Songs In Their Sails

One of only two major territories Alice In Chains haven't visited with their pair of post-Layne Staley records (the other being Japan), Australia will finally get the chance to welcome back an old friend in style on the Soundwave main stage. And as frontman William DuVall explains, the weight will be removed during this visit, in more ways than one.

“I remember last time we were there I had the massive beard; [Jerry] Cantrell and I both weren't going to shave our beards until Black Gives Way To Blue was really done and in the can, so we had to go to Australia with the ZZ Top beards,” he laughs fondly. “We just had to kinda grin and bear it but it was cool, I love looking at pictures from that time – it's so clearly Australia. Those were the only shows we played like that because we were totally locked down in the studio – bunker mode – we came out of hibernation to do Australia and then pretty much went back into hibernation to finish the album, so those were the only pictures live on stage that you get the crazy woodsman, Grizzly Adams kinda thing.”

The record they emerged from those “locked down” sessions with, 2009's Black Gives Way To Blue, was an incredible statement of both intent and progress. By merely existing, most deemed the album a success; the fact that it was of such quality – maintaining and building on the Alice In Chains legacy further – was an incredible and welcomed bonus. It does beg the question though: had that record not hit the mark in the way it did, would we now have this year's follow-up, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here?

“There's no telling, and we don't really have the answer for that,” ponders the 46-year-old. “I'm glad it turned out the way it all turned out, y'know, we put ourselves into that record, we threw ourselves completely into that set of circumstances with eyes wide open. We weren't naive about any of this stuff, about what we were trying to do, and we weren't naive about the success rate or lack thereof of bands that tried to do something similar. It was a pretty tall order.

“The momentum that we'd built organically with all the touring in 2006 and 2007 certainly helped light a fire in the studio, but there was no guarantee,” DuVall continues. “We knew that in terms of odds-making they were not in our favour, and just like when we started touring in 2006, we knew that with recording Black Gives Way To Blue there were a lot of people voting against us, there were a lot of people that wanted to see us fail. Thankfully the ones that wanted to see us succeed, that were willing to at least give it a chance, they won the day. So thanks to them, hats off to them.”

Just like the Black Gives Way To Blue sessions, there was once again a great deal of material to pore through with The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. This time around, however, the Seattle grunge stalwarts – rounded out by long-standing bassist Mike Inez and the remaining two founding members, guitarist Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney – only recorded what they needed, with no outtakes put down for their latest release.

“A lot of that was due to our own particular brand of meticulousness and willingness to take the time to see even more time, y'know what I mean?” DuVall laughs when queried about the four-year period between records. “Everyone has their work flow and with this group it tends to kind of involve seasons coming and going, babies being born, empires rising and falling, and between that all, time in the studio. But if you're lucky enough to be able to take that time then that's one prerogative and it's cool and it's rare that anyone has the luxury to do that these days.”

With former frontman Layne Staley's drug and mental health issues an ongoing concern until his passing in 2002, the history of Alice In Chains has been nothing if not rocky. Now it seems the band are moving forwards free and full of focus. DuVall talks about new destinations in 2014 – Russia and other Pacific Rim locations are mentioned – but remains happy to roll with events as they come and not look to far in the distance.

“We'd like to see more areas of the world and have [new] experiences, [but] we all know that making plans is just an invitation to have the universe laugh at you. That's really the biggest pleasure of doing all this work though, is going to these places you've never been before, and then finding that people have been waiting for you.”