Kurt Cobain's Competition Stripe Mustang will be many people's idea of the quote/unquote most iconic electric guitar to emerge out of the early '90s Seattle scene – and the crazy money it sold for at auction would back that up.

But Jerry Cantrell's G&L Rampage with the Blue Dress graphic has to be in the conversation. It's been with him since the beginning. And in this installment of Cover Stars we revisit a Jan '96 Guitar World cover with the man himself to talk all things Rampage.

How’d you get this guitar?

I’d just graduated from high school, so I was 18. I was in a band, and we were about to go to college. I got the ultimatum from the family – get a job or go to school: “If you wanna live at the house, take your pick. Otherwise, get the fuck out.” [Laughs] I was like, “Maybe I’ll go to school.” I worked jobs, too, but I took school because I figured it would allow me more time to play guitar.

I made it through half a semester of college, and then my drummer was chirping in my ear about quitting school, taking a year off and going to Texas to try to take the band to the next level. [Laughs] He said his dad would give us jobs at an insulation company. So I quit college, and we were in a van a week later fucking driving to Dallas.

It was pretty short-lived. I worked for the insulation company for a whole summer before I fell in with some Texas boys and started jamming. I had this dark brown tobacco-colored Hamer V, but they had these G&Ls. The first time I picked one up, I fell in love.

What did you like about it?

It fell right into my hand. Their dad worked for a music store called Arnold & Morgan Music Company in Garland, Texas, and he gave me a job. That’s where they’d gotten these G&Ls. With my first paycheck, I bought the G&L with the “Blue Dress.” A couple of months later, I bought the “No War” one.

Did you modify your G&L?

Van Halen is one of my favorite bands, and Eddie was just a fucking alien. I was like, “How the fuck does this guy make his guitar sound like this?” It was inspiring on many levels, and he was also into tinkering. His guitar is called Frankenstein for a reason! [Laughs] Also, the artwork – the striped pattern – was a direct influence on me and the way my guitar looks with the circles and squares. I was trying to find my own pattern.

The strings always came off the Kahler because it was top-mounted. I felt like it needed a bit more tension, so I counter-sunk the Kahler down into the body a little, which added a bit more tension at the rolling bar.

It came with a shitty locking mechanism where the screws were made out of tin foil or something. [Laughs] Every time I changed the strings, I was replacing nuts because you’d strip them. So I put a Floyd Rose nut up top as that’s what Eddie had and counter-sunk the Kahler. I added a Seymour Duncan JB as my main pickup.

How did your G&L impact the way you played?

To some degree, you’re a mechanic. You use whatever tool you need for the job. Even if the G&L is my main guitar and is gonna be on most of the stuff and the one I feel most comfortable with, if I’m writing a song that sounds better on a Tele or a Strat or a V, I’m gonna use that. But then there’s the one you’re kinda known for. Angus [Young] plays a Gibson SG or Eddie’s got his guitar. The G&L is mine. It’s the one that felt right. It’s the one I’ve been playing the longest.

There’s something to miles traveled, time spent together and sweat, blood, tears and soul being transferred from the player into the guitar and from the guitar back to the player. Those two G&Ls – nothing sounds as good or feels as good or has the right weight that those two have. You put them side by side to others like them, and they should sound the same, but they don’t.

What makes them special?

There’s an individual personality to the wood, or maybe one guy was paying more attention at the shop that day. [Laughs] It could be any number of things that lined up to make that instrument what it is… It’s like cars on an assembly line. Every once in a while, there’s a special one – and I got two.

It goes without saying that your G&L is probably on nearly every notable album you’ve put out, right?

I’d have to say that probably 95 percent of anything you’ve ever heard from me has at least one of those G&Ls on it, if not both. [Laughs]

When it came time for your GW cover shoot in 1996, was there ever a question that you’d grab a G&L?

I’ve appeared on covers with other guitars that are important to me. But with the G&Ls, it’s the “Blue Dress” and the “No War.” Those, with my Les Paul, are my unholy trinity.

We know you still have your “Blue Dress” G&L, which appeared on the January 1996 cover, but you had a close call with it in April 2024.

I was freaking out for three or four days. We couldn’t track it down. It was a pre-album thing, and we were doing a video and a photo shoot and then going back for rehearsal, and shit was moving around, and I lost track of it. Thankfully, it was just misplaced.

