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ALICE IN CHAINS<\/b><\/h1>\nALICE IN CHAINS<\/b><\/h1>\nSetting the musical bar high and releasing no album before its time \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
In July 2011, Alice in Chains\u00a0frontman Jerry Cantrell began working on the band\u2019s new record, but the process proved too painful\u2014not artistically but physically. The guitarist was experiencing severe shoulder pain and underwent surgery to remove bone deposits. A nightmarish scenario for any guitar player, Cantrell wrote it off as an occupational hazard. \u201cIt\u2019s an annoyance. I\u2019ve been playing a lot of years and had cartilage damage,\u201d he says. \u201cI had one repaired seven years ago and had to do the other. It takes time, so maybe we might have recorded sooner, but it just took what it took.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recuperation complete, Cantrell and company\u2014singer William DuVall (replacing original vocalist Layne Staley, who died in 2002 from a drug overdose), drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Inez\u2014entered L.A.\u2019s Henson Recording Studios in early 2012 to complete what would be their fifth full-length album. The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here <\/i>is the follow-up to 2009\u2019s remarkably successful gold album Black Gives Way to Blue<\/i>, the first Alice in Chains record in 14 years.<\/p>\n
The band selected Nick Raskulinecz\u2014who produced the previous record\u2014to helm the new album. \u201cRecording is a lot of dejection, missed marks, bad notes and failed experiments,\u201d says Cantrell. \u201cNick is right there, willing to go through all of that with you. He\u2019s just like us and he loves music in that way. He gets so into it and excited about it that his energy is infectious.\u201d Cantrell shared his enthusiasm about firing up the Alice in Chains machinery once again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How is this record unique?<\/b><\/p>\n
All the records are connected, obviously, but they\u2019re all very different. They\u2019re all separated by a period of time, and the record ends up being a time capsule of that period in your life. You know, \u201cThis is where you\u2019re at. This is what you sound like now. This is what you\u2019ve come up with this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Has your process evolved?<\/b><\/p>\n
How the band works musically hasn\u2019t changed. We work up a body of material together and start working on it. When we all feel excited about what we have, we make a record. It\u2019s been a little chunk of time since the last record, but we\u2019re not on a schedule, and we\u2019re not churning out crap. We make new music when we feel like making it and take the time it takes to create music of the quality we want.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Describe that creative process.<\/b><\/p>\n
Sometimes we\u2019ll come up with songs when we\u2019re jamming in a room, and sometimes it\u2019s you alone at home working on an idea. Then you send it around to the guys and see what they think of it. They might add something, or it might be good enough as is. As far as arrangements, anytime anybody plays on it they\u2019re going to put their thing to it anyway. It doesn\u2019t matter if I don\u2019t write a song because when I play on it I\u2019m going to put my thing to it just like all of us.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Why select Nick again to produce?<\/b><\/p>\n
All he wants is the best he can get out of you. He wants the best song possible and your best performance, but not in a demanding way. It takes work to do that. It doesn\u2019t just happen by itself.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What was it like in the studio?<\/b><\/p>\n
Making a record is one difficult thing. It\u2019s funny because every time you do it, it\u2019s usually years removed from the last time you did it, so you often forget. It\u2019s like, \u201cWas the last record this hard?\u201d I remember Nick saying a couple of times, \u201cYep, it was.\u201d I forget every time that it\u2019s such a marathon from ideas to writing to pre-pro to jamming to everybody\u2019s input on everything. Then you\u2019re recording it, and stuff is changing. It\u2019s a long trek, and you\u2019re constantly coming up against the wall of your own ineptitude.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bit hard on yourselves, no?<\/b><\/p>\n
Our motto has always been \u201cWhatever it takes to make a great record.\u201d It doesn\u2019t matter what it costs or how long it\u2019s going to take. We\u2019re not putting something out we feel is even remotely half-baked. We\u2019ve always had a pretty healthy vision of what we want musically. While we don\u2019t spend a lot of time listening to old records, we\u2019re well aware of what those records are and the level we achieved. In our minds we\u2019re not dipping below that. If people don\u2019t like it, that\u2019s a whole other thing. But if we\u2019re satisfied to a certain level, then we win every time. I\u2019ve been proud of every record we\u2019ve put out.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the album title from?<\/b><\/p>\n
We came up with the song first and started thinking about what to call the record. It was just an oddball, cool title. I can guarantee you nobody else has ever called a record that. There\u2019s a lot of fear, hate and prejudice that goes on in the name of a belief. It\u2019s just about how bad we are to each other. There\u2019s room for everybody, and I\u2019m not necessarily putting down faith in that song. The main line of the chorus is, \u201cNo problem<\/p>\n
with faith, just fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Are you fired up about the tour?<\/b><\/p>\n
Absolutely. I hear guys say, \u201cI don\u2019t get scared onstage\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m totally at ease up there.\u201d But I\u2019m not. It\u2019s still exciting and terrifying. But that\u2019s what makes it good. The exciting part is the potential train wreck that can blow up or fall apart at any moment. Some of the stuff we play is difficult to pull off live. You\u2019re playing one rhythm, singing against another\u2014and we have two guys doing that so we have multiple moving parts, and they all have to mesh. It\u2019s tough, and it\u2019s a tightrope walk with no net. We don\u2019t have any Auto-Tune or tracks. It\u2019s live, so it gets weird once in a while, but it\u2019s always interesting to see how you get it back.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Do you embrace the onstage craziness ?<\/b><\/p>\n
Every once in a while you have a complete train wreck, and most of the time you can reel it in. But it\u2019s live, and it\u2019s not supposed to be perfect. Since when did it become OK to expect people to pay so you can fake what you do onstage for them? \u201cWell, I want it to sound good, so I don\u2019t mind paying somebody to lip sync and dance around in front of me.\u201d That\u2019s BS. If you can\u2019t play your stuff, you shouldn\u2019t be on a stage.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Why has the band been so successful and your fans so loyal?<\/b><\/p>\n
We\u2019ve been really lucky, and the thing you can never gauge is people\u2019s response to it. We\u2019ve been through a lot as a band, and everybody knows that. The cool thing is a huge portion of people never left us. They connected with the music and kept it\u00a0alive. They kept playing it on the radio and rocking it in their cars or turning their friends onto it. That\u2019s something you can\u2019t plan on, and you\u2019ve got to respect that. While we\u2019re concerned with reaching a level ourselves, people responded to our music because we tried to achieve that level. So we have to keep doing that. We have to keep hitting that mark for us, and then secondarily for anybody who digs the band. We don\u2019t want to let them down. If you\u2019re letting yourself down, there\u2019s a pretty good chance you\u2019re going to let the rest\u00a0of \u2019em down, too.<\/p>\n
\u2013Steve Rosen<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ALICE IN CHAINS Setting the musical bar high and releasing no album before its time \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 In July 2011, Alice in Chains\u00a0frontman Jerry Cantrell began working on the band\u2019s new record, but the process proved too painful\u2014not artistically but physically. The guitarist was experiencing severe shoulder pain and underwent surgery to remove bone deposits. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,7],"tags":[4161,6637,6372,6638,6639,6641,6642,970,6640,6456],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9947"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9977,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9947\/revisions\/9977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}