Alice in Chains: The Untold Story by David de Sola

Author:David de Sola [de Sola, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781466848399
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-08-03T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Funny thing about the songs—I don’t have any.

—JERRY CANTRELL

ALICE IN CHAINS WAS TOURING when Jerry called Toby Wright, asking if he would be interesting in recording an EP with them. “Absolutely,” Wright responded. “Can you send me any of the songs?”

“We’re on our way home. By the time they get to you, we’ll already be done,” Jerry responded. “Meet us in Seattle.”

Despite what Jerry had told Wright, no material had been written. According to Jerry, the band had planned to take a break and wanted to work on the songs together after they got back.1 Alice in Chains and Toby Wright went into London Bridge Studio on September 7, 1993, with little or no material prepared. As soon as everyone arrived, the band members began talking about their experiences on the road.

“Wow, that’s awesome,” Wright said. “So you wrote a lot on the road?”

“Uh … funny thing about the songs—I don’t have any,” was Jerry’s sheepish response. Everyone laughed.

“Okay. What do you want to do for the next ten days?” Wright asked, referring to the fact that they had already booked studio time.

“Is it okay if we just jam for the next ten days?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah. Best band in the world, jamming? What bad could happen? I didn’t have anything better to do,” was Wright’s response.

The writing, recording, and mixing process was quick. According to the liner notes, the album was written and recorded in the studio during a five-day period and mixed from September 17 through 22.2 Sessions for the seven-song EP, titled Jar of Flies, were grueling round-the-clock affairs, as long as fourteen to eighteen hours a day. Wright was coproducing and engineering himself, with help from Jonathan Plum as his assistant engineer. “I remember I would leave and they’d still be up. I would go home, get a few hours of sleep, and come back,” Plum said of those marathon sessions.

Once an idea was fully worked out, the band members were very efficient recording their individual parts. “Some of those, once they got an arrangement down, it was one or two takes and they’re done. That being one of the most prolific and best-feeling bands, we got a great take, and that was the song,” Wright said.

Plum remembers seeing Layne sitting on the couch in the lobby watching TV. One morning, Layne was watching cartoons and eating kids’ cereal out of the box with his hands. On the back of the box was a fill-in-the-blank game, which Layne completed with his own twist. “He filled it out, and it was totally disgusting, talking about putting things in your urethra. He cut it out and put it on the refrigerator,” Plum recalled.

The band brought in a four-piece string section for “I Stay Away.” Wright asked Jerry if he wanted to chart out everything he wanted them to play into sheet music.

“No, I’ll just tell them what to play,” Jerry responded. Dave Hillis, who worked at London Bridge at the time but did not work on Jar of

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