Fans thought they knew Alice in Chains lead singer Layne Staley before he died at the age of 34 in his Seattle condominium in April 2002. But what friends and family revealed next showed just how little Staley was truly understood.
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00:00Fans thought they knew Alice in Chains lead singer Layne Staley before he died at the
00:04age of 34 in a Seattle condominium in April 2002. But what Friends and Family revealed
00:09next showed just how little Staley was truly understood.
00:13The fact that Staley was a big fan of heavy metal music is a bit of a no-brainer. Before
00:17he delved into experimental grunge, Staley fronted a mid-'80s metal band called Sleaze,
00:22later renamed Alice in Chains. That much is common knowledge. But some fans may not know
00:26how early Staley's love of metal began. After he died, his mother, Nancy McCallum, shared
00:31that Staley picked up his first instrument, the trumpet, when he was in fifth grade. But
00:35he quickly dropped it for something better. She told Northwest Music Scene,
00:39"...the drums he loved. And then our neighbor sold him a drum set and he changed his middle
00:42name to Thomas."
00:43Why Thomas? It was a tribute to one of his favorite musicians, drummer Tommy Lee of the
00:4880s hair metal band Motley Crue.
00:51In the late 80s, Alice in Chains disbanded. Staley went on to form a new band with his
00:55guitarist buddy Jerry Cantrell. And, with the blessing of his old bandmates, Stanley
00:59named this new band Alice in Chains. The duo served as their band's creative force and
01:03vocal team, with Staley usually singing lead and Cantrell providing harmonies and counterpoint.
01:08Cantrell went on to launch a solo career, and after Staley's death, he sang with the
01:11reconstituted Alice in Chains. But according to Cantrell, he might never have done any
01:16of that singing if not for Staley. In 2009, he told Guitar World that it was Staley who
01:20insisted he sing.
01:22Lane was really responsible for giving me the confidence to become more of a singer.
01:25He'd say,
01:26"'You wrote this song. This means something to you. Sing it!' He kicked my ass out of
01:29the nest."
01:30It was a team, and I really miss them a lot. I love them. I miss them terribly."
01:37Following Staley's death from an accidental overdose, former Alice in Chains bassist Mike
01:41Starr revealed that Staley had once saved his life after Starr overdosed. Starr was
01:45dismissed from the band in 1993 due to his substance abuse issues. Just before leaving
01:49the band, Starr and Alice in Chains played the Hollywood Rock Festival in Brazil alongside
01:54Nirvana.
01:55During the trip, Starr spent several hours injecting heroin in a bathroom with Nirvana
01:58frontman Kurt Cobain and Cobain's wife, Courtney Love. Then he joined Staley for another round
02:03of the powerful opiate. In 2010, Starr told Dr. Drew Pinsky,
02:06"...I went to Lane's room, we shot up, and I OD'd."
02:10Starr couldn't remember what happened after that. Staley told him that he'd stopped breathing
02:13and didn't have a pulse, and so he tried to revive him by striking him and placing him
02:17under a shower. Starr regained consciousness and learned that, according to Staley, he'd
02:21been technically dead for a total of 11 minutes. The bassists believed that Staley's actions
02:26brought him back to life. Sadly, in 2011, Starr died of a drug overdose.
02:32After Mike Starr was fired from Alice in Chains, bassist Mike Inez joined the band. That fall,
02:36Alice in Chains played a series of shows in Japan, and Inez later revealed that Staley
02:41took the opportunity to explore some alternate career options. During a 2010 Alice in Chains
02:46reunion tour, Inez told Revolver that while they were in Tokyo, Staley disappeared during
02:50a hiatus between shows.
02:52And after a few days, we couldn't find Lane anywhere. We were just, like, traveling the
02:56streets of Tokyo, looking in all the bars for him. They eventually gave up and went
03:00into a bar they'd been told was frequented by models. And that's where they found Staley,
03:04who said that he just wanted to feel like a regular guy for a while. According to Inez,
03:08True story. There's Lane blowing fire behind the bar and being a bartender. So he got a
03:12job at a bar for a couple of nights, just to tend bar, and didn't even really tell people
03:16who he was.
03:18In the 90s, MTV Unplugged was one of the premier venues for bands to showcase their skills.
03:23Major artists of the day would perform their songs in an intimate setting on primarily
03:26acoustic instruments. In 1996, Alice in Chains appeared on the show, but it was nearly a
03:31disaster. In 2018, Cantrell revealed that Staley was struggling with his heroin addiction
03:36to the point where he required multiple takes to get through a song off their newest album.
03:40According to Staley's story, we did the Unplugged in New York, and Lane kept f----- up Sludge
03:43Factory. We did it like eight times. He blew the same thing in the second verse.
03:47His mistakes were kept in the broadcast version. He audibly mutters a profanity, and they have
03:51to start over again.
03:52We're allowed a couple of those. It's been a while.
