This song was written by Jerry as a tribute to Andrew Wood who had recently dies of an overdose of heroin. Andrew was the vocalist for Mother Love Bone. Pearl Jam would never have existed had Andrew not died.
@@Britton_Thompson when it came to some vocals and harmonies. Can’t use laynes voice to write the guitar parts, chord progressions, melodies, leads, lyrics and so on. All of this stuff has to come from your own head from thin air.
@@Britton_Thompson jerry was always gonna be huge just because of how good of a composer he was regardless of whether he had to sing or find another vocalist.
@@MustObeyTheRules Not true. Layne wrote a lot of songs for AIC and Mad Season, and he would’ve been a mainstream star no matter what. They’re a package deal tho, so there’s no point in disrespecting one and praising the other.
My favorite song of all time. Music video changed my life when I first saw it back in my teens. Their lead singer here, R.I.P, is still the coolest-looking musician I’ve ever seen. All these years later and I still feel that way about it all.
Layne is lead vocals but Jerry Cantrell is guitarist and back up vocals. Alice in Chains are known for Layne and Jerry's harmony on vocals. Jerry wrote most of the music for Alice in Chains and gets over shadowed by one of the greatest rock vocalists. Jerry has a very successful solo career and still has Alice in Chains going after Layne passed
Seen Alice in Chains perform at Lollapalooza 1993. Rage Against the Machine started the festival. Alice in Chains and Primus closed out festival, they're playing was spot-on and sometimes it felt like Layne kicked you in the chest when he hit some of those notes. By far it was the most perfect show to this day
The backstory with WOULD? ... guitarist Jerry Cantrell wrote the song for Andy Wood, singer of Mother Love Bone after Andy died of an overdose in 1990 just as Mother Love Bone was going to hit big. After Andy died, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament dissolved Mother Love Bone and re-emerged as Pearl Jam. WOULD? as a title is a play on Andy Wood's name. Layne sang the hell out of WOULD? and ROOSTER on the album, official videos and concerts in 91-93. WOULD? appeared on the Singles soundtrack because Seattle, Washington as big as the town is, musically it's a small town. All the bands that came out of the Seattle scene knew each other and went to see each other play the club circuit. Cameron Crowe was married to Nancy Wilson of Heart and he wanted to make a movie about the Seattle music scene and made Singles where a fictional band, Citizen Dick opened for Alice In Chains. They used IT AIN'T LIKE THAT from the Facelift album and Cameron Crowe gave them money to demo songs... AIC took the money, they demoed the 6 acoustic songs that are on SAP EP and two songs ROOSTER and WOULD? that ended up on the Dirt album. Cameron Crowe picked through the songs and used WOULD? out of the bunch. Jerry thought the song was strong enough to be included on the Dirt album and that's how WOULD? ended up on the Singles soundtrack and the same version ended up on Dirt. Whenever you see Bad Animals Studios in the liner notes, at the time the album was recorded, Bad Animals Studios was owned by Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. Nancy Wilson was married to Cameron Crowe between 1986 and 2010. Drummer Sean Kinney developed that heavy kick-drum at the formation of Alice In Chains. That heavy kick-drum is the foundation of AIC's sound. Guitarist Jerry Cantrell was fine doing backing vocals on the early songs like the ones they played in their clubbing days and on Facelift like the Call and Return of the chorus on MAN IN THE BOX until one day when he was trying to write songs for the SAP EP and the Dirt album, Layne looked at the lyrics and encouraged Jerry to sing more because after all, they were Jerry's lyrics. He should sing them. When Layne and Jerry sang together they achieved the perfect pitch of two voices making one voice. Layne Staley's vocal range can run rings around any other grunge singer in my opinion. Layne could sing the phone book and never hit a wrong note. Even at the end of his life, with no teeth and a lisp, his voice, wit and humor were all still there. Layne's voice and vocal range was so powerful he did NOT need auto tune or pro-tools until he lost his teeth and had a lisp around 1998, and even then he still killed the vocals. Barrett Martin (who played with Layne in Mad Season) said that when he stood to the side of the stage, he could hear the sound of Layne’s vocal resonance come out of Layne's body LOUDER than it did coming out of the speakers, Layne's voice was that powerful. The Unplugged show in 1996 is so heartbreaking to watch because he was deep in his heroin addiction (and yes, I know he was other drugs). His liver was damaged from the years of drug use. He was just high enough to do the show so he didn't get dope sick and to chase away withdrawal symptoms. He was