Alice in Chains

Alice in Chains formed in Seattle in 1987, built around guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney, who soon recruited bassist Mike Starr and lead vocalist Layne Staley. The band's name descended from Staley's earlier glam metal outfit, Alice N' Chains, and Staley only agreed to join Cantrell's project after the pair had spent time deliberately auditioning weak singers in front of him, a nudge that finally pushed him to commit full time.^[5]

Though frequently grouped with the grunge movement that swept out of Seattle alongside Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, Alice in Chains built its sound on a heavier, more metal-indebted foundation, anchored by Cantrell's downtuned riffing and the close, dissonant harmonies he and Staley traded on record after record. That vocal blend, part gospel, part dirge, became the band's most identifiable signature.^[5]

The band's defining and most difficult period arrived around their second album, Dirt, released in 1992. Layne Staley's heroin addiction, which had already surfaced during the Van Halen tour that introduced both Staley and Starr to the drug, deepened during the Dirt sessions to the point that he relapsed almost immediately after checking out of rehab in Portland. Producer Dave Jerden pushed Staley toward sobriety throughout recording, a friction that colored the sessions but also fed directly into the album's unflinching subject matter.^[3]

Jerry Cantrell has described "Down in a Hole," the acoustic-leaning single he wrote for his then-girlfriend Courtney Clarke, as one of the three songs he is proudest of in his catalog, a rare moment on Dirt where the band's despair was rooted in a relationship rather than a needle.^[1]

Staley's addiction eventually pulled him away from the band almost entirely during the late 1990s, and he died of a drug overdose on April 5, 2002, a loss that effectively silenced the group's classic lineup and haunts the retrospective reading of nearly everything they recorded together, including "Down in a Hole" itself. Mike Starr, who left the band in 1993 and was replaced by Mike Inez, also struggled with addiction for the rest of his life and died in 2011. Alice in Chains eventually reconvened in the mid-2000s with William DuVall stepping in as co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, continuing to tour and record into the present with Cantrell and Kinney as the band's remaining original members.^[5]