Alice in Chains' Layne Staley: The Rooster, the Jungle, and Dying Young
43:47 Share

Double Elvis.

The Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are designed to outlast and outlive. Combining raw power with precision engineering, all backed by Toyota's legendary reputation for reliability. Climb inside a Tundra and experience the uncompromising strength. With its available i-FORCE MAX engine, the Tundra delivers exceptional power, torque, and towing capacity. Plus, the spacious and high-tech cabin keeps you connected on the run. Or check out a Tacoma. Agile.

dependable and unstoppable the tacoma is designed for those who go beyond the trails stay ahead of the pack with available off-road features like crawl control or break out your tunes with the available portable jbl speaker toyota trucks are built to last year after year mile after mile so outlast every adventure and outlive the moment buy a tundra or tacoma today visit buyatoyota.com

the official website for deals. Or stop by your local Toyota dealer to find out more. Toyota, let's go places. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. What if comparing car insurance rates was as easy as putting on your favorite podcast?

With Progressive, it is. Just visit the Progressive website to quote with all the coverages you want. You'll see Progressive's direct rate. Then, their tool will provide options from other companies so you can compare. All you need to do is choose the rate and coverage you like. Quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Comparison rates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Alice in Chains as Lane Staley are insane. His Seattle rehearsal space was raided by cops, making the biggest drug bust in state history. He was humiliated by Megadeth. He dared fight back against a horde of angry Slayer fans. He fled Swedish authorities after punching a guy in the face.

He had a prankster spirit, a killer rock and roll voice, and a destructive addiction to heroin. That addiction cost his band one of the biggest tours of their career and ultimately cost Layne Staley his life. A life defined by great music. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.

That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called Mr. and Mrs. Matlin MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Vision of Love by Mariah Carey. And why would I play you that specific slice of whistle register cheese? Could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on August 28th, 1990. And that was the day Alice in Chains released their debut album, Facelift, a record that introduced Seattle's so-called grunge scene to the world and introduced Layne Staley to a world of pop stardom, pressure, and pain.

On this episode: Megadeth, Slayer, Swedish authorities, drug raids, whistle register cheese, Alice in Chains, and Layne Staley. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Duff McKagan knew there was no scene here. Not in Seattle.

You were kidding yourself if you thought you were gonna make it, you and your band. You know the one. Four dudes, all claiming to worship at the altar of Armored Saint, even though you all secretly wanted to be Motley Crue. Not that you'd admit that out loud to anyone. Didn't matter. No one in Seattle was listening.

Those wastoids from the boonies, guys like the Melvins and later Mudhoney, not to mention that weirdo from Aberdeen. They were listening, but they were tuned into a different wavelength. King Buzzo from the Melvins and Kurt Cobain from Nirvana didn't want to be famous. They'd never moved to LA, which, as Duff McKagan knew, was the only way to make it.

at least in the 1980s. Move to Hollywood, start a killer hair band, and maybe then you'd get some attention, if attention was what you were after. Duff wanted it and Duff got it. First moving to LA and then graduating from playing drums in a little Seattle hardcore band called The Farts to playing bass for the biggest fucking rock and roll band on the planet. But by the time Guns N' Roses were dominating the charts and the culture, things up north were changing.

Seattle was blowing up. That nothing scene Duff McKagan left behind was anything but nothing now. Every major label was swooping in and snatching up any and all bands lucky to be part of what the music rags were calling grunge. Music as dirty and grizzled as the wind coming off the Puget Sound in the dead of winter. The bands at the center of it all knew it was bullshit.

Or so said Sean Kinney, drummer for Alice in Chains, one of the first of those Seattle bands that signed to a major label. Alice in Chains had more in common with Duff McKagan's hair metal side of the grunge tracks than they did with the wasteoid punk side.

Though they were the first MTV buzz-bin band to wear flannel on television, they just weren't metal enough for the true heads, the fans of Megadeth and Anthrax, who found Sean Kinney, along with bassist Mike Starr, guitarist Jerry Cantrell, and singer Layne Staley, to be a bunch of pussies. Whatever. Now they were famous pussies. And they didn't even have to move to LA to be so. Not that they were looking for fame.

