LAYNE INVITED JERRY to spend Christmas of 1987—the first since his mother’s death—with him and his family. Layne had approached his parents about it, telling them about his friend who was “kind of homeless” and didn’t have a family. “We made sure that Jerry had some gifts and some clothes, because he didn’t have a whole lot,” Jim Elmer recalled. “We bought him an army coat and a couple of other things that were kind of trendy at the time, and Layne got that as well.”
This was the first time Layne’s family met Jerry. Jim Elmer’s initial impressions at the time: “You could tell these guys were buddies, and Jerry was very respectful—he was not loud or boisterous or too into himself or whatnot. He was very pleasant and certainly liked—in the outset, he really liked being there, and so he wasn’t rambunctious or anything.”
At the beginning of 1988, Jerry and Layne were pulling double duty between the then-nascent Alice in Chains and 40 Years of Hate—with Layne singing and Jerry playing guitar in both bands. For a brief time, Alice in Chains went by the names Mothra and Fuck. Jerry credited Sean for coming up with the name Fuck. “We weren’t getting work anyway, so we thought it wouldn’t hurt us,” Layne said.1
They made stickers that said FUCK (THE BAND) and put them on condoms to pass around as a gimmick. The novelty and shock value of the name was offset by its detrimental effect on publicity, problematic for any new band when print and broadcast media can’t print or say the band’s name.2 Years later, a FUCK (THE BAND) sticker can still be seen on one of Jerry’s guitars, but the letter F has either worn away or been deliberately removed. But this name didn’t work out, and the band became Diamond Lie after Jerry got permission to use the name from his former bandmates.
The lineup for 40 Years of Hate consisted of Layne on vocals, Jerry on guitar, James Bergstrom on acoustic drums, Dave Martin on electronic drums, and Ron Holt on bass. They had about a dozen songs they would perform at rehearsals, but recordings exist for only seven or eight of them. Holt, who was traveling back and forth between Seattle and Los Angeles, recorded several songs during a series of sessions at the Music Bank and his home in Edmonds, Washington. The earliest four-track master, which Holt thinks was recorded in the fall of 1987, was titled “1988 Full of Pain, Full of Hate.”
Around this time, another Holt composition titled “It’s Coming After” was recorded. The song had great meaning to Layne. Bergstrom called it “a song Layne was crazy about,” adding, “He loved it. It had a David Bowie–esque kind of … It was the most industrial song of the group. It isn’t necessarily industrial, it just had some elements of that for that time.” At the time, Holt was in a band in Los Angeles with Faster Pussycat singer Taime Downe. He originally wrote “It’s Coming After” with Downe’s voice in mind. “[Faster Pussycat] just got signed, and I thought, ‘This would be something that would look good on them,’” Holt said. One day Holt read Layne the lyric, “I’m gonna stretch your skin across her frame and paint it…”
“So what happens to the rest of that part?” Layne asked.
“I don’t know, but that’s where I wanted to go.”
After a few days, Layne decided he wanted the song for himself. The next time he saw Holt, he told him, “I got it.”
“But there’s some things…” Holt interjected.
“I got this one.”
“It was weird for him to be that confident with me. It was weird for him to throw down the gauntlet on it,” Holt recalled with a laugh. “He explained to me what he did, and I was like, ‘Oh my fucking God.’ It’s the swagger,” he said, referring to Layne’s vocal performance on the song.
“It’s too bad it wasn’t released at the time, because it would have been huge. If it had come out in 1987 when Layne and I first did it, it would have been huge, because the swagger and the sense of dark core that he gives it. That was his particular genius, where I started to go, ‘Oh, wow. Maybe I need to give him more freedom and not stick around so much.’” The song was released on Second Coming’s L.O.V.Evil album in 1994. Several years later, Layne told Holt in one of their final conversations that it was one of his favorite songs to sing, ever.
“I Don’t Care” is another song from this period, driven by a James Brown–esque horn part and funk-style bass line. Layne’s vocals sound somewhat similar to those of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. “The Things You Do” is very different, more along the lines of Depeche Mode, with a darker, brooding feel to it. Layne would rerecord his vocals on this song several years later for the Despisley Brothers project with Jesse Holt, Ron’s brother.
Besides “It’s Coming After,” the most significant recording is a song written by Holt called “Tribute.” According to him, it has a very similar opening guitar riff and melody to “Man in the Box.” Bergstrom confirmed this account, describing “Man in the Box” as “very influenced by ‘Tribute,’ and I mean that in a good way.” Holt never sued the band for songwriting credits or royalties after the release of Facelift, nor did he try to exploit his connection to Layne for personal gain. He also had not spoken publicly about his interactions with the band until being interviewed for this book. Also worth noting is the fact that the lyrics for “Man in the Box” were entirely Layne’s and that the song was credited to all four band members. As of this writing, Holt is in negotiations to sell these early recordings to Layne’s estate.
At some point in early 1988, Holt went back to Los Angeles and didn’t return for at least nine months, although it wasn’t his intention to be gone for that long. After he left, Layne called him, asking, “What happened to you? Why did you split?” At around the same time, Jerry, Mike, and Sean wanted Layne to commit to Alice in Chains full-time. They thought it would only be a matter of time before he agreed. When waiting for him to come around didn’t work, they resorted to reverse psychology: they told Layne they were getting a new singer and began auditioning his replacements in Layne’s rehearsal room at the Music Bank.
“We just brought in the shittiest guys we could find,” Jerry recalled years later. One of them was a redheaded male stripper.
“The worst singers we could find … We’d bring them in and have them sing, and he’d be coming in and out and just [makes a cringing face], ‘Oh, God. What are you guys doing?’” Sean elaborated. “‘Oh, nothing. He wasn’t that bad.’” The others continued the act.
Jerry: “‘He wasn’t too bad. I kind of liked that guy.’”
Sean: “‘Yeah, he’s pretty cool.’ We kept purposely doing that, and after about three guys that were just so horrendous, he came in and he was like, ‘Okay, fuck that. I’m joining. Let’s just do this thing and I’ll quit the other bands.’”3
It’s not clear which of the two events came first: Holt leaving Seattle or Jerry, Sean, and Mike holding mock auditions for a new lead singer. Regardless, by the beginning of 1988, the founding lineup for Alice in Chains—still known as Diamond Lie—was in place.
The next step was to develop original material. They had the time, physical space, and incentive to hone their craft at the Music Bank. At some point not long after they formed, they borrowed a van belonging to the band Coffin Break to haul their instruments and gear to Issaquah, where they recorded a demo in an eight-track studio in a tree house belonging to the producer PC Ring. On it were early original compositions (“I Can’t Have You Blues,” “Social Parasite,” and “Whatcha Gonna Do”) as well as covers of Layne’s “Queen of the Rodeo” and David Bowie’s “Suffragette City.” Later dubbed the “Treehouse Tape,” it would play a crucial role in the band’s early history.4