such a ghost of himself during Unplugged. (Of course, Jerry had food poisoning) All Jerry saw when he looked over at Layne was his best friend was going to die soon due to Layne's choices for his life. That show was filmed on April 10, 1996, premiered in May 1996. They did four shows with KISS in June-July 1996, after which Layne survived an overdose and became a recluse. After that, it was a 6-year-long slow suicide. Before the show, drummer Sean Kinney and bass player Mike Inez argued with guitarist Jerry Cantrell about whether Layne could even pull off the high notes in some of the songs, which is why Jerry gave them that “I told you so” smirk after Layne hit that long, high note in DOWN IN A HOLE. He did the same thing again when he hit a high note in ROOSTER. The fact that Sean and Mike didn’t have any confidence that Layne could do the show and Jerry being the only one that knew deep in his heart that Layne could do it because Layne had done so many things against the odds over the years no matter how high he was at the time. When Jerry needed him to be there where it counted, Layne always pulled through. The entire show was a success because Layne did have a powerful performance despite his condition. He proved to his cynical bandmates that he could still sing the high notes and he pulled it all off beautifully while the same four guys (Metallica) who had mocked him for his addiction sidelining Alice In Chains from ever doing extended tours sat in the front row. The mistakes he made screwing up SLUDGE FACTORY 8 times even though the dvd only shows 1 time (and I think he screwed up GOT ME WRONG once or twice, but Toby Wright didn’t keep that in editing) were endearing, at least to me. They didn’t take away from the performance, it added something to the performance that, had it been removed after everyone had seen it, wouldn’t have made the show what it was. Knowing what Layne was capable of before, and what you see on Unplugged is the difference between night and day. Watch him sing DOWN IN A HOLE and knowing that this was the same guy who back in 1992 was hanging from the rafters of a low ceiling in a bar belting out LOVE HATE LOVE, that is what's heartbreaking. Knowing how he sang ROOSTER in Tilburg, The Netherlands, in 1993 when his “yeahs” and screams were so loud and high I’m surprised the rafters didn’t come crashing down around him and then watch him sing the same song so low-key on Unplugged knowing he could do to the song what he did in Tilburg is heartbreaking. Knowing he initially sang the hell out of WOULD? on the official video and album and seeing the end of WOULD? on Unplugged . . . and knowing how deep into his addiction he had gotten by that point is heartbreaking. Mike Starr (who is in the video) was the first bass guitar player. He left the band after Rock in Rio January 22, 1993 (long story). Mike Starr was the last person to see Layne alive on April 4, 2002. They had an argument and Starr left. No one noticed Layne had died on April 5, 2002, because he never answered the phone nor opened the door. It took inactivity over the span of two weeks for his ACCOUNTANT to notice something was wrong and called Alice In Chains manager Susan Silver who called Layne's mother to alert her to the situation who then called 911 on April 19, 2002. Mike Starr died of a prescription drug overdose on March 8, 2011. And to pour salt in the wound, MTV (and the music industry) has more or less blackballed Layne (and yet, they laud over Kurt Cobain every April 5th, because Kurt was the "face of grunge", meanwhile Layne gets a "by the way"). The Grammys went so far as to invite Jerry, Mike and Sean to the Grammy show in 2003 and then refused to put Layne's picture up in the memorial of the musicians who died in 2002. (Or they "forgot" to) which pissed Jerry, Mike and Sean off and they walked out on the show. Though I do applaud MoPOP including Layne Staley and Mike Starr when they inducted Alice In Chains in the MoPOP Museum of Pop Culture. It's more recognition of Layne (and Mike) than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (thanks to Rolling Stone's criticisms of Layne and his addiction) and the Grammys (who FORGOT him when he died) have EVER done. Layne's story is more tragic and haunting because you can actually watch and hear him deteriorate over the 12-year span: from the mild use of drugs in 1990 all the way through 1996 when he was deep into a heroin addiction to dropping to 90 pounds by 1998 to 86 pounds when he died in 2002. Layne kept his humor and wit even to the end of his life. All the information above has longer, deeper stories, and I could say so much more, but UA-cam has a cap on comment length. In the end, it all boils down to: Layne Staley deserved better than what he received from the people around him who he thought mattered. He wrote songs about things with maturity and knowledge well beyond his years. He didn’t deserve to be turned into tabloid cannon fodder by the press.