But Alice and Chain suddenly found themselves one of the unlikely success stories coming out of Seattle. And like Duff before them, they too found themselves in Los Angeles. Not to live, but to record their second album. At this point, however, LA was hotter than Seattle. In fact, it was on fire. 1992

Jerry Cantrell just wanted to grab a 12-pack to bring back to the studio. But this little convenience store was mobbed with an actual mob, one that was quickly mobilizing throughout the city. An angry, cathartic reaction to the verdict in the Rodney King trial. Four LAPD officers acquitted of assault, a vicious beating captured on videotape, one the entire world had watched over and over. And LA lost its shit when the acquittal came down.

In this convenience store, looters were grabbing whatever they could carry. It was total chaos. Outside the store wasn't any better. Jerry quickly returned to his car to head back to the studio, just over the canyon in North Hollywood. There was smoke on the horizon, helicopters circling, alarms, explosions. Jerry put it in drive and hit the gas. He drove like he was driving through a war zone, fast, never looking back.

Now, safely inside the studio, Jerry was busy thinking about another war zone. This one, thousands of miles away and decades in the past. Writing this new song was the most emotionally challenging thing he'd ever done. It required him to get inside his father's head, a man he didn't really know and didn't even meet until he was a toddler. That was one of his earliest and most formative memories.

Three-year-old Jerry, on the floor, playing with his toys. His mother leading a man inside their house. Over to Jerry, who is staring up in confusion at this man. His uniform, his hat in his hands, and that look on his face. A look that even a three-year-old knew was the look of a man who had seen things he couldn't unsee. The man in uniform looked 30 feet tall to young Jerry. Jerry, his mom was telling him now.

This is your father, Jerry Cantrell Sr., a.k.a. Rooster. That nickname given to him by his father, Jerry Jr.'s grandfather, on account of how Jerry Sr.'s hair used to stick up. But also, a nickname given to M16 gunners in Vietnam, that clusterfuck from which Jerry Sr. had just returned. Roosters in the jungle, the muzzles on their machine guns flashing like the tail of a rooster down on a farm.

Jerry Cantrell, Jerry Jr. here, he didn't know anything about the service, about how it felt to be shipped to a foreign country, machine gun in your hand, isolated from the life you knew back home. But he put himself in his father's shoes to write this song. And then he fed that song and those lines to Layne Staley, Alice in Chains' lead singer.

Lane loaded up on Jerry's words, loaded up with his ammo too. That voice, Jesus Christ, what a voice. So powerful. A voice belonging to a man that Mark Lanigan of Screaming Trees once called the most singularly impressive hard rock singer he'd ever heard. And Mark Lanigan was a guy with a killer voice, so he knew a thing or two about a great set of pipes.

But Lane's voice wasn't so strong that it could destroy every challenge coming his way. Just like the Roosters and NOM couldn't beat back their own demons with just an M16, soldiers who returned home from the ship found that they were pariahs in the eyes of their fellow countrymen.

Their anger, guilt, and shame easily vanquished by a needle in the vein. One plunge of the syringe, all that junk laying waste to your bloodstream like napalm blanketing a Vietnam jungle. It was better than nothing, which is what Jerry Cantrell had when he first met his father he didn't know. He and his mom were on welfare, at times practically homeless.

As teenagers, Lane invited Jerry to stay with his family over Christmas one year. And now, some five years later, they still had that bond. Jerry had this new song, Rooster, a song that his old friend Lane was now singing while L.A. burned just beyond these studio walls. Lane sang that song like he had lived it, battling his own private Vietnam, mostly up north in Seattle.

a heroin addiction that he'd managed to kick. Cold turkey. Well, cold turkey by way of an intervention. So that Lane could be clean to record Alice in Chains' sophomore album, Dirt. His habit was one he'd grown to depend on. It helped him navigate fame. It helped him cope with the death of his friend, Andrew Wood, the singer for Seattle's Mother Love Bone.

And though Layne was managing to stay clean for the moment, his longtime struggle was laid bare in every song on this new album. Them Bones, Junkhead, Godsmack, even this song about Jerry's dad in Vietnam, it resonated with Layne. Because Layne Staley was in the jungle now. Not Duff McKagan's jungle, a jungle of his own making. And in that jungle, he'd be left for dead.

misjudged, undervalued, fighting his way out, gunning down all weakness, every compulsion, the things that wanted to snuff him out, and doing it with his only weapon, his voice. Layne Staley, The Rooster.

