1984–1989: Formation and early years ,
Sean Kinney,
Mike Starr,
Layne Staley. Before the formation of Alice in Chains, Layne Staley, a drummer at the time, landed his first gig as a vocalist when he auditioned to sing for a local
glam metal band known as
Sleze after receiving some encouragement from his stepbrother Ken Elmer. This was prompted by a conversation that Bacolas had with Russ Klatt, the lead singer of Slaughter Haus 5, about backstage passes. Bacolas liked the name "Alice in Chains" and brought it up to his bandmates; they agreed and decided to change the band's name. The name change happened a year before Guns N' Roses became a household name with their first album,
Appetite for Destruction, released in July 1987. A few months prior, Cantrell had watched a concert of Alice N' Chains in his hometown at the
Tacoma Little Theatre, and was impressed by Staley's voice. Cantrell was homeless after being kicked out of his family's house, Alice N' Chains soon disbanded, and Staley joined a
funk band. Cantrell's band, Diamond Lie, broke up and he wanted to form a new band, so Staley gave him the phone number of Melinda Starr, the girlfriend of drummer
Sean Kinney, so that Cantrell could set up a meeting with Kinney. the name of Cantrell's previous band, and "Fuck", Staley contacted his former bandmates and asked for permission to use the name. Nick Pollock was not particularly thrilled about it at the time, and thought he should come up with a different name; both he and James Bergstrom ultimately gave Staley their blessing to use the name. Cantrell stated the album was intended to have a "moody aura" that was a "direct result of the brooding atmosphere and feel of Seattle." The resulting album,
Facelift, was released on August 21, 1990, peaking at number 42 in mid-1991 on the
Billboard 200 chart. The single hit number 18 on the
Mainstream rock charts, with the album's follow up single, "
Sea of Sorrow", reaching number 27,
Sammy Hagar claimed he invited the band to tour with
Van Halen after he saw the music video for "Man In The Box" on
MTV.
Facelift was certified
gold by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling a half-million copies becoming the first album from Seattle's grunge movement to be certified gold. The band continued to hone its audience, opening for such artists as
Iggy Pop, The home video has been certified gold by the
RIAA for sales exceeding 50,000 copies. In early 1991, Alice in Chains landed the opening slot for the
Clash of the Titans tour with
Anthrax,
Megadeth, and
Slayer, exposing the band to a wide metal audience but receiving mainly poor reception. Alice in Chains was nominated for a
Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy Award in 1992 for "Man in the Box". The EP was released while
Nirvana's
Nevermind was at the top of the
Billboard 200 charts, resulting in a rising popularity of Seattle-based bands, and of the term "grunge music". and guest vocals by
Ann Wilson from the band
Heart, who joined Staley and Cantrell for the choruses of "Brother" and "Am I Inside". In 1992, Alice in Chains appeared in the
Cameron Crowe film
Singles, performing their song "It Ain't Like That" while portraying an unnamed bar band. The band also contributed the song "
Would?" to the film's
soundtrack, whose video received an award for
Best Video from a Film at the
1993 MTV Video Music Awards.
1992–1993: Dirt In March 1992, the band returned to the studio. With new songs written primarily on the road, the material has an overall darker feel than
Facelift, with six of the album's thirteen songs dealing with the subject of addiction. "We did a lot of soul searching on this album. There's a lot of intense feelings." and since its release has been certified 5×
platinum by the RIAA, Chris Gill of
Guitar World called
Dirt "huge and foreboding, yet eerie and intimate", and "sublimely dark and brutally honest." Alice in Chains was added as openers to
Ozzy Osbourne's
No More Tours tour. Days before the tour began, Layne Staley broke his foot in an
ATV accident, forcing him to use crutches on stage. Years later, Starr claimed that he was fired due to his drug addiction. Starr was replaced by former Ozzy Osbourne bassist
Mike Inez. Inez had met Alice in Chains during Ozzy Osbourne's
No More Tours tour and became friends with them. When the band was in Brazil, they called Inez to join them and he accepted. Inez wanted to do the shows in Brazil and even got his immunization shots, but the band called him back saying that Starr wanted to do the last two shows in Brazil, so they would meet Inez in London instead. During the summer of 1993, Alice in Chains toured with the
alternative music festival
Lollapalooza, their last major tour with Staley.