React to Love Hate Love by AIC live at the Moore. Down in A Hole MTV Unplugged both are phenomenal! No one sings like Layne though many have tried to sound like him.
The "Upbeat Rock Music" caption right at the beginning of the video made me chuckle as there aren't many "upbeat" songs I can think of from AiC's library. Thank you for doing this! AiC is one of my favorite bands from this era, and is neck and neck with Soundgarden as my favorite from Seattle. As was also suggested Love Hate Love would be a great follow up to this, as well as Man in a Box, Rooster and a personal favorite It Ain't Like That Anymore. Edit to add: This was on the soundtrack of the movie Singles, set in Seattle in the 90s. It features not only the more well known members of Seattle bands, but a few easter egg members from other bands sprinkled throughout. It's a great movie, give it a watch if you can!
Layne's end was, to me, one of the most tragic in rock history. I won't detail it all, because it's easy enough to look up, but he spent years both battling drug (heroin) addiction and depression from the loss of his girlfriend, who died of an overdose, until he also succumbed to his addiction. He was found weeks after his death, still with a needle stuck in his leg and another clutched in his hand. 💔
I hate to say it but Layne's vocals on MTV unplugged were very thin and weak. You can clearly see how gaunt and frail he looks. His drug addiction had taken a huge toll on him and you can see and hear it. I don't want to take anything away from that performance because the fact that he powered through it and still sounded great by most musical standards, says a lot about his talent but it definitely wasn't his best.
@@gwhguitarist maybe not his “best” vocally but imo the emotion it had and just the raw acoustic setup made it sound really good. That’s the main reason it’s my favorite.
Their name derived from a backstage pass that said "Welcome to Wonderland" which led to a reference to Alice in Wonderland, then Russ Klatt suggested Alice in Chains, like putting her in bondage.
Layne is wearing Andy Woods orange sweater in this video
Layne Staley is forever my fav male voice he has the most unique amazing voice …Alice in chains don’t have a bad song .
Yeah, the guitarist, Jerry Cantrel sings back up vocals. They harmonize really well. RIP Layne.
Miss you Layne 😢
Layne and Jerry had the most haunting beautiful sound....amazing band...incredible singers and sound.❤
This song was written by Jerry as a tribute to Andrew Wood who had recently dies of an overdose of heroin. Andrew was the vocalist for Mother Love Bone. Pearl Jam would never have existed had Andrew not died.
Man in The box
The only name you need to know right now is Layne Staley. That's the lead singer. He makes vocal acrobatics look way too easy
Yet without Jerry’s song writing, there is no layne. But ok 👍
@@MustObeyTheRules ....and Jerry always wrote to Layne's voice because he knew it was the biggest gun they had in their arsenal
@@Britton_Thompson when it came to some vocals and harmonies. Can’t use laynes voice to write the guitar parts, chord progressions, melodies, leads, lyrics and so on. All of this stuff has to come from your own head from thin air.