I recently found out that you can see a personal dietitian covered by insurance. There's this platform called Nourish that will match you with a dietitian based on whatever your concerns are, whether that's weight loss, eating disorders, autoimmune conditions, or something else. They're actually a network with major insurance providers, so most patients pay $0 out of pocket. 94% of patients pay $0 out of pocket. Find your dietitian at usenourish.com. That's usenourish.com.

Hey, it's me, Jeff Probst. I'm excited to share that Survivor's back with our 48th season. And alongside it, we're bringing you a brand new season of On Fire, the only official Survivor podcast. If you are a Survivor superfan, you will not want to miss the deep dive into every episode. And we do it from three different points of view. First, you have me, the showrunner Survivor.

We'll be right back.

This season, we are joined by somebody I can't wait to hear from, the winner of Survivor 47, Rachel Lamont. I'm so excited to join the On Fire squad to help break down Survivor 48. Join us every Wednesday immediately following the show. Listen to On Fire, the official Survivor podcast with me, Jeff Probst, every Wednesday after the show, wherever you get your podcasts. Who says going to the dentist should feel like a chore?

At Tend Dental, we do things differently. From our soothing modern studios to our friendly non-judgmental staff, we've made going to the dentist feel like what it is, a moment of self-care. We even let you watch TV while getting your teeth cleaned. Experience dental done differently. Go to hellotend.com podcast. That's hellotend.com podcast to book your appointment.

1988, Seattle. Three years before grunge broke, Randy Houser had a record. Not a record as in an LP, but as in a rap sheet.

It didn't bother Lane, Jerry and the other guys. Lane in particular was no stranger to fucking with the law. It was funny to him. The mushrooms he took, the canine mud that the cops sipped on him, the back of a patrol car they stuffed him into, even the jail cell. It was dumb, but also funny. All that for being a public nuisance. Randy Houser, on the other hand, was putting that nuisance ship behind him, supposedly rehabilitated from the drug scene that got him locked up in the first place.

Now he was out of the pen and interested in that other kind of record, music, rock and roll, promoting the new sound of Seattle. Like Lane and Jerry's band, which Randy Houser loved, he'd do anything to help them get their big break, manage them if they wanted him to.

Whatever it was they were calling themselves these days, no longer Diamond Lie or F.O.C.K., settling on Alice in Chains, which, look, doesn't matter what the story is behind it, but I'm sorry to say, remains an objectively bad, bad band name. This is also the opinion of the receptionist at The Rocket, the Pacific Northwest's bi-weekly music magazine at the time, who, when asked what she thought about the name Alice in Chains, simply replied, hate it, don't like it.

Remember though, this is Seattle, circa the late 80s and early 90s. A time when bands thought it would be cool to call themselves Cat Butt, Gas Huffer, Quack Quack Quack, Stomach Pump, and Pearl Jam. But I digress. First, Randy had to rehabilitate the band's image. Their bratty attitude had gotten the band from local clubs, including one where Layne threw a milkshake at the audience. Again, Layne thought it was funny.

Randy asked the clubs for forgiveness and he got it. And then the band got to work at getting better, rehearsing as much as possible at the Music Bank, a collection of rehearsal spaces in a warehouse down by the water in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. The Music Bank was the scene's incubator, and there Alice in Chains' sound quickly became a hybrid of their hairband past and the darker, sludgier vibe now permeating their city as a whole.

The next step, in Randy's eyes, was to cut some new tracks that were strong enough to shop around. They had their sights set beyond local grassroots operations like Sub Pop and beyond Seattle, Columbia Records, Capitol Records, some big Los Angeles operation. The real deal, they wanted it. Tonight, however, it seemed like someone or something was doing whatever they could to prevent that from ever happening.

Plainclothes detectives led the charge inside the music bank. Behind them, the boys in blue and big-ass German shepherds tethered to the leashes in their hands. Fifteen, twenty cops, easy, moving fast through the hallways. They kicked open the first door they came to. Inside, a band was finishing that night's rehearsal. Sweaty punks, their ears still ringing. Some poor schmuck holding the joint in his hand.