1993–1994: Jar of Flies joined Alice in Chains in 1993. Following Alice in Chains' extensive 1993 world tour, Staley said the band "just wanted to go into the studio for a few days with our acoustic guitars and see what happened." "We never really planned on the music we made at that time to be released. But the record label heard it and they really liked it. For us, it was just the experience of four guys getting together in the studio and making some music."
Jar of Flies debuted at number one on the
Billboard 200, becoming the first EP—and first Alice in Chains release—to top the charts. and Steve Huey said, "'Jar of Flies' is a low-key stunner, achingly gorgeous and harrowingly sorrowful all at once."
Jar of Flies features Alice in Chains' first number-one single on the
Mainstream Rock charts, "
No Excuses". The second single, "
I Stay Away", reached number ten on the Mainstream rock charts, while the final single "
Don't Follow", reached number 25.
Jar of Flies received two Grammy nominations, Best Hard Rock Performance for "I Stay Away", After the release of
Jar of Flies, Staley entered
rehab for heroin addiction. The band was scheduled to tour during the summer of 1994 with
Metallica,
Suicidal Tendencies,
Danzig, and
Fight, as well as a slot during
Woodstock '94, but while in rehearsal for the tour, Staley began using heroin again. Staley's condition prompted the other band members to cancel all scheduled dates one day before the start of the tour, putting the band on hiatus. Susan Silver's management office sent out a statement saying that the decision to withdraw from the Metallica tour and Woodstock was "due to health problems within the band." Shortly after withdrawing, the band broke up for six months, with Kinney telling
Rolling Stone in 1996, "Nobody was being honest with each other back then. If we had kept going, there was a good chance we would have self-destructed on the road, and we definitely didn't want that to happen in public." While in the studio, an inferior version of the song "
Grind" was leaked to radio, and received major airplay. On October 6, the band released the studio version of the song to radio via satellite uplink to stem the excessive spread of taped copies of the song. On November 7, 1995, Columbia Records released their self-titled album,
Alice in Chains, The band released the home video
The Nona Tapes On December 12, a mockumentary featuring interviews with the band members conducted by journalist Nona Weisbaum (played by Jerry Cantrell), and the music video for "Grind". The band opted not to tour in support of
Alice in Chains, adding to the rumors of drug abuse. The song "
Got Me Wrong" unexpectedly charted three years after its release on the
Sap EP. The song was re-released as a single on the soundtrack for the film
Clerks in 1994, reaching number seven on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Alice in Chains resurfaced on April 10, 1996, to perform for
MTV Unplugged, a program featuring all-acoustic set lists. The performance featured some of the band's highest-charting singles, including "Rooster", "Down in a Hole", "Heaven Beside You", "No Excuses" and "Would?", and introduced a new song, "Killer Is Me", with Cantrell on lead vocals. Alice in Chains performed four shows supporting the reunited original
Kiss lineup on their 1996–97
Alive/Worldwide Tour, including the final live appearance of Layne Staley on July 3, 1996, in
Kansas City, Missouri. Shortly after the show, Staley was found unresponsive after he overdosed on heroin and was taken to the hospital. Although he recovered, the band was forced to go on hiatus.