@@Britton_Thompson jerry was always gonna be huge just because of how good of a composer he was regardless of whether he had to sing or find another vocalist.
@@MustObeyTheRules Not true. Layne wrote a lot of songs for AIC and Mad Season, and he would’ve been a mainstream star no matter what. They’re a package deal tho, so there’s no point in disrespecting one and praising the other.
My favorite song of all time. Music video changed my life when I first saw it back in my teens. Their lead singer here, R.I.P, is still the coolest-looking musician I’ve ever seen. All these years later and I still feel that way about it all.
RIP Layne Staley - Best grunge voice ever.
Layne is lead vocals but Jerry Cantrell is guitarist and back up vocals. Alice in Chains are known for Layne and Jerry's harmony on vocals. Jerry wrote most of the music for Alice in Chains and gets over shadowed by one of the greatest rock vocalists. Jerry has a very successful solo career and still has Alice in Chains going after Layne passed
Awesome band! "Love, Hate, Love" LIVE at the Moore 💚🤙
Seen Alice in Chains perform at Lollapalooza 1993. Rage Against the Machine started the festival. Alice in Chains and Primus closed out festival, they're playing was spot-on and sometimes it felt like Layne kicked you in the chest when he hit some of those notes. By far it was the most perfect show to this day
I think you might enjoy Love Hate Love, Live from the Moore. The entire Live show is incredible!
The backstory with WOULD? ... guitarist Jerry Cantrell wrote the song for Andy Wood, singer of Mother Love Bone after Andy died of an overdose in 1990 just as Mother Love Bone was going to hit big. After Andy died, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament dissolved Mother Love Bone and re-emerged as Pearl Jam. WOULD? as a title is a play on Andy Wood's name. Layne sang the hell out of WOULD? and ROOSTER on the album, official videos and concerts in 91-93.
WOULD? appeared on the Singles soundtrack because Seattle, Washington as big as the town is, musically it's a small town. All the bands that came out of the Seattle scene knew each other and went to see each other play the club circuit. Cameron Crowe was married to Nancy Wilson of Heart and he wanted to make a movie about the Seattle music scene and made Singles where a fictional band, Citizen Dick opened for Alice In Chains. They used IT AIN'T LIKE THAT from the Facelift album and Cameron Crowe gave them money to demo songs... AIC took the money, they demoed the 6 acoustic songs that are on SAP EP and two songs ROOSTER and WOULD? that ended up on the Dirt album. Cameron Crowe picked through the songs and used WOULD? out of the bunch. Jerry thought the song was strong enough to be included on the Dirt album and that's how WOULD? ended up on the Singles soundtrack and the same version ended up on Dirt.
Whenever you see Bad Animals Studios in the liner notes, at the time the album was recorded, Bad Animals Studios was owned by Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. Nancy Wilson was married to Cameron Crowe between 1986 and 2010.
Drummer Sean Kinney developed that heavy kick-drum at the formation of Alice In Chains. That heavy kick-drum is the foundation of AIC's sound.
Guitarist Jerry Cantrell was fine doing backing vocals on the early songs like the ones they played in their clubbing days and on Facelift like the Call and Return of the chorus on MAN IN THE BOX until one day when he was trying to write songs for the SAP EP and the Dirt album, Layne looked at the lyrics and encouraged Jerry to sing more because after all, they were Jerry's lyrics. He should sing them. When Layne and Jerry sang together they achieved the perfect pitch of two voices making one voice.
Layne Staley's vocal range can run rings around any other grunge singer in my opinion. Layne could sing the phone book and never hit a wrong note. Even at the end of his life, with no teeth and a lisp, his voice, wit and humor were all still there. Layne's voice and vocal range was so powerful he did NOT need auto tune or pro-tools until he lost his teeth and had a lisp around 1998, and even then he still killed the vocals.