The cops, a dozen plus, raised their weapons. "Stand against the fucking wall, all of you!" Scared shitless, the band did as they were told. And at this exact time, Layne Staley was coming around the corner out in the hallway, looking for the exit. Rehearsal for him was over and now he was thinking about tomorrow's recording session and the slick demos that would soon serve as Alice in Chains' calling card. He was also thinking about the two women hanging off his arms and what trouble they could get into that evening.

"Look at these fucking pigs," one of the women said. Lane told her to cut the shit. This wasn't just some stupid bust. Whatever was happening here was huge. Best to stay the hell out of it. The cops kept kicking down doors. They found Jerry Cantrell in Alice's rehearsal space, passed out on a couch. No harm, no foul. Alice and Chain's bassist, Mike Starr, however, was in the middle of a line of coke in another room when he heard the commotion. He put the remaining powder up his nose in the nick of time.

But it wasn't Mike's coke the cops were here for. In the 14,000 square foot industrial space located in the same warehouse, directly next to the Music Bank, someone had set up a serious marijuana grow operation. We're talking $30 million a year serious.

At the time, it was the biggest drug bust in the history of Washington State, and it affected Alice in Chains. Not because they were implicated or arrested, but because the cops locked down the entire building for their investigation, including the music bank, which meant that everything inside, including all of Alice in Chains' gear, could not be removed. And thus, Alice in Chains could not record their demos the following day as planned.

Not that it stopped Lane, Jerry, Mike, and Sean from pressing on. Even when things got tougher. When they moved the rehearsal space out of the music bank and into a house with a toilet that didn't work. Even when Lane was so broke that he had to choose between food and cigarettes, and even then could only afford to buy one cigarette at a time with loose change. When Alice in Chains' biggest fan and one-time financial supporter Randy Houser suddenly found himself back in the big house, this time for cocaine.

Lucky for them, they had the support of a new ally, Susan Silver, Soundgarden's manager. And they also had Lane's voice, flashing like a rooster's tail on the chorus of the song Man in the Box. An incredible song. So raw. So authentic. Pure Alice in Chains.

In many ways, the definitive version of the band that they'd spend the rest of their career chasing and never duplicating. Those huge verses, the soaring chorus, drenched in Jerry Cantrell's talk box and wah-wah pedal. Released as a single in January of 1991, Man in the Box put Alice in Chains on the map and sent their debut album on Columbia Records, Facelift, released five months earlier, to a respectable number 42 on the Billboard chart.

"Facelift" was the first so-called grunge album to reach gold status, a status that Alice hit just weeks before Nirvana dropped "Nevermind." And then the whole scene went nuclear. "Man in the Box" also helped get Alice in Chains on the "Clash of the Titans" tour during that same year, opening for Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax. But just because Alice in Chains were Seattle heavy, they were not Anthrax heavy. They weren't even Megadeth heavy.

Dave Mustaine of Megadeth reminded them of this fact with the posters he had printed up and pasted all over the massive arenas that they played in. Posters of Alice and Chains from years back, hair teased, spandex tight, still spelling their name Alice N. Chains. That's apostrophe capital N.

Getting trolled by fucking Dave Mustaine of all people. That must have stung. But not as bad as the physical violence Alice in Chains endured up on that stage. Hazed by Slayer fans. Fans that did not give a shit for Alice in Chains. N or no N. They pelted them with all manners of subterfuge. Spit on them. Boot them mercilessly.

Lane Staley, for one, wasn't just gonna stand there and take it. He started throwing all that shit back at the crowd, and he jumped the barricade and got right in their faces and spat back at them. Lane Staley fought back, fought off the hordes, did well in the process, stood up for himself, and had the last laugh. Or so he thought.

After the show, he and the others were greeted by a group of Slayer fans waiting outside their tour bus. Slayer fanatics, that is. And fanatics being the operative word, these dudes were hard. Lane braced himself. Ditto for Jerry and the others. No longer protected by the stage, they were about to endure an extreme ass-kicking by a bunch of pissed-off metalheads. Lane and the boys got closer, and the Slayer kids were blocking the entrance to their bus.

