During the Q&A of his December 13 appearance at Jo Ann Davidson Theatre at the Riffe Center in Columbus, Ohio, SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR frontman Corey Taylor was asked to name his favorite of the “big four” Seattle grunge bands — SOUNDGARDEN, ALICE IN CHAINS, PEARL JAM and NIRVANA.
“It has to be ALICE IN CHAINS,” Corey responded. “ALICE IN CHAINS, to me, is one of the greatest rock bands that ever was. And I don’t just mean that from a grunge standpoint or metal or anything like that. They revolutionized so much musically and they inspired me to change the way I write music.
“I mean, full stop, period, the end of sentence. [Late ALICE IN CHAINS frontman] Layne Staley is still one of the greatest f*cking singers that ever lived. Now, that is not a reflection of the demons that he had to fight, obviously, and that’s everything to do with his talent. He just made it look so f*cking easy, and he could sing anything, he could write anything, and the sh*t that he was writing about was killing him, and yet we loved it. To me, that was the greatest baring of the soul that I ever listened to. And if you need any more proof of that, all you need to do is listen to ‘Nutshell’. It’s one of the greatest songs ever written. And that’s not even my favorite ALICE IN CHAINS song.
He continued: “My favorite ALICE IN CHAINS song is ‘Would?’ Full stop. That song is f*cking incredible. But ‘Nutshell’ is such an outpouring of trying to share with you the darkness that’s in his heart. And even though you’re hearing it, it’s so light, you’re just, like, ‘F*ck. Where is he?’ And we never knew. And that’s the great tragedy of people like Layne.
“It’s not just Layne, obviously; there’s so many people that came from that generation of artists. The pain they dealt with — some of them won, some of them didn’t. But the great thing is that we can listen to their music and it can help us get past our own pain. And there’s probably not a day that goes by that I don’t listen to ALICE IN CHAINS. It’s still just that good. And the fact that I know those guys now is just icing on the cake. It’s rad to be able to hang out with your favorite band.”