Barrett Martin (who played with Layne in Mad Season) said that when he stood to the side of the stage, he could hear the sound of Layne’s vocal resonance come out of Layne's body LOUDER than it did coming out of the speakers, Layne's voice was that powerful.
The Unplugged show in 1996 is so heartbreaking to watch because he was deep in his heroin addiction (and yes, I know he was other drugs). His liver was damaged from the years of drug use. He was just high enough to do the show so he didn't get dope sick and to chase away withdrawal symptoms. He was such a ghost of himself during Unplugged. (Of course, Jerry had food poisoning) All Jerry saw when he looked over at Layne was his best friend was going to die soon due to Layne's choices for his life. That show was filmed on April 10, 1996, premiered in May 1996. They did four shows with KISS in June-July 1996, after which Layne survived an overdose and became a recluse. After that, it was a 6-year-long slow suicide.
Before the show, drummer Sean Kinney and bass player Mike Inez argued with guitarist Jerry Cantrell about whether Layne could even pull off the high notes in some of the songs, which is why Jerry gave them that “I told you so” smirk after Layne hit that long, high note in DOWN IN A HOLE. He did the same thing again when he hit a high note in ROOSTER.
The fact that Sean and Mike didn’t have any confidence that Layne could do the show and Jerry being the only one that knew deep in his heart that Layne could do it because Layne had done so many things against the odds over the years no matter how high he was at the time. When Jerry needed him to be there where it counted, Layne always pulled through.
The entire show was a success because Layne did have a powerful performance despite his condition. He proved to his cynical bandmates that he could still sing the high notes and he pulled it all off beautifully while the same four guys (Metallica) who had mocked him for his addiction sidelining Alice In Chains from ever doing extended tours sat in the front row. The mistakes he made screwing up SLUDGE FACTORY 8 times even though the dvd only shows 1 time (and I think he screwed up GOT ME WRONG once or twice, but Toby Wright didn’t keep that in editing) were endearing, at least to me. They didn’t take away from the performance, it added something to the performance that, had it been removed after everyone had seen it, wouldn’t have made the show what it was.
Knowing what Layne was capable of before, and what you see on Unplugged is the difference between night and day. Watch him sing DOWN IN A HOLE and knowing that this was the same guy who back in 1992 was hanging from the rafters of a low ceiling in a bar belting out LOVE HATE LOVE, that is what's heartbreaking. Knowing how he sang ROOSTER in Tilburg, The Netherlands, in 1993 when his “yeahs” and screams were so loud and high I’m surprised the rafters didn’t come crashing down around him and then watch him sing the same song so low-key on Unplugged knowing he could do to the song what he did in Tilburg is heartbreaking. Knowing he initially sang the hell out of WOULD? on the official video and album and seeing the end of WOULD? on Unplugged . . . and knowing how deep into his addiction he had gotten by that point is heartbreaking.
Mike Starr (who is in the video) was the first bass guitar player. He left the band after Rock in Rio January 22, 1993 (long story). Mike Starr was the last person to see Layne alive on April 4, 2002. They had an argument and Starr left. No one noticed Layne had died on April 5, 2002, because he never answered the phone nor opened the door. It took inactivity over the span of two weeks for his ACCOUNTANT to notice something was wrong and called Alice In Chains manager Susan Silver who called Layne's mother to alert her to the situation who then called 911 on April 19, 2002. Mike Starr died of a prescription drug overdose on March 8, 2011.
And to pour salt in the wound, MTV (and the music industry) has more or less blackballed Layne (and yet, they laud over Kurt Cobain every April 5th, because Kurt was the "face of grunge", meanwhile Layne gets a "by the way"). The Grammys went so far as to invite Jerry, Mike and Sean to the Grammy show in 2003 and then refused to put Layne's picture up in the memorial of the musicians who died in 2002. (Or they "forgot" to) which pissed Jerry, Mike and Sean off and they walked out on the show. Though I do applaud MoPOP including Layne Staley and Mike Starr when they inducted Alice In Chains in the MoPOP Museum of Pop Culture. It's more recognition of Layne (and Mike) than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (thanks to Rolling Stone's criticisms of Layne and his addiction) and the Grammys (who FORGOT him when he died) have EVER done.
