Diamond Lie...to Alice in Chains
Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 12:01AM 
I figure today's article will have a lot of people hot and bothered, but a little controversy is good for the first day of May. I have a big statement here: Alice in Chains is not grunge. Nope, they are straight up heavy metal and you can even find some Glam influences if you look hard enough.
It's true!
Fact: Dirt is one of the best rock albums ever recorded.
Fact: Alice in Chains Unplugged is the best of the entire MTV series.
Fact: Bassist Mike Inez had (has?) his feet on solid Glam ground.
Fact: Alice in Chains STARTED as the Glam band Diamond Lie. Ha!
As a matter of fact, here's a quote from a press kit I found online pimping Diamond Lie:
"Taking center stage for DIAMOND LIE is the energetic and electrifying [vocalist] Layne. Layne's experience with various groups of various styles has given him quite a range of vocal capabilities; from the speed metal group SLEZE, to the punchy glam rock of ALICE 'N CHAINS. Layne's versatility and uninhibited stage performance prove him to be a valuable frontman."
Doesn't that make you giggle just a little?
While Nirvana whined and produced monotone choruses, Alice in Chains were creating stadium rock. While Pearl Jam were trying to take down Ticketmaster, Alice in Chains were performing their hits all over the world.
Sure, AIC have their grunge moments - then again, so do Motley Crue. Remember Generation Swine? While Alice in Chains might not sing about chicks and parties, they do more than enough talking about drugs. Sounds like basic rock to me. Yes, Alice gets too sludgy at times...but there are times when this band owns you. My Glam goodness, the beginning of "Would?" is a bass player's fantasy - and Alice in Chains has some damn great guitar solos peppered throughout all their albums.
Do I think Alice in Chains are close to Poison? In a word, no. I do, however, think they share some things in common with Use Your Illusion era Guns n' Roses. Of course, Axl and company apparently hate Glam and want nothing to do with the genre. I'm sure Layne Staley would also say he hates Glam...except, you know, he's dead. Still, Alice in Chains live on and their catalog of work is damn impressive.
Let's talk about "Would?" a little more. Yeah, the song is dark. It's also hauntingly beautiful and deliciously heavy. Moreover, it's an anthem-like song you'd expect to hear at every AIC concert much like you know Aerosmith will play "Janie's Got a Gun." Just a few lines ago I mentioned guitar solos: "Would?" has a great guitar part -- sounds Glam to me!
Now, to Mike Inez. He played with Ozzy! He was also a member of Slash's Snakepit. Gee - isn't it ironic that I mentioned AIC were a lot like GnR? Interesting...incidentally, I remember reading about all of this in Metal Edge. That was before the record labels drew a line in the sand and decided fans had to choose which form of Metal they preferred. I still maintain that if the labels had just kept supporting both Glam and Grunge, the music industry today would be a lot different...but that's another article entirely.
I didn't know this, but apparently Inez formed a band with Chris DeGarmo. Yes, that DeGarmo, formally of Queensryche. Me thinks Mike Inez loves the bands we talk about here every day on Bring Back Glam!
Here's the video for "Would?" Guitarist Jerry Cantrell is wearing a grunge cap...but again I remind you that Trixter dressed the same way in their video for "Give it to Me Good." Comment me, people!
Reader Comments (44)
who cares what genre theyre in?? if their music sounds good, it sounds good. the reason why alice is grunge tho is coz they were from seattle just like pearl jam, soundgarden, nirvana, etc. thats what grunge is more or less.. those 4 bands. & alice are one of the pioneers. how can they not be grunge????? i think uve got the meaning a grunge a lil mixed up. grunge existed coz a bunch of mates from seattle decided to get together & make some good old fashioned music, helping each other out, backing each other up, creating offshoots of grunge, jaming together. it was a baetiful era of music & just human behaviour. maybe we need another grunge wave to throw a spanner in the works of the direction musics headed in these days. grunge isnt a sound. its a genre comprised of lots of different but similar sounds.