1996–2004: Hiatus, side projects and death of Layne Staley Although Alice in Chains never officially disbanded, Staley became a recluse, rarely leaving his Seattle condominium following the death of his ex-fiancée Demri Parrott on October 29, 1996. "Drugs worked for me for years," Staley told
Rolling Stone in February 1996, "and now they're turning against me ... now I'm walking through hell and this sucks. I didn't want my fans to think that heroin was cool. But then I've had fans come up to me and give me the thumbs up, telling me they're high. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen." Cantrell and Kinney were also featured on
Metallica's 1998 album
Garage Inc., both were guest musicians in the track "
Tuesday's Gone", a
Lynyrd Skynyrd cover. In October 1998, Staley reunited with Alice in Chains to record two new songs, "
Get Born Again" and "
Died". the songs were reworked by Alice in Chains and were released in the fall of 1999 on a
box set,
Music Bank. The set contains 48 songs, including rarities, demos, and previously released album tracks and singles. In November 1998, Layne Staley recorded a cover of
Pink Floyd's "
Another Brick in the Wall" with the supergroup
Class of '99. The song was featured on the soundtrack to the 1998 horror/
sci-fi film,
The Faculty. After they toured as part of Cantrell's solo band in 1998, Sean Kinney and
Queensrÿche guitarist
Chris DeGarmo formed a new band called
Spys4Darwin. Mike Inez and
Sponge lead vocalist
Vin Dombroski joined the supergroup soon after. The band released their first and only album in 2001, a 6-track EP entitled
Microfish. In June 2001, Mike Inez joined
Zakk Wylde's
Black Label Society for the remaining dates of
Ozzfest, following the departure of bassist
Steve Gibb for medical reasons. Inez joined the band again for their West Coast and Japanese tour in 2003. By 2002, Cantrell had finished work on his second solo album,
Degradation Trip. Written in 1998, the album's lyrical content focused heavily on what Cantrell regarded as the demise of Alice in Chains, which still remained evident as the album approached its June 2002 release. However, in March that year, Cantrell commented, "We're all still around, so it's possible [Alice in Chains] could all do something someday, and I fully hope someday we will." Reflecting on the band's hiatus in a 2011 interview, Kinney said that Staley wasn't the only one battling addiction. He was the focal point, like singers are. So they'd single him out. But the truth was, it was pretty much everybody. I definitely had my hand firmly on the wheel going off the cliff. And the reason we pulled back – you know when you stop when you have two No. 1 records, it's not really the greatest career move – but we did that because we love each other and we didn't want to die in public. And I know for a fact in my heart that if we were to continue that I wouldn't be on the phone right now talking to you. I wouldn't have made it. I just wouldn't have. Cantrell dedicated his 2002 solo album,
Degradation Trip, released two months after Staley's death, to his memory. Mike Starr later claimed on
Celebrity Rehab that he was the last person to see Staley alive, and admitted to feeling guilty about not calling 911 after Staley had warned him against it. "I wish I hadn't been high on
benzodiazepine [that night], I wouldn't have just walked out the door," Starr said. Jerry Cantrell collaborated with several artists such as Heart,
Ozzy Osbourne, and
Damageplan. On October 22, 2004,
Sony BMG terminated their contract with Alice in Chains, 15 years after the band signed with the label, in 1989.
2005–2008: Reunion shows and reformation , replaced Staley in the reformed band in 2006. In 2005, Sean Kinney came up with the idea of doing a benefit concert for the victims of the tsunami disaster that
struck South Asia in 2004. Kinney made calls to his former bandmates, as well as friends in the music community, such as former Alice in Chains manager Susan Silver. Kinney was surprised by the enthusiastic response to his idea. On February 18, 2005, Jerry Cantrell, Mike Inez, and Sean Kinney reunited to perform for the first time in nine years at
K-Rock Tsunami Continued Care Relief Concert in Seattle. The band featured
Damageplan vocalist
Pat Lachman, as well as other special guests including
Maynard James Keenan of
Tool,
Wes Scantlin of
Puddle of Mudd and
Ann Wilson of
Heart. Alice in Chains was approached by the producers of the
CBS reality show
Rock Star about being featured on its second season, but the band turned the offer down. They played "
Would?" with vocalist
Phil Anselmo of
Pantera and
Down and bass player
Duff McKagan of
Guns N' Roses and