Layne's story is more tragic and haunting because you can actually watch and hear him deteriorate over the 12-year span: from the mild use of drugs in 1990 all the way through 1996 when he was deep into a heroin addiction to dropping to 90 pounds by 1998 to 86 pounds when he died in 2002. Layne kept his humor and wit even to the end of his life.
All the information above has longer, deeper stories, and I could say so much more, but UA-cam has a cap on comment length. In the end, it all boils down to: Layne Staley deserved better than what he received from the people around him who he thought mattered. He wrote songs about things with maturity and knowledge well beyond his years. He didn’t deserve to be turned into tabloid cannon fodder by the press.
was just going to comment on that...heroin OD, both...sad
THE voice of my generation, when everything outside was taken care of and everything became internal.
I'd like to be a bassist just to play this song
AIC did and still does feature dual harmonizing lead vocals. Layne and Jerry went together like beans and rice
React to Love Hate Love by AIC live at the Moore. Down in A Hole MTV Unplugged both are phenomenal! No one sings like Layne though many have tried to sound like him.
The "Upbeat Rock Music" caption right at the beginning of the video made me chuckle as there aren't many "upbeat" songs I can think of from AiC's library.
Thank you for doing this! AiC is one of my favorite bands from this era, and is neck and neck with Soundgarden as my favorite from Seattle. As was also suggested Love Hate Love would be a great follow up to this, as well as Man in a Box, Rooster and a personal favorite It Ain't Like That Anymore.
Edit to add: This was on the soundtrack of the movie Singles, set in Seattle in the 90s. It features not only the more well known members of Seattle bands, but a few easter egg members from other bands sprinkled throughout. It's a great movie, give it a watch if you can!
Brings me back to my early childhood in 2nd grade in 92 when this came out
Want to hear them and their harmonizing...Go right to their MTV unplugged concert. Down In A Hole is a great place to start. Nutshell will be another.
I grew up in the grunge era playing guitar, another great singer in Chris Cornell.
Layne's end was, to me, one of the most tragic in rock history. I won't detail it all, because it's easy enough to look up, but he spent years both battling drug (heroin) addiction and depression from the loss of his girlfriend, who died of an overdose, until he also succumbed to his addiction. He was found weeks after his death, still with a needle stuck in his leg and another clutched in his hand. 💔
One of my favourite songs of all time.
King Staley
Beautiful track this one is the vocals are insane i gotta say.
I personally think the MTV unplugged with AIC is there best performance of this song
I hate to say it but Layne's vocals on MTV unplugged were very thin and weak. You can clearly see how gaunt and frail he looks. His drug addiction had taken a huge toll on him and you can see and hear it. I don't want to take anything away from that performance because the fact that he powered through it and still sounded great by most musical standards, says a lot about his talent but it definitely wasn't his best.
@@gwhguitarist maybe not his “best” vocally but imo the emotion it had and just the raw acoustic setup made it sound really good. That’s the main reason it’s my favorite.
Watch LOVE HATE LOVE live at the Moore. Will blow you away.
These guys were one if my favs from this era! Grunge!! 😊
Dirt, the album this track is off is a classic for metal and rock fans. Kind of like illmatic was to rap.
Oh wow. That’s a comparison that I understand. Sounds like I need to listen to this album.
@Dad, what’s for dinner? it's just like the album can do no wrong, every song is a banger and has a sound that fits the album.
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Intergalactic planetary!!!!!
Their name derived from a backstage pass that said "Welcome to Wonderland" which led to a reference to Alice in Wonderland, then Russ Klatt suggested Alice in Chains, like putting her in bondage.
Freddy Krueger does it again, very haunting
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The song is about heroin addiction
X
this song is a watermark