Past/Other Members: Mike Starr 
Home Base: Seattle, Washington 
Label Affiliation: Columbia 
Formed: 1987 
 

Combining the gloom of grunge with the crunch of metal, Alice in Chains sprang from the much-publicized Seattle rock movement of the late eighties and early nineties to become one of alternative rock's most successful groups. Propelled by the bleak, drug-and-death-addled vision of singer Layne Staley, and the plodding, subtly shifting metal chords of guitarist Jerry Cantrell, Alice in Chains quickly rose to prominence with aggressive marketing and a doom-struck sound that matched the uncompromising power of Metallica with the hipper sound of modern rock.  

Staley formed "Alice N' Chains" while still in high school, but it wasn't until 1987, when he met Cantrell at the Seattle warehouse rehearsal space known as the Music Bank, that the two changed the name to Alice in Chains and began to search for a distinctive sound. To help them, the pair recruited friends Sean Kinney on drums and Mike Starr on bass; they signed with Columbia Records in 1989. For the next year, the band toured extensively, opening for acts as disparate as Iggy Pop and Poison, and released a promotional-only EP entitled We Die Young. It wasn't until the 1990 release of Facelift--with its harsh, contemporary take on the drop-tuned (tuning the stings lower than standard) sound of Black Sabbath--that the band's vision began to take real shape. The album got off to a slow start (it didn't enter the Billboard charts for eight months), but eventually went gold and earned a Grammy nomination for the single "Man in the Box." In November of 1991, the band followed up its debut with the four-song EP Sap.  
 
In the face of success, Staley plunged deeper into the thematic abyss of alienation, drugs, and depression, while, ironically, the band's audience grew exponentially. A.I.C.'s sophomore set, Dirt, went to No. 6 on the Billboard charts, and was eventually certified triple-platinum for sales in excess of three million copies. However, the prospect of continued touring proved to be too much for bassist Starr, who left the band. He was replaced in January of 1993 by former Ozzy Osbourne bassist Mike Inez, who the band had met while opening for Ozzy a year earlier. The new lineup landed the second-billed slot on the 1993 Lollapalooza tour (Primus headlined, though Alice was the bigger draw), confirming its immense popularity, though gossip concerning drug abuse and self-destruction still swarmed around the band. Songs like "Junkhead" and "Angry Chair"--with their seemingly overt references to heroin--helped fuel those rumors.  

In 1994, the group scored again with Jar of Flies, an acoustic EP that became the first such mini-album to reach the top of the Billboard album chart. Not only did the EP prove that the decibel-intense band had an interest in a quieter, more intricate mode of expression, it also confirmed that the boys could play; Cantrell, in particular, was seen as the emerging guitar hero from all the Seattle bands. In late 1995, the quartet released the self-titled Alice in Chains, a record that refined their slow, taut approach to mining a groove to an art form, best characterized by the lead track "Grind." Though the album was well received, it failed to be the blockbuster many had hoped for. Within a year, the band, in uncharacteristically rapid fashion, released a follow-up, an entire album of "unplugged" material drawn from an acoustic performance filmed by MTV. To celebrate the event, Alice in Chains plugged back in, albeit briefly, to serve as the opening act for the first four shows of KISS's reunion tour in June of 1996.  
Because Alice in Chains’ career has been relatively slow-paced in recent years, with little touring, band members have been able to branch into other areas. In 1994, Staley, along with neighboring Seattle musicians Barrett Martin of the Screaming Trees, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, and John Baker Saunders had a little fun in the studio under the name of Mad Season (wisely changed from their original name, the Gacy Gang). Their album, Above, combined the mid-tempo groove of Alice in Chains with a resolutely vintage psychedelic sound. On the strength of its star power and a few good songs, the album reached No. 24 on the pop chart. More recently, guitarist Cantrell lent his hand to Glenn Danzig's first solo album, and he also contributed some solo recordings to the Cable Guy soundtrack.