Velvet Revolver, and at the end of the performance Cantrell dedicated the show to Layne Staley and the late Pantera and Damageplan guitarist
Dimebag Darrell. The band followed the concert with a short United States club tour named "Finish What We Started", several festival dates in Europe, and a brief tour in Japan. Duff McKagan again joined the band for the reunion tour, playing rhythm guitar on selected songs. During the tour, the band played a 5-minute video tribute to Staley during the changeover from the electric to acoustic set. To coincide with the band's reunion,
Sony Music released the long-delayed third Alice in Chains compilation,
The Essential Alice in Chains, a
double album that includes 28 songs. Jerry Cantrell met William DuVall in Los Angeles in 2000 through a mutual acquaintance who introduced Cantrell to Comes with the Fall's
first album. Cantrell started hanging out with the band and occasionally joined them onstage. Between 2001 and 2002, Comes with the Fall was both the opening act on Cantrell's tour for his second solo album,
Degradation Trip, and also his backing band, with DuVall singing Staley's parts at the concerts. DuVall joined Alice in Chains as lead singer during the band's reunion concerts in 2006, and made his first public performance with the band at
VH1's
Decades Rock Live! concert. According to Cantrell, it only took one audition for DuVall to get the gig. For his first rehearsal with the band, DuVall sang "Love, Hate, Love". After they finished, Sean Kinney looked at his bandmates and said, "I think the search is pretty much over." According to Mike Inez, DuVall didn't try to emulate Staley, and that's what drew them to him. Cantrell revealed that before he suggested DuVall for the band, Sean Kinney and Mike Inez invited
Sponge and
Spys4Darwin lead vocalist
Vin Dombroski to jam with the band in their rehearsal space. Dombroski jammed with them to a couple of songs but they did not feel he was right for the band. According to Cantrell, Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver lead singer
Scott Weiland was also interested in joining the band. During the
VH1 Rock Honors concert honoring Heart on May 12, 2007, Alice in Chains performed Heart's "
Barracuda" fronted by country singer
Gretchen Wilson. Heart's guitarist Nancy Wilson also joined them onstage. Alice in Chains joined
Velvet Revolver for a run of U.S. and Canadian gigs from August through October 2007. During that tour, the band also performed four special acoustic-only shows, named as "The Acoustic Hour". The acoustic performance at The Rave/Eagles Club in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 31, 2007, was recorded for an upcoming live album. On November 2, 2007, Alice in Chains performed a four-song set at Benaroya Hall in Seattle for Matt Messina and the Symphony Guild's 10th anniversary benefit concert for the Seattle Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center. In addition to the band's original material, they also played a cover of
Led Zeppelin's "
Kashmir" while backed by over 200 musicians, including the Northwest Symphony Orchestra and the Northwest Girlchoir. Sean Kinney said about the band's reunion: I never called Jerry; he never called me, and said, 'Hey, let's get the band back together,' you know? We had been taking every step extremely cautious and slow, and just doing whatever feels right: If it's genuine and we're doing it for genuine reasons and we're all okay with it then we take a little step. None of us is broke. Nobody needs to be a rock dork, and you know, stroke their ego. I mean, we don't really operate like that. So as long as it felt good and from the right place and it's about making music and carrying on... About the pressure being put on DuVall for replacing Staley as lead vocalist, Cantrell said, To put all that weight on Will's shoulders is unfair. We're just figuring out how we work as a team. Although the band has changed, we've lost Layne, we've added Will, and there was no master plan. Playing again in 2005 felt right, so we did the next thing and toured. We did it step by step. It's more than just making music, and it always has been. We've been friends a long time. We've been more of a family than most, and it had to be okay from here [pointing to his heart]. Former
The Doors manager Bill Siddons and his management company, Core Entertainment, co-managed Alice in Chains with original manager Susan Silver from 2005 to 2007. The band started writing and demoing songs for a new album with DuVall in April 2007. But the band did not show further signs of progress until October 2008, when they announced that they had begun recording with producer
Nick Raskulinecz in the studio.