The feeling of, you know, when I put the post out when I was in a panic, was like, “I’d rather be wrong and have a little egg on my face, so I’m gonna throw this out there to the world.”

I’ve had a guitar that meant a lot to me go missing, where I was lucky to get it back, and that was a goldtop Music Man that Ed [Van Halen] gave me. Alice In Chains were on tour with Van Halen, and I got two from him. One was a goldtop and was a trans blue where you could see the wood flame through the finish.

The goldtop went missing when I was making Degradation Trip [Jerry’s 2002 solo album]; I didn’t see it for 18 or 19 years. It disappeared, and it broke my heart because my fucking dude gave me that guitar. Luckily, it made its way back to me. When I thought that was what happened to the G&L, I was crushed for a couple of days.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Back in April 2024, Jerry Cantrell thought that his beloved 1984 “Blue Dress” G&L Rampage – which has been used on almost everything he has ever recorded and defined the sound of grunge – had gone missing.

“I was freaking out for three or four days,” he shares in a new interview with Guitar World. “We couldn’t track it down. It was a pre-album thing, and we were doing a video and a photo shoot and then going back for rehearsal, and shit was moving around, and I lost track of it.”

Thankfully, the “Blue Dress” G&L was just misplaced, but Cantrell had previously experienced his fair share of missing guitar trauma after one of his prized possessions went missing for nearly 20 years.

“I’ve had a guitar that meant a lot to me go missing, where I was lucky to get it back, and that was a goldtop Music Man that Ed [Van Halen] gave me. Alice In Chains were on tour with Van Halen, and I got two from him,” he relates.

“One was a goldtop and was a trans blue where you could see the wood flame through the finish. The goldtop went missing when I was making Degradation Trip [Jerry’s 2002 solo album] I didn’t see it for 18 or 19 years. It disappeared, and it broke my heart because my fucking dude gave me that guitar.

As he had previously specified in another Guitar World interview, “Somebody lifted it out of the A&M studio,” but two decades later, a couple of dedicated Alice in Chains fans managed to track it down.

“[They] tried to do a sting on this kid who had it and was trying to sell it,” he continued. “He went dark on the first guy, who was from Florida. The second guy was a separate collector from San Diego. Between the two of them, it took about two weeks for me to get that guitar back… after 19 years!”

Therefore, losing the G&L, even for a mere few days, was, understandably, devastating. “When I thought that was what happened to the G&L, I was crushed for a couple of days,” he now admits.

Fortunately, the Rampage hadn't been stolen – it had just been misplaced.

For more from Jerry Cantrell, plus new interviews with Randy Bachman and Don Henley, pick up issue 604 of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.

In more recent news, the Alice in Chains guitarist recently looked back on the “walk-off home run” of Ozzy Osbourne’s final show.

Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell recently looked back on the first time he met Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell and his brother, Vinnie Paul – a day that will be forever marked in his memory due to what he describes as Dimebag’s “otherworldly” talents.

It was back in 1985 – right after Cantrell decided to quit college and move to Dallas to join a band with a couple of friends.

“We would work all day, and we just spent all night in the club – we would just watch bands,” he recalls of those heady days in an interview with Gibson.

“We worked about half the year in Dallas and half the year in Houston. In Houston, there was a smaller club called Cardi's. And I loved that place because they had great acts coming through there.

“I saw Yngwie Malmsteen with Talas opening up on Rising Force. I saw Pantera roll through there when they still had Terry [Glaze, former Pantera singer], before Phil [Anselmo, Pantera’s longtime lead vocalist] was in the band. That's how I met Dime and Vinnie – in ’85 at that club.”

Describing what he remembers from the formative experience, Cantrell says that he's a “fan of anybody who is a master of their instrument [but] I'm more a fan of people who are who just have an innate thing that is just unlike anybody else. And Dime is one of those guys.”

He describes how the two, who happened to be around the same age, hit it off “right away” – thanks to a spot of gear talk.

“After that show, going up to him and introducing myself and asking him about his amps and his tone, because he was just otherworldly,” he enthuses.

“And he's a huge Van Halen fan, and you could tell that by his playing. But he was also into heavier shit too, and that's why you got the kind of blend of what Dime was – but there's really nobody like him.”

He continues, “I started hearing about these guitar contests that he would enter every year in Texas, and he was the best guitarist for six years running. I think early on he just had talent, and he had an otherworldly thing, and he was just a great dude.”

