The first shoot took place on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 2, 1990, at the swimming pool of the Oakwood Apartments in Burbank. To execute the idea of their emerging from an eyeball, the pool was covered with a thin piece of plastic. The band members had to swim under the plastic, rise to the surface, and breathe in as they emerged. “The plastic distorted their faces, and I got some great, ghoulish band shots with the very first roll of film,” Schenck wrote. They experimented with several ideas, including a shot of Layne wrapped in plastic with the other members holding him that was used as the cover for the “We Die Young” single.
They spent the next day and night at Schenck’s Hollywood studio. “I had been experimenting with in-camera multiple exposures, where I would create a distorted image by exposing different parts of a single frame of film one exposure at a time. I had been utilizing this technique in videos and in my art photography for years, and it was perfect for this assignment,” Schenck explained. In his portfolio, the band members had seen “experimental multiple-exposure black and white portraits of haunted, distorted faces,” and asked that he duplicate the technique. Schenck didn’t want to duplicate the original photo, which was in black and white, so he tried the same technique in color using photos of each band member’s face. A photo of Mike was chosen for the album cover. Upon seeing the photo, they decided to name the album Facelift. The original concept for the cover was to have all four members’ faces “superimposed into one startling expression,” which appeared years later in the Music Bank box set.19
“What I enjoyed about this process is that I could never quite predict how the final image would look with this technique, but it usually resulted in an image that was somewhat bizarre and twisted—perfect for Alice,” Schenck wrote. “We spent many hours creating distorted portraits of each band member, lighting each of their features individually with a single gelled spotlight and creating the portrait one exposure at a time.”
On May 4, Schenck and the band went to a sulfur plant in Wilmington, California, an experience he described as “very intense” because if the wind shifted, the sulfur would get in their eyes, and they would all start crying. There were eye baths located throughout the plant, so they were constantly washing their eyes. At one point, the band was standing in a cactus patch near a mountain of sulfur when the wind shifted and they all started crying. Schenck kept shooting and got what he described as “some odd pictures of the band crying in the cactus.”
After reviewing the proof sheets two decades later, Schenck wrote, “I think this first marathon shoot captured them in a wonderful way. They were in rare form, and I was having the time of my life working with them. I didn’t know at that time if I would be working with them again, but I was hooked.” Schenck and the band were out having dinner when Layne, for no particular reason, started singing “We Die Young” in the style of Broadway actress Ethel Merman. These shoots were the beginning of a professional relationship between Schenck and the band that would continue for years, covering most of their albums and several music videos.
Schenck and the band regrouped on August 9 to discuss ideas for their first video, “We Die Young.” At the time, there had been several fires in the Los Angeles area, and Schenck suggested using a burned-down house and a swimming pool filled with debris as a location. He also wanted to replicate the swimming-pool photos into sequences for the video. Filming began on August 28 at a home in Glendale. Schenck requested the ruins be painted bright red, and they filled the pool with debris found on-site. “I can distinctly remember the looks on the family’s faces who once lived in this home watching us from the sidelines. Their expressions were quietly horrified as we filmed in their once-lovely swimming pool, using their burned furniture and their children’s burnt toys as props,” Schenck wrote.
On September 10, Schenck organized a shoot at a Hollywood studio, where the band’s performance was projected on floating and burning debris. The final cut of “We Die Young” was finished on September 17. “The band and the record company seemed to like it, and I was happy with the way it turned out. The video seemed to fit the music quite well, and I think it utilized a lot of different elements that I had not seen in music videos at that point.”20
The three-song We Die Young EP was released in the summer of 1990, with Facelift shortly after, on August 24—two days after Layne’s twenty-third birthday. Layne had given his mother a cassette copy of the finished album to listen to and asked for her feedback.
“I think there’s a sleeper on that album”—a song that was going to creep up on people—“It’s called ‘Man in the Box.’”
“Mom, I wrote that song.”
“Layne, it’s so beautiful.”
In retrospect, years later, Nancy Layne McCallum said, “I didn’t know he was the man in the box. I’m sure he just kept wanting me to get it.”21
She was ultimately proved correct about “Man in the Box” being a sleeper. But it took a while for it to catch on. First, they had to tour in support of the album.
Chapter 11
Today’s opening act is tomorrow’s headlining act.
ALICE IN CHAINS HIT the road almost immediately following the release of Facelift. They warmed up by playing a few local Seattle shows first—at the annual Bumbershoot festival at Seattle Center, followed by headlining performances at the Vogue and the Central Tavern. At the time, Soundgarden was wrapping up their tour in support of Louder Than Love, so Susan hired that crew to work for Alice in Chains. The crew consisted of a drum tech, a guitar and bass tech, a sound engineer, a merchandise seller, and a tour manager.
Jimmy Shoaf was Sean’s drum tech during this first tour. In that capacity, he was responsible for setting up and maintaining Sean’s equipment before, during, and after the shows, and he was also running the lights. Susan had given him an advance copy of Facelift. He had never seen the band live before. “I’m listening to it, like, ‘These guys can’t do this shit live. There’s no fucking way. It’s overproduced,’” he said. Shoaf met the band at Mark Naficy’s warehouse after Bumbershoot in early September 1990. In a small rehearsal room, he watched them perform “Sunshine” and was amazed by what he was hearing.
Randy Biro, the guitar and bass tech, who also doubled as a stage manager, was similarly skeptical at first. “To be honest, I didn’t want to. Susan asked me to do it as a favor, because I didn’t like the band at first.” He had first seen Alice in Chains live when they opened for Soundgarden at a show in Portland. His impression at the time: “Wow, these guys are really good.” But for some reason, there was a disconnect between the band he saw live and the band he was asked to work with. Biro had also been given a copy of Facelift. “I thought they were a lame attempt at trying to do Aerosmith, mixed with [Guns n’ Roses].”
The first thing he said to the band after Soundgarden got off the tour bus and Alice in Chains got on was, “Hey, you. This is my bunk. Don’t fucking touch it.” During the first week of the tour, Biro didn’t even know any of their names.
Up first was a monthlong opening slot for Extreme, where they would be performing in clubs ranging from five hundred to fifteen hundred people in support of Facelift and Extreme’s sophomore album, Extreme II: Pornograffiti. It was an odd pairing, one Alice in Chains and their crew weren’t particularly happy with. “Extreme fans were generally little seedy guitar-player-wannabe dudes. I think they were starting to hit with that ‘More Than Words’ god-awful ballad; they took that one to the bank,” Shoaf said.