Guns N’ Roses Make Heartbreaking Layne Staley Claim

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Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan recently discussed late Velvet Revolver bandmate Scott Weiland during a recent interview on Rolling Stone Music Now. Here, McKagan makes a heartbreaking claim about Alice in Chains members dealing with the loss of Layne Staley, and how they and he are in ‘extra innings.’ Alternative Nation transcribed McKagan’s comments

McKagan: Us getting up and playing, I’ve seen Slash, he and I went to the edge and I don’t think we cared at one point whether we woke up or not the next day, that’s pretty dark. I love seeing him just being lost in his guitar and be sober and all of that. There are friends of ours who are just not here because of that. Just to see Jerry [Cantrell] and Sean [Kinney] of Alice [In Chains] – it’s a celebration, man. We are fully aware that we shouldn’t be here and that we are in extra innings. 

In other recent Guns N’ Roses/Alice in Chains news, Slash had high praise for the new Alice In Chains album Rainier Fog in a new Futuro 88.9FM interview. Rainier Fog is the band’s third album without original singer Layne Staley. William DuVall and Jerry Cantrell currently are co-lead vocalists on Alice In Chains albums.

“I’m aware of new bands and I listen to new stuff whenever I get ahold of it. I haven’t got fixated on any brand new band as of yet, but there’s a bunch of really cool stuff out there. Mostly I’ve been listening to – for new music, you know – the Alice in Chains record that came out, and also the Prophets of Rage record and the Queens of the Stone Age record.”

He added, “There’s a lot of new records I’ve been listening to when at home and in my car. The rest of the time I’m listening to a lot of blues stuff and, you know, just classic stuff on the radio. When I’m on the road, I’m basically doing more writing than listening to anybody.”

Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash is quoted in a new Kerrang article about Cobain, and he said he was a bigger fan of Staley and Alice In Chains, along with Chris Cornell and Soundgarden.

“It was kinda lame that music writers at the start of the ‘90s could only create an identity for the Seattle bands by setting them up as anti-Guns N’ Roses. I know writers like to consider the whole ‘birth of grunge’ as the death knell for Guns, but we were so big at that point that the emergence of the grunge bands didn’t really matter to us.

Personally, I thought Nirvana were cool – I have four of their albums – but they weren’t as heavy or riff-oriented as Soundgarden or Alice In Chains, so those were actually my two favourite Seattle bands. I guess Axl [Rose] and Kurt Cobain had some issues, but Dave Grohl is on my album with Duff [McKagan], so at least one member of Nirvana didn’t hate me!”

Slash never got the chance to collaborate with Staley or Cobain, but he did play with Chris Cornell on “Promise” and he was collaborated with Dave Grohl on multiple occasions.

Listen to Appetite for Distortion’s new interview with Duff McKagan’s wife Susan Holmes McKagan below.