2008–2011: Black Gives Way to Blue and death of Mike Starr Blabbermouth.net reported on September 5, 2008, that Alice in Chains would enter the studio that October to begin recording a new album for a summer 2009 release. On September 14, 2008, Alice in Chains performed at halftime during the
Seattle Seahawks vs
San Francisco 49ers game at the Qwest Field (now named
Lumen Field ) in Seattle. The 12-minute performance for a crowd of 67,000 people featured a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" accompanied by the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. In October 2008, Alice in Chains began recording its fourth studio album at the
Foo Fighters' Studio 606 in Los Angeles with producer
Nick Raskulinecz. The recording process was completed on Cantrell's 43rd birthday and also the same day that William DuVall's son was born. making it the band's first label change in its 20-plus year career. Susan Silver, who started managing Alice in Chains in 1988, now co-manages the band with
David Benveniste and his Velvet Hammer firm. The title first appeared on
Amazon.com without any prior announcement from the band. In addition, it was announced that
Elton John plays piano on the
title track, a tribute to Layne Staley written and sung by Cantrell. The album features new vocalist and rhythm guitarist William DuVall sharing vocal duties with lead guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell, who sings lead vocals on most of the songs. DuVall sings lead vocals on the song "Last of My Kind". ,
Sean Kinney and
Jerry Cantrell (
Mike Inez is out of frame). On June 30, 2009, the song "
A Looking in View" was made available for purchase via
iTunes and
Amazon, and for a limited time it was available as a free download through the official Alice in Chains website in early July. Although it was not the album's first radio single, Rock stations across the U.S. started playing the song. The music video for "A Looking in View" debuted via the band's official website on July 7, 2009. The song was nominated for a
Grammy Award for
Best Hard Rock Performance. and was made available for purchase on August 17, 2009. The music video for "Check My Brain" premiered on September 14, 2009. The song was also nominated for a
Grammy Award for
Best Hard Rock Performance. An app for iPhone was released on October 27, 2009, featuring songs, music videos, news, photos and networking. Sean Kinney said about the new album and the fans' mixed reactions about the band moving on after Staley's death: Look, it's a big move to fucking stand up and move on. Some people, the music connected with them so strongly, their opinions, how they feel about it ... It's amazing that they have such a connection but they seem to act like it happened to them. This happened to us and Layne's family, not them. This is actually our lives. If we're okay with it, why can't you be? This happened to us, this didn't happen to you. But this album isn't about that, it's a bigger universal point. We're all going to fucking die, we're all going to lose somebody, and it fucking hurts. How do you move on? This record is us moving on, and hurting. That, to me, is a victory. I already feel like I've won. And Cantrell added: "We've toured around the world, we've lost some friends, we buried a dear friend, and somebody that you just can't fucking replace, and then we've chosen by circumstance to get together again. That turned into 'maybe we can fucking do this.' And that turned into this." In February 2009, it was also announced that Alice in Chains would play at the third annual
Rock on the Range festival. On August 1, 2009, Alice in Chains performed, along with
Mastodon,
Avenged Sevenfold, and
Glyder, at Marlay Park, Dublin as direct support to Metallica. The band made an appearance on
Later... with Jools Holland on November 10, 2009, performing "Lesson Learned", "
Black Gives Way to Blue", and "Check My Brain" as the final performance of the episode. To coincide with the band's European tour, Alice in Chains released its next single, "
Your Decision", on November 16, 2009, in the UK and on December 1 in the US. The last single from the album was "
Lesson Learned", and it was released to rock radio on June 22, 2010.
Black Gives Way to Blue debuted at No. 5 on the
Billboard 200. On May 18, 2010, the album was certified gold by the
RIAA for selling over 500,000 copies in the U.S. The singles "
Check My Brain" and "
Your Decision" reached No. 1 on
Billboard's
Mainstream Rock Tracks, while "
Lesson Learned" reached No. 4. and on the
Hot Rock Songs chart, it also reached No. 92 on Billboard's
Hot 100, becoming the band's first single to appear on the chart. Along with
Mastodon and
Deftones, Alice in Chains toured the United States and Canada in late 2010 on the
Blackdiamondskye tour, an amalgam of the three bands' latest album titles (
Black Gives Way to Blue,
Diamond Eyes, and
Crack the Skye). On March 8, 2011, former Alice in Chains bassist
Mike Starr was found dead at his home in Salt Lake City. Police told Reuters they were called to Starr's home at 1:42 pm and found his body; Starr was 44. Reports later surfaced that Starr's roommate had seen him mixing
methadone and anxiety medication hours before he was found dead. Later reports indicated Starr's death may have been linked to two different types of antidepressants prescribed to him by his doctor. A public memorial was held for Starr at the Seattle Center's International Fountain on March 20, 2011. A private memorial was also held, which Jerry Cantrell and Sean Kinney attended according to Mike Inez.