In more Jerry Cantrell news, the Alice in Chains founder recently looked back on his involvement in Black Sabbath's Back to the Beginning – or what he calls the “walk-off home run” of Ozzy Osbourne’s final show.

It's hard to think of another band that has had as monumental an impact on the heavier end of the rock spectrum as Led Zeppelin. Whether you think they were the greatest band ever, or simply overrated, their effect on rock music is without question.

One major component of their success was the solid, funky and bluesy rhythm section of John Paul Jones and the late drummer John ‘Bonzo’ Bonham.

“The whole point is to make the band sound good, and that realisation happened pretty damn quick with Bonzo and me,” said Jones in the September ’99 issue of Bass Player. “I was almost throwing down a challenge with some of those basslines – play me if you can! We would try anything, it just didn't matter.”

Jones was never a bass player to sit in the shadows, though his onstage persona was perhaps less flamboyant than his bandmates. From his tight riffing on tracks such as Black Dog to the funky grooves of Ramble On, Jones doled out high-quality basslines on every cut.

“John Paul Jones is such a fantastic all-around musician and it bleeds into his amazing basslines,” Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez told the October 2009 issue of Bass Player. “His solid fundamentals gave him a great platform to experiment. Chops, tone, and an inventive brain – this dude is an all-timer!”

The tasty subhook on Ramble On brought the song’s verses to a completely different place, his twisted Black Dog riff was an attempt to trip up fans who would dance at the band’s concerts, and The Lemon Song is a masterwork blues that every developing bassist should try to learn.

Here's our pick of the best John Paul Jones basslines with Led Zeppelin.

Good Times Bad Times (1968)

Though John Paul Jones had been a professional session player and arranger since the age of 16, Good Times Bad Times was Zeppelin's first introduction to the record-buying public. Like the later Black Dog, it's based around a riff from Jones himself, and is a great showcase of his deft fretwork, as well as John Bonham's assured and dextrous drumming.

The intro and main riff are played in unison with the guitar, apart from a few grace notes. This approach continues until the chorus at 00:44, where the bass departs into a chromatic-style line, which becomes almost like a walking bassline, continuing on into the second verse.

There are quite a few key changes in this early part of the song, but it's worth noting that while there is some uniformity to the different sections, Jones is never reduced to simply transposing the same patterns from key to key – a mark of his prowess on the instrument.

Ramble On (1969)

Jones reached a melodic peak with Ramble On, from 1969's Led Zeppelin II. The distinctive ‘lead bass’ part in the verse is a prime example of his delicate control of note duration and his super-tight interplay with drummer John Bonham.

First there are quarter-notes, then eighth-notes, then a 16th-note turnaround that returns the articulation to tenuto (the opposite of staccato).

By moving to smaller note values, the bassline makes the whole song feel like it quickens, adding tension and excitement with each four-bar cycle.

The Lemon Song (1969)

The Lemon Song unwinds repeated cycles of a standard 12-bar blues framework that includes one of the finest rock bass solos ever recorded. Some of the riffs are right from the James Jamerson mould, with even a little Carol Kaye thrown in.

Improvising one of the most mind-blowing two minutes in rock history, Jones' acute expression is clear throughout his solo, which begins at 02:58. His ideas modulate, outlining each chord change with its parallel blues scale – the E blues scale over E7#9, the A blues scale over A7, and the B blues scale over B7.

Livin' Lovin' Maid (1969)

Livin' Lovin' Maid shows just how far a simple two-chord change can be stretched. Jones leans heavily on off-beats to create forward drive, before tackling the main riff in unison with the guitar. This continues until the chorus, where Jones plays a cascade of roots and 5ths before going on to explore Jamerson-style the 3rd, 4th, #4th, and 5th.

This would no doubt have filled out the sound onstage too, something which Jones was to become very used to doing, playing Mellotron, acoustic guitar and mandolin on later material. He ends his chorus line with a terse tonic E.

Immigrant Song (1970)

From the band’s 1970 album, Led Zeppelin III, Immigrant Song features more solid, funky and bluesy rhythm section interplay. Hinging on Jimmy Page’s repetitive guitar riff, Jones uses octaves to match a low note and a high note with the kick and snare drum.

For the first two bars of the verse, Jones takes an F# octave figure and simply moves it down a whole-step to E, which keeps the punchy groove going with the drums while Page sustains an open E chord.

“In certain situations you need to play something that's harmonically ‘grounded’, and octaves are always a safe bet as far as that's concerned,” he told us.

