Jerry Cantrell On His ‘Aggressive & Powerful’ New LP ‘I Want Blood’: ‘I Feel Like I’ve Grown’

This week, American guitarist, singer and songwriter Jerry Cantrell – who you know best as the founder, lead guitarist, and co-lead vocalist of grunge rock band Alice In Chains – released one of his heaviest albums to date.

Cantrell, recognised as a pioneering guitar player and harmonising lead vocalist – first with the late, great Layne Staley and later William DuVall – has received praise from the likes of Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell (who commented that Cantrell’s layering and honest feel on the 1992 Alice In Chains album Dirt was “worth a lot more than someone who plays five million notes”), Slash, Elton John, and Slayer’s Kerry King, to name a few.

He's ranked highly on guitar/rock and roll publications’ lists of the Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He has worked with Danzig, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Glenn Hughes, Nickelback, Stone Temple Pilots, Heart, and many more. He’s worked with a who’s who of rock and heavy metal music and is recognised by the music industry as one of the greats, but he remains humble and continues to seek new ideas and opportunities.

Cantrell’s new album, I Want Blood, was released today. Co-produced by Cantrell and Joe Barresi (Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age, Slipknot) and recorded at Barresi’s JHOC Studio in Pasadena, California, the heavy album packs a punch, and it’s stacked with special guests you have to see to believe.

The title track, released last week, features special guests Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses fame on bass and Faith No More’s Mike Bordin on drums, while other tracks on the album feature Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, drummer Gil Sharone (Team Sleep, Stolen Babies), as well as backing vocals from LA-based singer-songwriter Lola Colette and Greg Puciato (Better Lovers, ex-Dillinger Escape Plan).

“It’s always cool working with the best, you know,” Cantrell says warmly over the phone, chatting to The Music ahead of I Want Blood’s release. “I’ve got a lot of really good friends who are members of bands that I’m a fan of, and also fans of all of those individual musicians you mentioned [including Rob Trujillo and Mike Bordin].”

For fans that haven’t kept up with Cantrell, it’s important to note that Trujillo and Bordin appeared on Cantrell’s 2002 album, Degradation Trip, while McKagen, Puciato, and Sharone played on his 2021 album, Brighten. For Cantrell, playing with people he’s familiar with and shares chemistry with is easy – it just happens that some of his collaborators are “some of the best players in the world.”

He continues, “What's really humbling about that is I get to be in a creative process with these players and these fine human beings. They’re all very graciously lending themselves to bringing in the type of vision that I see, while at the same time, just because of who they are and how they play, they're injecting energy and stuff that I would not come up with or think of that elevates the track.

“That's the cool thing about any group, [whether it’s] my band, Alice In Chains or Metallica or Guns N’ Roses or Dillinger: it's filled with really talented people. But when you put the group together as a whole, it elevates. It gets bigger than any one individual, so that's what you're trying to create anytime you make a record. It's a good group of people. The record would not be what it is without any one of them, and I would say the same thing about Brighten.

“We're all kind of crazy carnies working in the circuits, you know,” Cantrell laughs about working with his friends and collaborators. “We all get along. We live the same kind of strange life, and we're all rock and roll fanatics. At the end of the day, we're just trying to make the best music that we can, and we're trying to have a good time doing it. These are some really cool folks to be able to go on a musical journey with.”

The key element of I Want Blood, however, isn’t the star-studded special guest list. It’s Jerry Cantrell himself: when you hear him sing or play the guitar, there’s no question about who you’re listening to. Even when he strays from grunge, opting for a straightforward hard rock angle, you know it’s him. It’s a musical style that’s so distinctive that you just enjoy the ride.

I Want Blood opens with one of Cantrell’s heaviest tracks, Vilified, which happens to be this scribe’s favourite song on the album. Recalling the nights he’s already played the song on tour, Cantrell tells The Music that it’s “difficult” to play.

“A lot of this record is… what's a good way to put it?” Cantrell asks before explaining that there were four elements to making I Want Blood sound and feel the way it does. It had to focus on Cantrell as a writer, producer, guitar player, and singer.

