"They day I started smoking was the day they found Layne..."

Yes, they're truly BACK and have a fantastic new album to ram up all the moaning skeptics cynical arses! BLACK GIVES WAY TO BLUE is a brilliant piece of work in the classic Alice In Chains vein and new vocalist William Duvall has done an impressive job too.

And it's a great occasion to talk to AIC's drummer Sean Kinney.

an interview conducted by Vassil Varbanov

HELLO MR.KINNEY, HOW ARE YOU?
I'm good.

WHERE ARE YOU AT THE MOMENT?
I'm in London, England.

ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT YOUR FANS ALL OVER THE WORLD SEEM MESMERIZED BY THE NEW ALBUM?
Yeah, it's nice that they're digging it. I mean, you never know how things are gonna be taken...I mean, we liked it. We just do it for the same reason we always did things. We dig it and we hoped other people would kinda like it. They seem to be responding rather well to it, so that's good.

WHEN EXACTLY DID YOU REALIZE THAT THE ALBUM'S FANTASTIC?
Well, like I said, we just kind of make the music that we like first, it's sort of selfish...So it had to live up to our standard, of what we think is good for us. If it hadn't lived up to our standard, then we wouldn't be talking about it now. So through the process of how all this kind of came together, just the fact that we even made a record or even thought about making a record was a weird enough ordeal and kind of cool enough you know, how it just kind of grew into that. I think by the time we decided to make the record, we pretty much knew what was going on, we had all the songs and everything.

But as we were making it, from the little demo stage to the real studio, hearing the actual sounds and working on that, I think about 2-3 songs into it we thought "this is gonna work, it sounds great". Nick did a great job and we were all really very involved in every aspect of everything, so it was pretty cool. I think about halfway through the record I think we decided...you know we didn't know how we were gonna release it, in this day and age...

Either find a way to do it ourselves or whatever...We decided it would be the best thing to go with a major who still can distribute and get it everywhere, especially for a band like this which has fans all over the world. So about halfway through the record we started shopping around a few tunes to see if anybody was interested. Most of the labels, a good chunk of them seemed to be really into it, so we had to go through the process and ended up landing EMI.

SOMETIME IN 2005 IT WAS ACTUALLY YOU WHO GOT YOUR SURVIVING BANDMATES TOGETHER FOR A TSUNAMI BENEFIT CONCERT WITH DAMAGEPLAN VOCALIST PAT LACHMAN. DOES THIS MEAN YOU'RE THE BOSS, SO TO SPEAK, IN ALICE IN CHAINS?
Well, we're all kind of bosses. It's not that I'm the boss, I just wanted to help out some people, a lot of people did. I had part of a club up in Seattle and I just called a bunch of friends to see if I can gather some people and try to raise some money and the first guys I called were Mike and Jerry and they were on the next plane up there.

Also Maynard from Tool was there, Pat, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Chris DeGarmo, Krist Novoselic, a bunch of people showed up, so that was kinda cool. It was kind of nice cause we didn't really think about it, it wasn't about us, we didn't really think about the impact of us playing together and doing some of our songs until we were kind of there.

And then we were like "wow", in a bittersweet kind of heavy thing, you know "it's still nice to play with my friends again, but...". Obviously missing Layne was a huge thing. But it was for a good cause and it kind of led to where we are now.

THE BIG SEATTLE WAVE OF BANDS WAS AT ITS PEAK ABOUT 15 YEARS AGO. NOWADAYS, WHEN YOU LOOK INTO THE CROWD, ESPECIALLY AT US GIGS, WHAT DO THE PEOPLE FROM THE FAMOUS GENERATION X LOOK LIKE?
Oh yeah, it's a different crowd, it's a kind of multi-genrational crowd now, which is actually really cool...which was suprising, the music kind of got passed on and didn't go away all those years. So now we see 12 and 13-year olds, the full ranger of people, compared to before when it was sort of a cultural thing and there were a lot of peopleВ  the same age, dressed the same, kind of a scene.

It's actually really cool, it's really nice to get a whole spectrum of people, which is actually a lot cooler - the crowds are there to enjoy the music and it's not just a scene.