Black Dog (1971)

Inspired by a blues riff from Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning, it was Jones, not Page, who wrote the iconic Black Dog riff. The circular pattern pushes the beat back, bit by bit, as the song progresses. The bridge riff is also built from a repeating pattern that’s displaced by half a beat each time.

As this point in his career, Jones was predominantly playing fingerstyle, but he was equally adept at using a pick. “During the chorus and solo sections of Black Dog, I would sometimes strum E5 and D5 power chords behind Page's G and D chords, especially when performing live. I really don't think the song would have sounded as punchy if I hadn't used a pick.”

When The Levee Breaks (1971)

When The Levee breaks is seven minutes and eight seconds of churning bass and drums. There’s very little showmanship here. Just four musicians at the top of their game.

That said, the bridge section is a great example of effective non-root playing. Over both chords of the first bar at 01:07 (Db/Ab and Eb/Ab) Jones emphasizes the 5th, before following Jimmy Page's guitar for accented hits on the b3rd.

This lick is also typical of Bonham's signature four-16ths snare fill – proof that the two musicians influenced each other, and another insight into the relationship between bass and drums that gave Zeppelin their groove.

D'yer Mak'er (1973)

The flatpicked bass groove from the reggae-flavored D'yer Mak’er sees Jones replace the hollow thud of his early Zeppelin work with a more rubbery tone as he makes liberal use of 16th-note rests.

Jones plays only one A over the Am chord, ending with a C – a clever choice, since it's both the 3rd of Am and the 5th of the next chord, F. This is typical of how Jones would often use notes to not only outline the chord of the moment, but to also foreshadow the next one.

The Crunge (1973)

The Crunge is a workout for anyone who thinks they've mastered odd-time signatures. The bassline also shows Led Zeppelin at its funkiest, with Jones and Bonham hooking up for a ripping 9/8 groove.

This tune is difficult to count; with several off-beat accents and the quick tempo, it takes a while to determine where the one is, but latch onto it and you won't want to let go.

Achilles Last Stand

Achilles Last Stand harnessed the amazing power of the Bonham/Jones rhythm section once more, as they plough their way through nearly 10 minutes of furious rock and cannoning 5/4 breaks.

“The timing was interesting in Achilles because of the 5/4 bits. When Page came out with the first riff he said, ‘What are we going to do with the rest of it?’ I said, ‘The 8-string bass!’ It fitted perfectly.”

In the band practice room at his parents’ house in Parkland, Florida, Chained Saint guitarist Ethan Kahn sits in front of a wall of rock posters. There’s an image of Megadeth and covers of Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Metallica’s Ride the Lightning. The latter has special significance for Kahn. Among other things, it’s the record that first turned him on to thrash metal.

Right after he heard it, Kahn did a deep dive into the band’s catalog, as well as the music of the other Big Four bands Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, as well as Testament and Exodus. The effect was profound. Kahn stopped playing open chord classic rock and turned his attention toward speedy, muted power chord riffs, unconventional rhythms and rapid-fire legato solos.

“There was just something about that form of music that I loved,” says Kahn, who formed Chained Saint in 2022 with three high school classmates. “There was an ‘it’ factor that drew me in like nothing I’d ever heard. I felt connected to it. It felt like it was my thing, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

Kahn and his friends – vocalist Sean Sterling, bassist Sebastian De Avila and drummer Cameron Cottrell – altered their playing styles to accommodate their obsession with thrash. They formed a Metallica cover band but soon began analyzing the structures of their favorite bands to write their own riffs and songs.

Chained Saint’s first couple of originals didn’t make it out of the rehearsal room, but their third song, the nearly six-minute-long Neanderthal, was a winner. The tune starts with an insistent, mid-paced chug before, halfway through, bursting into a feral sprint of piercing riffs and a slashing lead.

“It was the first song we felt really happy about,” Kahn says. “We recorded a video of us playing it up until the fast part, and then we went to get Chipotle to take a little break. We listened to it in the car with the speakers blasting, and we were all smiling and super-proud.

“That was the first moment that we all, cooperatively and collectively, thought we wrote something unique and awesome to us. I think it was the first sign that we could do this in a big way.”

Two years later, Chained Saint have released their debut album, Blindside, an homage to the speed, exhilaration and complexity of ’80s thrash and a validation that teens in the 2020s can play with the authenticity of bands whose biggest albums came out decades before their followers were born.