He was up for the challenge. “I felt that in all areas of my game, there were many times, including Vilified as a prime example, where I felt like my face was pressed hard against the ceiling of my abilities, like, ‘I don't know if I can pull this off, man, but I'm going to try.’

“That always feels good because you've set a challenge for yourself that you're not sure you can achieve. You don't want to feel like you're not owning it, and the only way you're going to find out if you can is [going] through that process. There's also an interesting element to playing songs live because you can make something sound great in the studio, but once you take it to a live stage, there's a different element there.

“Some songs really rise in a live environment. And others, you know, they're good songs, but they might not be critical in a set list – let's put it that way. But some songs are elevated, and I believe that Vilified is one of those. I think Afterglow is one, too.”

To Cantrell, his new piece of work doesn’t just come from a new time, but it represents a period of time in his and his collaborators’ lives. It’s a “permanent” record that exists in a time capsule, and the weight of that permanency isn’t lost on him: “That’s always really special to me, and magical.”

Adding that before its release, the songs on I Want Blood “never had the chance to exist before,” Cantrell finds that his latest album has given him the opportunity to present something with a soul, feel, and identity of its own. And while I Want Blood does have its own soul, feel, and identity, separate from Cantrell’s past works, he still sounds like himself.

“I don't really have to worry about sounding like myself; I sound the way I sound,” he chuckles. “So, as long as I can walk out of the studio after finishing and feel like I've done the best that I absolutely could do, and it's something that I'm happy with, then I'm good, you know? Then, it's time to throw it out into the world.

“I wouldn't release something that I didn't feel strongly about or stand behind. I go about doing things the way I have from the beginning, and that's worked out for me so far. I've been a part of some pretty good records, and I think this is another one.”

Despite its aggressive title, I Want Blood wasn’t inspired by any particular world events or narratives, Cantrell stating that he tried to keep the album-making process “organic.”

Cantrell says that he tries “not to guide it too much;” he never sits down and sketches out an album by proclaiming it’ll be a heavy or acoustic record, for example. “What I do is, I can recognise when I feel like it's time to be creative again. After you've demoed a good handful of songs [and] listen to what you're coming up with, the music will tell you where to go.

“It's a big sounding record; it’s very aggressive and direct. It's powerful. I think it's really well-written and executed. It's got a ton of emotion to it, and it rocks. I feel as a writer, a producer, a guitar player and a singer – on all four of those levels – I feel like I've grown, and I think it shows in the work.”

In some ways, I Want Blood finds Cantrell acting as a “co-pilot,” with the musician sharing vocal duties with the other singers in his band, Zach Throne and Lola Colette, as well as having written songs to share with Layne Staley, then William DuVall and Greg Puciato.

“A lot of the music I write is written for more than one voice; it's meant for different singers to carry a lead at different parts. And then when you sing together, it turns into a bigger beast,” Cantrell explains. It’s what he’s been writing all along, and with I Want Blood, his vocals are stronger than ever.

“I mentioned Alice – that's my first and foremost experience there. By design, it was a two-vocal band. As time went on, I started singing more lead, and we evolved into a two-lead singer band. It's very comfortable for me to have other folks singing along with me.”

“[With] Alice, I'm always putting in third and fourth harmonies that never get sung because there's only two singers. So, it's up to me and William, or at the time, Layne, to carry all the vocals. Having other members in the band who are great singers like I have now in this touring band is fun because you can take advantage of somebody singing in the third harmony and the fourth harmony and widen it out a little bit; play with that.”

Speaking of his touring band, is Cantrell plotting an Australian tour anytime soon? He’s never toured with his solo band down under, while Alice In Chains were last in Australia for Download Festival in March 2019.

“It's definitely in my mind to try to get down to Australia without going broke,” Cantrell admits. “If we can find a scenario where I can come down and make it viable and feasible, I will be there!”

But first: South America this year, then the US and Europe in 2025. He assures his Australian fans, “If I can make it work out, I will definitely be down under. So, you know, hopefully, we'll figure out an opportunity to maybe team up with somebody cool and come down and play some shows down there with for you guys.”

I Want Blood is out now. You can listen on streaming services and pre-order the album on vinyl here.