Lane's pulse quickened. He looked around for some kind of blunt instrument that he could use if shit went the way he thought it was going to. And then, one of the Slayer fans gave the Alice in Chains guys a head nod. Hey, the kid said. You guys are alright. You didn't puss out back there.

The hardcore Slayer dudes parted and let Alice and Chains get onto their bus. And then it was off to the next stop to do it all over again. To be humiliated, attacked, and ultimately forgiven. A rollercoaster of emotions that took its toll on Wayne Staley, despite the brave face he put on night after night. And soon, he would need more than just a brave face and a big voice to keep it all at bay. A different kind of coping mechanism. Heroin.

We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

It's time to live your life and dream in American Eagle. We've got everything you need for everywhere you want to be. This spring at AE, we're going wild for bold prints, utility-inspired looks, and can't-miss camo prints. Plus, don't miss your fave jeans now reimagined in tensile fibers for max comfort without losing that authentic jean look. Visit AE.com to shop online or shop in-store.

Build professional skills this semester with Adobe Creative Cloud and create standout work both in and out of the classroom. Save big on professional creativity tools. Students get 65% off Adobe Creative Cloud, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Acrobat Pro, and 20-plus creative apps. No matter what project you're working on, Adobe Creative Cloud apps can help you take it to the next level. Visit adobe.com slash student to learn more.

When we're up out of here...

See how you can save on wireless and streaming versus the other big guys at T-Mobile.com slash switch. Apple intelligence requires iOS 18.1 or later. Just how and when Lane Staley began using heroin is up for debate. According to the biographer for Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr, it was Demri Perrault, Lane's longtime girlfriend and eventual fiancee who introduced him to the drug.

If you ask Al Jorgensen, he'll tell you that his band, Ministry, showed Layne the ropes back at a show. But Al's timeline of events doesn't quite add up. A third and perhaps more likely scenario comes from Johnny Bakalas, Layne's bandmate in his pre-Alice in Chains days. According to Johnny, Layne began using heroin in the second half of 1991 when Alice in Chains were on tour opening for Van Halen.

Per Johnny, Lane reported back saying, quote, "Johnny, when I took that first hit, for the first time in my life, I got on my knees and thank God for feeling so good," unquote. At this point, heroin was making its mark on Seattle. In the 1980s, the city plunged into a recession.

Junk and pills were suddenly commonplace. At that time, heroin's purity was around only 4%, but by the early 90s, it had increased to 65%. For someone like Lane, who had always experimented with drugs as a teenager, heroin was easy to try out and hard to shake.

Heroin-related deaths in Seattle jumped from 32 in 1986 to 59 in 1992, an increase of 84%, including Lane's friend Andrew Wood, as well as Stephanie Ann Sargent from the band Seven Year Bitch. In 1993, the city would see a record number of overdoses, 410 in the first six months of the year alone.

But back in 1991, Layne Staley was beginning to rely on dope the way Alice in Chains fans relied on the band's songs. Heroin, for Layne, was cathartic. It was a way to deal, to handle people, in crowds, and success in general. Pressure, anxiety, pain, you name it, a shot in the arm got rid of it all. Heroin, however, wasn't the only issue taking root on Alice in Chains' tour with Van Halen.

Mike Starr, Alice in Chains' bassist, was putting a lot of names on the guest list, which was odd. Van Halen's crack security team began to investigate, and what they found was way worse than an inflated VIP section. Mike Starr was busted scalping tickets to his own band's shows, selling and trading backstage passes in exchange for money for drugs.

When he was caught, he said he was doing it to score dope for Lane, which may have been the truth or may have been deflection, seeing as though Mike was struggling with his own addiction that would plague him for the rest of his life. In the end, it didn't matter. Mike violated the trust of Alice in Chains and of the mighty Van Halen, a band that was doing Alice in Chains a solid by taking them out on tour, who believed in Alice in Chains even though the Van Halen masses proved just as cruel as the Slayer crowd.