With precision riffs, ripping solos and an aggressive attack, Kahn sounds like he’s been playing since he was a little kid. Yet he didn’t touch a guitar until he found his older brother’s Stratocaster in a closet during the pandemic.

At the time, Kahn was playing piano at School of Rock, but he wasn’t feeling the instrument. He was much more impressed by the flashy licks of a then-18-year-old peer who rocked a Les Paul.

For that reason, when Kahn found the Strat he immediately plugged in and practiced tirelessly to learn rudimentary chords and basic riffs: his goal was to try to play some of the classic rock he grew up on.

“I was taking all my classes online because of the pandemic, and I had to have my camera on when they taught us,” he says. “So I held my guitar out of the frame of the camera so my teachers wouldn’t see me, and I practiced for hours and hours. I just wanted to play all day.”

Once he’d developed enough as a player to up the ante, Kahn focused on learning high-gain power chords, rapid rhythms, complex signatures and scorching leads. After the pandemic ended, Kahn took a course in guitar at school, where he met Cottrell, who was already a skilled musician.

“The teacher of the class got up on the mic and said, ‘Hey, we got a drummer here,’” Kahn says. “I was just forming the band with the guys, and I was, like, ‘We need a drummer.’ I went to talk to him and noticed he was wearing a ‘Hammer of Justice’ Metallica cut-off, and I was like, ‘This is my guy.’ I knew he’d be the right fit and thankfully I was right.”

Much of Kahn’s guitar work, from his bruising riffs to his searing licks, was inspired by emulating his heroes. He even bought a Jackson Kelly after he found out Marty Friedman played one on Megadeth’s Rust in Peace.

“It sounded so good. When I got it, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can shred like crazy!’” he says. “The way Marty plays in different scales, not just pentatonic stuff, really stood out to me and inspired me.”

Kahn also gives props to Soulfly’s Max Cavalera, formerly of Sepultura, and Dream Theater’s John Petrucci. But his favorite player at the moment, and one who has inspired him to approach the guitar in a different way, is Rush’s Alex Lifeson.

“His tonality is so creative and spot-on,” Kahn says. “He can shred on songs like La Villa Strangiato, but he also showed me you can make the guitar sound so different than a lot of stuff I was listening to at the time. And there’s something about the scale he uses for solos that I love. I just call it the Alex Lifeson scale. I’ve been trying to replicate it forever.”

Chained Saint spent six months writing songs together every day after school and honing their performance before they started looking for gigs. Since their local metal scene was dominated by metalcore and hardcore, they weren’t sure if they’d be accepted.

However, in late 2022, after a few shows, their youth, energy and heaviness won over the locals and the local bands. In turn, Chained Saint have been inspired by hardcore outfits including Sunami from the Bay Area and Drain from Santa Cruz, California.

“In the beginning, it was a little tough for people to find out about us because they all wanted to hear breakdowns and crazy screaming,” Kahn says.

“But we kept at it and we found our way in there and got accepted. There's definitely a place for us in this scene and I love it. And now, some of the new stuff we’ve been working on is more hardcore and has breakdowns. That, mixed with the thrash stuff, sounds really cool.”

The first time Chained Saint felt they were starting to move beyond the local scene was in 2023, when a concert promoter invited them to drive to a town an hour south of Parkland to perform a showcase for local club owners in an echoey parking garage.

“We were like, ‘If we play great for these people, we’re going to make it,’” Kahn says. “The [promoter] who put on all these shows was there, and that felt like our first big break.”

Soon after, Kahn’s dad Peter Kahn, a longtime friend of Alice In Chains vocalist and guitarist William DuVall, asked his old pal for advice – providing Chained Saint with their biggest break to date.

Over the years, Kahn’s father had sent DuVall pictures of his son playing with School of Rock and jamming with friends, just to keep him updated. This time, he had a purpose. He wanted to get Duvall’s honest opinion on whether or not Chained Saint were good enough to make a living as a band, and sent Duvall demo versions of Neanderthal and Locked Away.

DuVall liked what he heard and urged Ethan to write more songs and send them over. Chained Saint complied, and when Duvall heard the new batch of demos, which were recorded in a local studio, he invited the band to Atlanta to work on a debut album at West End Sound Recording, the studio co-owned by Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher and engineer Tom Tapley.

To capture Chained Saint in their natural environment and help them become more precise and professional, DuVall and Tapley spent six weeks recording and mixing them on analog tape.