2011–2016: The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here On March 21, 2011, Alice in Chains announced that they were working on a fifth studio album, and both Cantrell and Inez later made statements that they had begun the recording process. The album was expected to be finished by summer of 2012 and released by the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013. While Alice in Chains were writing for the album in 2011, Cantrell underwent surgery on his right shoulder, which delayed recording the new material. In an interview published in May 2012, Cantrell explained, "The thing that set me back is I had some bone spurs [and] cartilage issues in my shoulders. I had the same issue in the other shoulder about six years ago so I've had them both done now. It's a repetitive motion injury from playing." Cantrell could not play guitar for eight months while he was recovering from surgery. While recuperating at home in a sling, Cantrell heard a riff in his head and sang it into his phone. The riff later became the song "
Stone". Alice in Chains played their first concert in nearly 10 months and their first concert after Cantrell's shoulder surgery at the Winstar Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma on August 13, 2011. The band's only concert in 2012 was a five-song acoustic set on May 31 at the eighth annual
MusiCares MAP Fund Benefit Concert honoring Jerry Cantrell. '' in 2013 On December 4, 2012, Cantrell confirmed that the new album had been completed. The first single, "
Hollow", debuted online on December 18, available for digital download in January 2013, along with an official music video. On February 13, 2013, Alice in Chains posted on Facebook that their new album title would be an anagram of the letters H V L E N T P S U S D A H I E E O E D T I U R R. The next day they announced that the album would be called
The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, which was released on May 28, 2013, and debuted at No. 2 on the
Billboard 200. The video was released on April 3, 2013, and also features cameos by Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart,
Mike McCready from Pearl Jam,
Kim Thayil from Soundgarden, Duff McKagan from Guns N' Roses,
Brent Hinds and
Bill Kelliher from
Mastodon, and
Lars Ulrich and
Robert Trujillo from
Metallica. In June 2013, the band released a pinball game app for iOS as part of
Pinball Rocks HD compilation, featuring the single "Hollow", the band's logo and the album artwork, as well as references to the band's previous albums such as
Jar of Flies and the self-titled record. The band released videos for the songs "Hollow", "
Stone", "
Voices", the title track and "
Phantom Limb".
"Hollow" and
"Stone" reached No. 1 on
Billboard's
Mainstream Rock Tracks, while
"Voices" reached No. 3, and each one of the three songs stayed on the chart for 20 weeks.
The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here was nominated for a
Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical in 2014. Alice in Chains toured extensively in the U.S., Canada, and Europe in 2013 and 2014. In May 2013, the band co-headlined the annual
MMRBQ festival with Soundgarden in
Camden, New Jersey. Asked in September 2013 if Alice in Chains would make another album, Cantrell replied, "It'll be a while. It's [been] four years since we put the last one out, but at least it's not the gap that was between the last one, so that's about right - about three to four years." at
Arrowhead Stadium in 2016 On January 18, 2015, Alice in Chains performed in the halftime show of the
NFC Championship Game between the
Seattle Seahawks and the
Green Bay Packers at
CenturyLink Field in Seattle. Cantrell is a lifelong Seahawks fan and often attends their games. In August 2015, Bassist Mike Inez said that the band had been "throwing around riffs for a new record" and "taking it nice and slow". The band toured in the summer of 2015 and the summer of 2016, including select shows opening for
Guns N' Roses as part of the
Not in This Lifetime... Tour. The band finished their 2016 tour with a concert at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno, Nevada on October 8, 2016. In November 2016, Alice in Chains released a cover of the
Rush song "
Tears", which was included in the 40th anniversary release of the album
2112. The home video
Live Facelift was released on
vinyl for the first time on November 25, 2016, as part of
Record Store Day's Black Friday event. The album features six songs and only 5000 copies were issued. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Record Store Day, on April 22, 2017, Legacy Recordings released "Get Born Again"/"What the Hell Have I", a special 45 RPM double 7" single featuring four tracks remastered and available on vinyl for the first time, "What the Hell Have I", "A Little Bitter", "Get Born Again" and "Died".