Lane understood on a professional level that Mike had to go. But on a personal level, it fucked him up. Mike had been there from the beginning. They'd struggled together when they didn't have two nickels to rub together in the old days, when the police squads were raiding the rehearsal space, and when their house had a backed-up shitter, and now Mike was out.

Bad timing, too. Just as Alice in Chains' second LP, Dirt, hit stores and bumped the band up a notch. Regardless of what the critics were saying, pompous, turgid, no riffs, a bore is how the LA Times described Dirt in their one-and-a-half-star review. But what did the critics know? Not much, as usual. Didn't matter. Dirt debuted on the Billboard album chart at number six, so the LA Times could get fucked.

Dirt was heavy, musically and lyrically. It made good use of the eerie harmonies that only Lane and Jerry could create together, and it gave Lane an outlet to speak from the mind and heart of an addict. Getting clean to make the record gave him clarity and perspective, made him think that perhaps there was life after dope, or that perhaps he could be a different person, someone who kept coming back, against all odds, clawing his way out from the jungle of his own mind.

February, 1993, Stockholm. Layne Staley, aka The Rooster, was fully in his element. Standing next to him on stage, Jerry Cantrell on guitar, and to his other side, Mike Inez borrowed from Ozzy Osbourne's band on bass. Behind him, Sean Kinney on drums.

Alice in Chains. A force. That voice. Rising above the trolls. The haters. Dave Mustaine and his stupid posters. Van Hagar's frat boy army. The LA Times. Alice in Chains did not puss out. That's right. Not then and not now. Lane had triumph on his mind. But there was something else. Some Hitler Youth looking punk down in the crowd. Elbowing and kicking everyone around him. Tossing up the Nazi salute.

The rooster narrowed his eyes. He singled out the skinhead and told him to get up on the stage. And of course, the guy jumped at the opportunity, desperate for attention. The rest of the band, the fans, the security guards, no one knew why Lane was giving this dirtbag the time of day. And Lane, the rooster, did give that dirtbag attention and did give him that space. And then he gave that Nazi shitheel what he had coming to him.

Two pops to the face with his fist. The skinhead's nose gushed blood as he fell back into the crowd, and Lane grabbed the mic. Fucking Nazis died, he shouted, and the audience roared their approval. And that would have been that. But this particular Nazi went crying to the police. Lane took off, running with a security guard to catch a ferry to Finland. Stockholm PD, meanwhile, found the rest of the band at their hotel, and they seized all their passports. They wanted to know where Lane was at.

The guys gave him up. The cops got to Lane before the ferry left and placed him under arrest. That is, until the skinhead's brother appeared and made an appeal. Explained how what Lane had done was a good thing. And now the cops were doing a 180. They suddenly had Allison change his back.

Just like those Slayer fans a few years prior. Just like another megawatt band. This time, Metallica. Still riding high on the crossover success of their Black album. An album that Alice in Chains loved so much that they purposefully recorded Dirt at the same recording studio. Metallica tapped Alice in Chains to open their 1994 tour. Alice in Chains now riding high on the release of their seven-song EP, Jarrah Flies, the first EP to ever debut at number one.

But Lane's priorities had shifted again. Away from being clean. Away from Triumph. Once again shooting up and nodding off. He showed up to band practice for the Metallica tour so fucked up on heroin that Sean threw his drumsticks to the floor and walked out and said he'd never work with Lane again. It was hard for Jerry to follow, but he knew he had to. Alice and Chains were forced to cancel.

In the summer of 1994, James Hetfield and the dudes in Metallica mocked Layne Staley on stage in front of thousands. "I can't tour, I can't tour," Hetfield whined, while the other guys in Metallica made cartoonish shooting-up gestures into their arms. This, just months after the heroin epidemic in Seattle claimed another victim: Kurt Cobain, dead at the age of 27.

and Lane Staley, the rooster himself, also 27 years old at this exact moment, went back into the jungle, wondering if he'd ever make it out again. ♪♪

The first person to realize something was wrong with Lane Staley was his accountant. Lane's bank accounts were stagnant for weeks. No purchases, no withdrawals. For a junkie who'd completely given himself over to his addiction, this was strange.