STILL, I'M SURE THAT FROM TIME TO TIME YOU RECOGNIZE SOME OLD FAMILIAR FACES IN THE CROWD. THE PEOPLE WHO USED TO FOLLOW THE BAND EVERYWHERE 10-15 YEARS AGO, WHEN THEY WERE KIDS, HOW DO YOU THINK THEY'VE CHANGED?
Well, we've all got older, a lot's happened. It's kind of hard to put a blanket statement on that. I mean, everybody's an individual, so... Some of them are still there, a lot of them are still there. Some have gone and moved on, got into other things.

What we've seen is that a lot of new people have come in and been turned onto the music in the years when we weren't making records and all that, so that's what's pretty cool and pretty amazing.

TALKING ABOUT THE SEATTLE "BIG FOUR" FROM YOUR GENERATION - NIRVANA, ALICE IN CHAINS, SOUNDGARDEN AND PEARL JAM...PEOPLE WERE VERY HAPPY TO SEE YOU GUYS COMING BACK TOGETHER AGAIN AND WITH A GREAT RECORD, WHICH ISN'T ALWAYS A GIVEN. PEARL JAM NEVER WENT AWAY, WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO NIRVANA, BUT WHAT'S THE RUMOUR AROUND SEATTLE REGARDING A SOUNDGARDEN REUNION?
Well, I'm not in that band, so I've no idea. I don't know. I'd like to see them play some shows. I'm a big fan of theirs and they're good friends, so I'd be all for it, but you'd have to talk to them about that.

WHAT SEATTLE BANDS FROM YOUR GENERATION DO YOU THINK NEVER GOT THE RECOGNITION THEY DESERVED AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN BIGGER? WE KNOW ABOUT THE SCREAMING TREES FOR INSTANCE, BUT WERE THERE ANY THAT WE HERE IN EUROPE NEVER GOT TO HEAR ABOUT?
We were gone a lot of that time, so I don't really know. You pretty much just named all the ones that I was aware of, that everybody was aware of. I was gonna say The Screaming Trees - I don't think they got their due. They were an amazing band. We took them with us on tour several times and we're big fans of those guys. I can't really think offhand of another one at this moment.

YOU GUYS SUFFERED A LOT FROM DRUGS, AS A BAND AND INDIVIDUALLY. HERE IN EUROPE, IN PLACES LIKE THE UK, CIGARETTES SEEM TO BE THE BIGGEST ENEMY. IN LOTS OF RECENT PHOTOS WE CAN SEE YOU SMOKING, SO IS THAT YOUR BIGGEST VICE NOWADAYS?
Yeah, I think it is. I actually didn't smoke for the longest time. They day I started smoking was the day they found Layne...which was a weird thing. I'd occasionally smoke when drunk once in a while, but I was never really a smoker.

They day that Layne passed away there were some cigarettes in my house and I was making the calls telling everybody about Layne...I was sitting on the floor at my house and there was this old pack of Russian cigarettes that somebody had left at my house a long time ago and they were just stale and dried out and I started smoking them, just kinda in a daze and I've smoked ever since. But that's the next thing you know, one thing at a time haha. So eventually I'll quit smoking.

DON'T PUSH YOURSELF TOO HARD.
You have to have something man, you know...

AS FAR AS I KNOW, YOU RECORDED THE ALBUM IN DAVE GROHL'S STUDIO, RIGHT?
Yeah.

BEING A DRUMMER YOURSELF, DO YOU HAVE AN EXPLANATION AS TO WHY THAT GUY QUIT DRUMMING IN ORDER TO PLAY THE GUITAR AND SING IN FOO FIGHTERS?
Well, he always did that actually. Then he got the job in Nirvana right before 'Nevermind' and people were shocked, they didn't know how talented he was and that he was a multi-instrumentalist.

Then Nirvana ended, Kurt killed himself and Dave had some music he wanted to get out and he just went right to it.

AND FINALLY, WHAT IS THE BIGGEST MYTH ABOUT LAYNE STAYLEY?
I don't know. I don't really follow the myths. I knew him pretty well, I didn't get into the gossip mills. I remember people were saying that he'd lost a limb or fingers or something and I knew that was complete bullshit.

rights Tangra Mega Rock