DuVall insisted they play every song from start to finish, and anyone who wasn’t perfectly in tempo or performing with the right energy had to stop and start again. And again, and again.

“Since everything was done on tape, we had to be on-point with everything,” Kahn says. “There was no cutting corners, and we worked really hard. It was intimidating at first, but everybody at the studio was so cool and welcoming that coming in to work became something we all looked forward to.”

As surprised as Chained Saint were to record the album on tape, at first Kahn was even more confused when DuVall discouraged him from using his favorite guitars: a Jackson Rhoads Flying V and a modded-out Kramer Pacer.

Instead, DuVall asked Kahn to play his Framus Masterbuilt Talisman, which DuVall designed for the German company. Kahn also used a Gibson 1960 VOS Les Paul Standard, an ESP LTD KH-602 Kirk Hammett Signature Series and an ESP LTD Bill Kelliher Sparrowhawk Vintage Silver Sunburst.

“Not a single EMG pickup was used,” Kahn says. “It’s totally a metal album, but we didn’t record with a single guitar that most people would think is standard metal. It was very different for me to record with these things, but William figured it would give us a real punchy tone – something a little different.”

For amps, Kahn played through a Metropoulos DVL-1, a Friedman Brown Eye and a Marshall JCM800, and his effects were sparse – a basic Ibanez Tube Screamer and an EVH Phase 90.

When Blindside was released, DuVall praised Chained Saint on social media. “It has certainly been a journey since I first met these kids practicing in the garage,” he wrote.

“Raw talent met with a lot of hard work and commitment. Through all the ups and downs, the fundamentals learned and mastered, the obstacles met and overcome, this is the result.

“Recorded and mixed to tape. No computers. No gimmicks. No nonsense. Just four guys thrashing it out, giving everything they got. I couldn’t be more proud of them. Chained Saint are the real deal.”

In an interview with Full Metal Jackie, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford also praised the band. And he’s not the only one. Kahn’s astronomy teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School wears a Chained Saint cap during class and plays the band’s music before displays at the school’s Astronomy Night educational presentation.

“If I’m a little late to first period in the morning because I had to do an interview or something, my teachers are pretty lenient with me,” Kahn says. “They definitely recognize I've got something big outside of school that could be taking my focus away a little bit.”

With the support of DuVall and the success of Blindside singles such as the chugging blitzfest Animosity and the unrepentant kidney-stab Stronger Than Stone, Chained Saint are developing a fanbase outside of the local scene.

Now that Kahn has graduated from high school, the band will be able to set their sights nationally and even globally, going above and beyond recent mega-milestones, including this year's Welcome to Rockville and Rocklahoma appearances.

“It feels like we’ve got really good momentum,” Kahn says. “We’ve been sticking it out until the summer, when we can tour and play shows. So that’s one thing I’m really looking forward to. There’s a lot of new things on the horizon for Chained Saint.”

• Blindside is out now via Patriark.

When Jerry Cantrell looks back on Black Sabbath icon Ozzy Osbourne’s final stand on stage, he’s all smiles. “It was nuts,” he tells Guitar World. “We paid tribute – we did our little part to honor the man and the band. I’m grateful to have been invited, but most importantly, to share in it and see it happen.”

Fans gathered in Birmingham on July 5 with the expectation of seeing Ozzy for the final time. His death 17 days later made it a certainty. And while Cantrell didn’t get to check in with the Prince of Darkness – who helped launch Alice in Chains by taking them on tour in the ’90s – the guitarist has no regrets.

“I was on the side of the stage, surrounded by all my friends who’d just played,” he says. “We watched the man and the band do their thing in their element one final time. It was fucking epic. That’s a fine final goodbye right there for me!”

Now Ozzy is gone, has Back to the Beginning taken on a greater meaning for you?

“It sure has. It’s important to keep in the moment in life, and that’s not always easy. Just to be around that energy of that show, the anticipation, and be like, ‘Fuck, this is really gonna happen,’ it was nuts.

“Standing on the side of the stage, we were all fans, and in the prime spot. It was like the biggest rock and roll high school reunion that never happened before; it’ll never happen again.”

It must have been a trip to watch Nuno Bettencourt, Jake E. Lee, Vernon Reid, Tom Morello and others share the stage.

“I had the same conversation with all those guys you’ve mentioned! We all talked to each other before we went on – Kirk [Hammett], Zakk [Wylde] and Slash.