Lane had the money to score dope whenever he wanted. Enough money, in fact, to purchase a 1500 square foot condo in Seattle's University District for $262,000. That was five years ago and now it was 2002. April 19th, to be exact. Just before six in the evening. The two cops at Lane Staley's condo door found that it was bolted from the inside. They made quick work breaking it down.

It was dark, all 1500 square feet stretching into shadows that made the place look twice as big. They turned on their flashlights and stepped inside. Reruns flickered on the television set. The answering machine's red light flashed like a distress signal. The cops kept walking.

Cans of spray paint on the floor, white powder and crack pipes on the coffee table. They followed stains from the living room to the bathroom, where cash was splayed out near the toilet. $501 exactly. Then they get to the heart of the condo. The heart of the darkness. The couch.

The smell, so overpowering. It got worse the closer they got. The cops knew it before they stepped one foot inside this place. But this grisly discovery sealed it. The rumors were, at long last, true. For years, there were all kinds of rumors going around Seattle about Lane Staley. Lane had AIDS. Lane had no fingers or toes. Lane was dead. Those rumors were out there for good reason.

When Alice in Chains buried the hatchet to make their third full-length album, the process took an agonizing eight months. Always waiting for Layne to show up, for Layne to come out of the bathroom, for Layne to either be high enough or sober enough to get through a session.

And sometimes, he really did show up. Like at the taping for the band's episode of MTV's wildly popular Unplugged series. Although Lane needed a fix to make it through that taping. A stash he brought with him in a little jar, precooked. Not all nights went so smoothly. In Missouri, after Alice in Chains opened a show for Kiss, Lane overdosed. He managed to pull through.

Demery, however, his longtime girlfriend and fiance, recently his ex-girlfriend and fiance to be precise, she wasn't so lucky. The pills she was taking in turn took her life. Lane was overcome with guilt and regret, the same feelings of guilt and regret he'd experienced when Alice in Chains fired Mike Starr, but this time it was way worse.

If only he'd gotten out of here, both of them, out of Seattle, away from everyone. The users, the pushers, the fans banging on the doors of his condo now. They were here to get high with him. He knew it. Anyone could find out where Lane Staley lived. Seattle talked, and then Seattle walked, right up to Lane's front door and knocked.

He was scared to open it, scared to acknowledge that some of those rumors were finally coming true. That Lane had lost most of the teeth in his head. That Lane was well under 100 pounds. And that Lane looked like he was 80 years old, not 34. He hid there in his condo, his lair, that jungle of shadows and junk. A jungle fit for a rooster who'd long since given up the fight.

But still, he had a little energy left in that shriveled-up body of his. The necessary energy required to sink a needle in his arm. A speedball set coursing through his veins, big enough and fast enough to make everything stop one last time. The cops looked over Lane Staley's stiff body where it sat on the couch. The leathery skin. The advanced state of decomposition. The autopsy confirmed that he had died exactly two weeks earlier, on April 5th.

Eight years to the day since Kurt Cobain took his own life. Years later, when explaining why he made the decision to continue Alice in Chains without his original lead singer, Jerry Cantrell said this: "Here's what I believe: shit fucking happens. That's rule one. Everybody walking the planet knows that.

Rule two: things rarely turn out the way you planned. Three: everybody gets knocked down. Four, and most important of all, after you take those shots, it's time to stand up and walk on, to continue to live. That fourth point, the most important point, that was the hardest. Hardest for anyone, but way too hard for some in particular. Like Layne Staley, fighting his way out of the shit with his only weapon, his voice.

But when that voice was silenced, so was the fight. Lost somewhere in the weeds. What a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.

All right, thanks for crawling down into the hole with me in this Alice in Chains episode. This week's question of the week is, which Seattle artist, band, singer, songwriter hits you the hardest? Is it Alice in Chains, our boy Lane Staley here, Kurt, Eddie, hell, what about even Jimi Hendrix? Hit me up and let me know, 617-906-6638. Leave me a voicemail, send me a text, here's my number.

Hear your answer on the after party bonus episode. It's coming up right after this one. All right. You can also send your answers to me at disgracelandpod on Instagram, X and Facebook. Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and win some free merch. All right. Here comes some credits.

Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership.

Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod. And on YouTube at youtube.com slash at DisgracelandPod. Rock and roll up.

He's a bad, bad man.