Vancouver, B.C. or San Francisco. Just about anywhere but Los Angeles which, they all agree and inform me, is ‘completely uninspiring’.

Ben Shepherd onstage at Melody Lane Ballroom, Portland, OR.

Ben Shepherd onstage at Melody Lane Ballroom, Portland, OR, July 25, 1990.

Shots from this photo shoot are available directly from Karen Mason-Blair.
http://karenmasonblair.com/

 

 

Mother Love Bone at The OZ Nightclub [City Heat – June 1989]

After months of writing concert reviews for local mag “Rumors and Rags” which the editor repeatedly failed to publish, I took the big step and submitted this review to the coolest magazine on the Seattle music scene (OK, most Seattle hipsters had already saddled alternative press primacy on The Rocket, but I was fresh from Oregon and still fully enmeshed in my hair metal butt rock mentality).

So my Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Styx reviews never hit print, but my brain was already moving in a new direction. Seattle’s next wave was coalescing right under foot.

MOTHER LOVE BONE
MAY 4, 1989
THE OZ NIGHTCLUB

We stepped into the Oz just as Love Bone stormed the tiny stage with the first song from their EP, “Thru Fade Away”.  Jeff’s bass intro filled the hall with as much power as any band who plays the Coliseum, and you can bet (your sweet ass) that these guys are arena-bound.

Looming larger than life, center stage was Dallas fan, Andrew Wood, sporting a Cowboy’s jersey and the ever present chartreuse green.  Bruce and Stone both were looking unusual
with their hair gathered up in a top-side tail.

They broke into a set of material I presume will be on the album currently being recorded down in California. Included were ”Come Bite the Apple”, “China”, and the surreal rocker ”This Is Shangri-La”, which, by the way, is just a killer song-it’s still runnin’ thru my skull.

When they played KISW’s hit single “Half-Ass Monkey Boy”, the crowd really got into it and the slam-dancers up front opened the pit, keeping the numerous fine skirts there on the outskirts. To settle things down a bit, they countered with a personal favorite, “Crown of Thorns”. Landrew the Love Child then introduced “Capricorn Sister” as ‘the bonus track’ (like it appears on the tape). Rounding out the set were a couple more unreleased tunes ”Holy Roller” and ”Stardog”.

Then it was Queen’s “I’m in Love With My Car” for a well-received, glitzy encore.  Tho they got loads of flash, they’re no flash in the pan, like Wood’s exiting words of wisdom, ”Love reigns Supreme!” As does Love Bone.

Watch for the LP later this summer, in the meantime, pick up Shine
and keep an eye out for Andy and the boys’ next local show. They are a must-see event!

Mother Love Bone are: Vocals; Andrew Wood, Guitars; Stone Gossard
and Bruce Fairweather, Bass; Jeff Ament, Percussion; Greg Gilmore.
# # #

1989.05.04 Mother Love Bone at Oz NightclubAt the OZ, I bought my first Seattle band shirt “Do What You Do” featuring the Shine EP cover art at the merch table. Wore that shirt out over the years (later, Ament gave me one of the “Air Love Bone” white long sleeves that became my absolute favorite shirt, alas, gone).

A few months later, I was so struck by Shine and the power coming from the scene (seeing Alice In Chains open for MLB both at The Central Tavern in Pioneer Square and down at The Satyricon in Portland) that when they played the big stage at Bumbershoot Labor Day weekend, I made a sign using the EP’s artwork and combining the titles of my favorite songs. In the following video you can see my orange painted “Chloe’s Crown” sign.

After I chucked it onstage Andy Wood picked it up and positioned it just before sitting down to the piano for the tracks. I was already deeply in love with the man and his message:

Love Rock awaits you people! Lo and behold.