03:58In 1996, Staley's one-time fiancée, Demry Perrault, died from a heart condition related
04:03to drug use. That same year, Alice in Chains went on a hiatus, in part due to Staley's
04:07declining health, and the singer retreated into his Seattle apartment almost permanently.
04:12He would send employees to buy him the illegal drugs, to which he was profoundly addicted.
04:16But in 2010, Cantrell revealed in the book Alice in Chains, The Untold Story, that Staley
04:20never stopped making music. He said,
04:22"'I'd f----- go over to his place, and he'd be playing me s---- he'd be writing all the
04:26time. I would, too. He'd play me stuff, I'd play him stuff, vice versa."
04:30In 2016, plans were announced regarding a collection of eight previously unheard Staley
04:35songs, but so far, they haven't been officially released.
04:39Staley's drug use was well-known, particularly when he was leading Alice in Chains. Many
04:43of the band's songs were about substance use and abuse, and their lyrics reflected Staley's
04:47real-life experiences. But in 1996, he told Rolling Stone that he had serious regrets.
04:52"'I wrote about drugs, and I didn't think I was being unsafe or careless by writing
04:56about them. When I tried drugs, they were f----- great, and they worked for me for years,
05:00and now they're turning against me, and now I'm walking through hell, and this sucks.'"
05:04According to Staley's mother, the musician nearly died from overdosing five times prior
05:07to his fatal O.D., only surviving on those occasions because other people were there
05:11and saved him. But what fans didn't know until after his passing is just how hard Staley
05:15tried to get clean and sober. He enrolled in drug treatment facilities on 10 separate
05:19occasions, but sadly, none proved to be effective in the long term.
05:23On April 5, 2002, the day that he died of a heroin overdose, his mother was working
05:28at a Seattle rehab facility and was a few days out from attempting to enroll Staley
05:32in a new recovery program.
05:34April 4, 2002, just one day before Staley's death, he welcomed a visitor to his home,
05:39Mike Starr, who wanted to spend his 36th birthday with his friend and colleague. They watched
05:43TV together, including the show Crossing Over, in which a purported psychic attempted to
05:47help studio audience members reach their dead relatives. That prompted Staley to discuss
05:51how the previous night, he believed he was visited by the spirit of Demry Perrault. Starr
05:55revealed in Alice in Chains, The Untold Story that Staley told him,
05:59"'Demry was here last night. I don't give a f---- if you f---- believe me or not, dude.
06:03I'm telling you, Demry was here last night."
06:05But Starr was more concerned with Staley's alarmingly degraded physical state than with
06:09his mental state. According to Rolling Stone, in the last year of his life, Staley had developed
06:13abscesses all over his arms from injecting so much heroin, and the majority of his teeth
06:18had fallen out. Starr was worried enough about Staley's health that he suggested getting
06:22medical treatment, but Staley angrily refused help. Starr revealed in a 2010 episode of
06:26Loveline,
06:28"...I was with him all that day on my birthday, trying to keep him alive."
06:30"...I even asked him if I could call 911, you know, and he said if I did he would never
06:36talk to me again, and of course I didn't know he was going to die or I would have called
06:40911 anyways."
06:41Just before his death, Staley was actually preparing for a musical collaboration with
06:45the up-and-coming band Taproot. Taproot posted about the experience on Facebook, writing,
06:50"[Lane Staley was set to record vocals to a song Taproot was going to put on our album
06:54Welcome right before he passed away. We never talked about this much because it didn't seem
06:58appropriate."
06:59Described as spacey-sounding, the song, titled Kevin Spacey, impressed Taproot's producer
07:03Toby Wright, who was still close with Staley after working on some Alice in Chains projects.
07:08Sadly, though, Staley died before he could prepare any lyrics or record his vocals. The
07:12band has since performed the song as an instrumental. The demo Staley received may have been the
07:16last song he listened to before he died in 2002. The disc was found inside his condo
07:21CD player.
07:23In the early 2000s, the increasingly withdrawn Staley only occasionally left his home in
07:27Seattle. On April 19, 2002, accountants working for the musician noticed that he hadn't touched
07:32his bank accounts in two weeks. Alarmed, they contacted Staley's mother, who hadn't seen
07:36or spoken to her son in that same period of time. Seattle police escorted her on a wellness
07:40check to the condominium, and after breaking down the door, they found Staley's body sitting
07:44upright on the couch, amidst drugs and drug paraphernalia.
07:48Staley's identity wasn't immediately discernible. An autopsy conducted the next day proved that
07:52it was indeed him. According to the autopsy, Staley died of an overdose of drugs. At the
07:57time of his death, his weight had dropped to 86 pounds. The analysis also proved that
08:01he had died about two weeks before his body was discovered. The Alice in Chains frontman
08:05was 34 years old.
08:07But when your child passes, you lose your baby. You lose your four-year-old.
08:13If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit
08:17the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's
08:22National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP, 4357.