2017–2021: Rainier Fog In January 2017, Mike Inez stated in an interview that the band had begun work on a new album. In June 2017, it was reported that the band would return to Studio X (formerly Bad Animals Studios) in Seattle to record a new album later that month, for a tentative early 2018 release. The sessions were helmed by
Nick Raskulinecz, who produced the band's last two albums. Studio X was the studio where Alice in Chains recorded its 1995 self-titled album. On January 11, 2018, producer Nick Raskulinecz announced via
Instagram that the album was nearly finished and that there was only one more day left of recording. During an interview with
Guitar World published on April 11, 2018, Jerry Cantrell said that the album was recorded at four studios. After recording at Studio X in Seattle, the band went to
Nashville to record vocals and lead guitars at Nick Raskulinecz's home studio. But Cantrell had to take an unexpected break from work for a couple of weeks after getting sick on a trip to
Cabo for
Sammy Hagar's birthday. Cantrell had the band's engineer, Paul Figueroa, come in to his house and record a lot of his vocals and solos there. The band finished recording the album at the Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles. Cantrell also said he expected the album to be released "probably sometime this summer." At the press room of the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on April 14, 2018, Cantrell revealed that Alice in Chains had just signed with
BMG, and that they had finished mixing their new album. Alice in Chains did not perform live in 2017. The band performed their first concert since October 2016 In May 2018, Alice in Chains headlined the festivals
Carolina Rebellion, Lunatic Luau,
Pointfest, Northern Invasion, the WMMR BBQ festival in Philadelphia, and the
Rock on the Range festival in
Columbus, Ohio on May 18, 2018, in which they paid tribute to Chris Cornell on the first anniversary of his death covering two Soundgarden songs to close their set, "
Hunted Down" and "
Boot Camp", respectively. At the end of the show, the lights on stage spelled out "CC" for Chris Cornell and "SG" for Soundgarden as feedback rang out. The band started their European tour in June 2018, and headlined the Tons Of Rock Festival in
Norway alongside Ozzy Osbourne and
Helloween. Alice in Chains are also scheduled to headline KISW's Pain in the Grass festival in August 2018. The band released a new single, "
The One You Know", via Spotify, Amazon and iTunes on May 3, 2018. A music video directed by Adam Mason was released on YouTube the same day. "The One You Know" peaked at No. 9 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. The band also revealed that they talked to director Adam Mason, who is making a dark sci-film, about doing two separate pieces of art and maybe molding them together, and that the music video for "The One You Know" is the first chapter of molding Mason's film and the band's music videos together. It was also announced that the album would be titled
Rainier Fog, with the release date scheduled for August 24, 2018. Jerry Cantrell told
Rolling Stone that the title
Rainier Fog was inspired by the
Mount Rainier in Seattle, and the title track is a tribute to the Seattle music scene. "This song is a little homage to all of that: where we come from, who we are, all of the triumphs, all of the tragedies, lives lived." The album's third single, "
Never Fade", was released on August 10, 2018, through digital and streaming services. The song is a tribute dedicated to frontman William DuVall's grandmother, Chris Cornell, and Alice in Chains' original singer Layne Staley. "Never Fade" peaked at No. 10 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. In June 2018, William DuVall said in an interview with Swedish website
Rocksverige that the music video for "The One You Know" is the first chapter of what the band is hoping will be visuals for all ten songs from the album
Rainier Fog, and in addition to that, will be a companion piece to the film that director Adam Mason was shooting. On August 20, 2018, the baseball team
Seattle Mariners hosted a special "Alice in Chains Night" at the
Safeco Field in Seattle to promote
Rainier Fog, with the team offering the fans a package that included a Safeco Field terrace club ticket, access to a pre-game listening party of the album, an Alice in Chains T-shirt and a Rainier Fog CD. Jerry Cantrell also threw out the ceremonial first pitch and delivered a strike before the Seattle Mariners vs.
Houston Astros game. To mark the launch of the album, on August 21, 2018, Alice in Chains performed an acoustic set at the top of Seattle's
Space Needle and debuted the song "Fly". Alice in Chains were the first band to perform on the Space Needle's new "Loupe" glass floor, the world's first and only revolving glass floor 500 feet high. The concert was exclusive for an audience of
SiriusXM subscribers. , England in 2018 On August 22, 2018, Alice in Chains sent fans on a
scavenger hunt to access a secret gig that the band would be performing in Seattle on August 24. Ten signed CD copies of
Rainier Fog were hidden around the city as a ticket into the show, and the band asked the fans to keep an eye on their
Instagram story for details on the 10 hidden locations. Once all 10 albums were found, the band revealed that the secret gig would be at the rock club
The Crocodile, with limited tickets available with the purchase of their album at a pop-up event at the same venue the next day. Preview clips of each of the album tracks were posted on the band's Instagram.
