A never before uploaded February 1993 interview featuring Alice In Chains members Layne Staley, Jerry Cantrell, and Mike Inez was recently uploaded to YouTube. Below are some highlights transcribed by Alternative Nation. Layne discussed breaking his foot.
Layne Staley: A train ran over in? Nah, it’s a better story than the real one. I was riding a three wheel, all terrain vehicle. And um, a production manager on the tour saw me riding out his window and radio’d to crew members, some of the crew to stop me. So, they were all waving their arms in front of me and I was going full speed. No brakes. And i turned and uh, was either going to run into a truck and break my neck or try and jump off. And the bike ran over my foot.
Mike Inez: Ozzy [Osbourne] was watching from his dressing room window. He said it was one of the most funniest things he’d ever seen in his life. This guy breaking his foot. It was hillarious.
Interviewer: But you did do the tour with broken leg. How did it have effect on your stage appearance?
Layne: Well, before i broke my foot I never moved from the center of the stage. Once I broke it, I felt, I was disabled so, I wanted to do everything I could not to feel disabled so I jumped all over the place and climbed up the lighting tressels. I think it was actually a good thing cause it got me working harder and now I could actually move a foot in each direction.
On Seattle Scene:
Layne: I think the whole Seattle scene, the big boom of bands out of Seattle is a temporary thing. I don’t think that you’ll see a whole bunch more bands come from Seattle. Maybe a few more, but I think people will start looking in other places.
Mike: It kind of opened everything up. It’s not like everybody’s going to LA and New York anymore, you know. If you’re a big fish in a small pond the record companies see that more now that if you’re just stuck in LA. Comparing the Seattle scene to the LA scene, it seems like the LA scene, a band will get together, play a few gigs and the record company will sign them prematurely and when they’re not ready for it yet. There’s no real scene developing in LA or New York, you know.
Seattle these bands have played together for years and years and developed and really grew together and the songs reflect that. And I think the songs are really good songs- valid songs. I think that if a band, if a hundred more bands come out of Seattle and they’re all good bands I think that’s good for the industry as opposed to signing all these glam bands that can’t play their instruments and stuff.
https://youtu.be/iZK1-Ziw7ZQ