Chains were a huge part of the grunge movement. When the dirt album came out, and the band had truly found and established its sound, they were not glam at all.
Out of the grunge bands, they had the heaviest sound. they were the metal grunge band. Nirvana was the punk grunge band.
And the guitar solo argument? Way off. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden... either of those bands ring a bell to you? Both had some good guitar solos worked in.
Did chains have a (bad) song or two that was glam, yes they did. On facelift, where they hadn't yet established what their sound was yet.
Just as other bands, like Pantera, have a few glam songs. No one is saying that band was a glam rock band.
You more or less claim that because "Would?" has good guitar and bass parts, they can't be grunge. Allow me to direct you to "Let Me Drown" by Soundgarden, "Sex Type Thing" by Stone Temple Pilots, or "Negative Creep" by Nirvana. All 3 are grunge songs (well, the last song might be sludge metal, but close enough).
And it sounds like youre implying that glam is the only genre about drugs. Are you forgetting about the '60s? The '70s too? The Doors, Zeppelin, The Beatles, Hendrix, The Mamas and Papas, The Eagles, The Beach Boys, the entire progressive genre? Ring a bell? Hell, Elvis was high in the '50s. And lets not forget Kurt Cobain. If you count sniffing glue, then I can go back to the '30s!
And yes, Mike Inez was in a band with Slash. So was Scott Weiland, the singer of Stone Temple Pilots, who started as *gasp* grunge. I also have found that of all the grunge bands, STP was the most Glam influenced. Now granted, they were more influenced by '70s glam like Bowie, but listen to "Sex Type Thing" and tell me that is not KISS's riff from "War Machine". Scott Weiland also shares a number of similarities with Axl Rose besides having been in a band with 3 GNR members. The attitude, the dancing, and in a song or two, his voice has an Axl-ish sound. Watch the video for Velvet Revolver's "Slither", and tell me that that dance and haircut doesn't reek of '80s.
Alice in Chains was definitely grunge, whether you'd like to believe it or not. Why don't you make a similar article about Pantera? They began as Glam Metal too
Ever heard of Malfunkshun or Mother Love Bone? I'd say that they were equal parts glam and grunge. Andrew Wood (who incidentally, is who the song "Would?" was written about) sounds so glam it's scary at times (I actually thought Mother Love Bone was GNR when I first heard them...), and yet there was an unmistakeable grunge sound to both of his bands.
That being said, even Pearl Jam has glam in its history (and they were about as far from glam as it got). After Wood's death, the other members of Mother Love Bone picked up Eddie Vedder and changed their name to Pearl Jam. Are going to write an article about how Pearl Jam is glam too?
Alice in Chains may have started as glam metal, but they abandoned that when they became AIC
Thanks
I'm an old head that grew up listening to Led Zep, Black Sabbath, Foghat and other 60's and 70's rock bands.
I was 10 or 11 when punk had it's hay-day.
As a teen, I listened to the classics that are mentioned above as well as Metallica, Kix, Cinderella, Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies, Skid Row, GnR, Tesla, Faster Pussycat, Morbid Angel, Anthrax, as well as a hundred or more other bands I can't recall at this time.
I graduated from high school in 1992. Somewhere in there I picked up a bass and learned to play the drums. After i was done with school, I spent the next seven years or so singing in bands. We wrote our own stuff as well as covered stuff from a good many of the bands I've already mentioned. We also covered Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, AiC, Nirvana, Candlebox and other "grunge" stuff.
As a musician, I really feel that genres (something someone created to "pigeon hole" music so it fit propperly into thier personal understanding of music) are bogus. If you hear something that tickles that sweet spot in your ear, it is what it is.
If it rocks... let it rock.
there are two kinds of music; good & bad.
you proles would do well to learn that....
Search tis on youtube omg layne was glam all the way