Rainier Fog debuted at No. 12 on the
Billboard 200 chart, selling 31,000 copies (29,000 in traditional album sales), in its first week of release. The album also debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Rock Albums, Alternative Albums and Hard Rock Albums charts, and at No. 3 on the Vinyl Albums chart.
Rainier Fog became Alice in Chains' first top 10 in the UK, peaking at No. 9, and topping UK's Rock & Metal Albums chart. The album has been nominated for a
Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. On December 13, 2018, the teaser of the film
Black Antenna featuring the song "Rainier Fog" was released on Alice in Chains' official YouTube channel, with drummer Sean Kinney stating; "We've always toyed with the idea of creating videos for every song on one of our albums. Not only did we do that for
Rainier Fog, it got totally out of hand and we made a whole goddamn movie. Everything that will be seen in the videos will be footage from
Black Antenna to preface the complete film's release." "Rainier Fog" was released as a single on February 26, 2019. The official trailer for
Black Antenna was released on Alice in Chains' YouTube Channel on February 28, 2019. Besides a 90-minute film, a 10-part web-series focused on each track from the album was planned. Episodes 1 and 2, "The One You Know" and "Rainier Fog", respectively, were released on March 7, 2019. The tenth and last episode, "All I Am", was released on July 17, 2019. The official music video for "Rainier Fog" was released on YouTube on May 15, 2019, and was co-directed by Alice in Chains and Peter Darley Miller, who also directed the band's 2013 mockumentary,
AIC 23. On December 1, 2020, Alice in Chains was honored with the Founders Award from Seattle's
Museum of Pop Culture. The benefit concert featured tribute performances from artists such as
Ann Wilson,
Korn,
Metallica,
Fishbone,
Dallas Green,
Billy Corgan,
Tad Doyle, members of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, among others. The event was made available for streaming for free and raised more than $600,000 for the museum in its first night. A compilation featuring highlights from the tribute was made available for streaming on
Amazon Music.
2022–present: Potential seventh studio album, Kinney health issues and cancelled tour In an April 2022 interview, vocalist
William DuVall revealed that he was "sure" Alice in Chains would begin working on their seventh studio album later in the year: We had a lot of time imposed on us and I think we're going through this period of catching up on things that we had planned for 2020 [and] 2021, and we're all finally getting to do that now. So, it's kind of like a stopgap and we're just dealing with all of these stockpiled projects that we had planned a few years back. So once we get back up to speed with things and we get these dates underway in late summer, I'm sure it will spark a whole bunch of ideas for the next Alice in Chains studio album. However, in March 2023, DuVall stated there were "no plans" for new Alice in Chains music. In February 2025, the band announced appearances at
Welcome to Rockville in
Daytona Beach, Florida,
Sonic Temple in
Columbus, Ohio, and MMR*B*Q, a festival hosted by
WMMR in
Camden, New Jersey, alongside three other headlining performances with Chained Saint, a
thrash metal band from Florida. The tour was set to kick off at
Mohegan Sun Arena in
Montville, Connecticut on May 8, when Kinney suffered a medical emergency during soundcheck that evening. The band described the event as "non-life threatening" but were forced to cancel the show; two days later, the entire tour was scrapped. The band was advised Kinney's health issue needed "immediate attention" and he was unfit to perform the scheduled dates, though they stated "his long-term prognosis is positive." In a September 2025 interview with
Cleveland.com, Cantrell stated that Alice in Chains "had a tour planned for, like, right now that kind of fell through", adding, "So we had some bad luck; we planned on doing much more this year, but it just didn't work out." He also commented on the possibility of the band touring or recording a new album in 2026: "We'll take a look at it again probably early next year and figure out what we're gonna do, whether go in and make another record or do some shows — or both." ==Artistry==