“When Kirk rolled in he was like, ‘I’m fucking nervous, man!’ I was like, ‘I know, dude. I am, too. It’s not our shit I’m nervous about, it’s the fucking Sabbath song we’ve gotta play. I don’t wanna fuck it up!’

“There’s a certain element of rock ‘n’ roll being a young thing, you know? It helps keep you young; you have to keep yourself rooted there to have a proper, irreverent kind of magical mindset to make good rock ‘n’ roll.

“It takes you right back to being a kid in a garage with your buddies, taking a beer from your dad’s stash, maybe smoking a shitty dirt-weed joint, and trying to learn a Sabbath song. We all talked about that – it was just fucking cool.”

Did you get to spend any time with Ozzy?

“I could have if I’d stayed after the show, because he stayed and hung out with everybody. But I was at the tail end of six weeks of touring; I just wanted to go to bed and get on the plane. So I thought I’d already had the best experience.”

Alice in Chains took part in Ozzy’s No More Tours run in the ’90s, so you’ve got a long history. How will you remember him?

“I don’t think it can be overstated how intertwined he and Black Sabbath are with all of rock ’n’ roll. If there are dominant genes for heavy rock and metal, it’s fucking Sabbath. They’re on the Mount Rushmore – that’s fucking big.

“Of course, I was very sad when Ozzy died. But upon further reflection, if you think about it, for him to rally and work his ass off for a couple of years to to do that thing, it’s perfect.

“For Morello and Sharon Osbourne to organize all that, and to pull it off let alone have it be as cool as it was… not many artists get that sort of exit. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty fucking close. If you wanna talk about a walk-off home run, that’s what it was.”

Judging by his cavernous riffs, it’s not hard to see that when it comes to guitar, for Jerry Cantrell, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Sabbath tree. It’s a fact, and Cantrell isn’t hiding it. “Those [Black Sabbath] albums and songs are timeless,” he says. “They spoke to me then; they speak to me today.”

Sabbath first entered Cantrell’s orbit when the burgeoning riff meister was a grammar-school student in Pennsylvania in the late ’70s. From the moment Cantrell took in the opening chords of Iron Man, he was hooked. So it must have been sweet when just over a decade later, in 1991, Cantrell’s band, Alice in Chains, supported Ozzy Osbourne on his first “farewell tour,” the No More Tours Tour.

“We’ve had a close relationship with Ozzy since then,” Cantrell says. So when Tom Morello called Cantrell to ask Alice in Chains to participate in Back to the Beginning, it was an easy “Yes.”

“It’s an honor,” Cantrell says. “I just think it’s cool to be going back to their hometown and honoring the band, Ozzy and all of us who are fans and who have been influenced by them.”

How did you first get wind of the Back to the Beginning show?

“We got a call from Tom Morello, who is kind of handling this whole thing. He asked if we’d be into showing up to celebrate some Sabbath, and we were very happy to be included.”

What were your initial thoughts once you understood the scale of the show?

“First and foremost, I’m a huge Sabbath fan. Most of us rocker types would put Sabbath in the top tier of why we do what we do, and as our biggest influence. And we’ve [Alice in Chains] have had a long relationship with Ozzy, who took us out [on tour] in ’91, and gave us one of our first breaks – and gave us a bass player [Mike Inez]! [Laughs]”

What was it like touring with Ozzy?

“It was pretty cool to get that slot. We were just going to go out for a run, and then Ozzy asked us back for a few more. We hit it off with the band, obviously, Zakk [Wylde], Randy [Castillo] and Mike Inez. Ozzy was really cool to us and supportive. It was just a good vibe. We made a lot of lifelong friends, and having the opportunity to play on a big stage for one of your heroes is always a pretty big deal for a young artist.”

Can you remember the first time you heard Black Sabbath?

“I was probably in seventh or eighth grade. I was living in Pennsylvania, where my dad was stationed. I had a neighbor whose name I think was Dale, and he had a great stereo system. I used to always hear him rocking out next door, and I took to hanging out with him. He turned me on to Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, which would have been 1978 or 1979.”

Once you picked up guitar, how did Tony Iommi influence you?

“He’s one of the prime faces of the [guitar] Mount Rushmore, if you want to put it that way. And he’s one of the handful of guitar players that really impacted me with the riffs, intensity and the band that he was a part of.”

Sabbath’s music is simple, but it’s hard to replicate. What did Alice in Chains take away from it?

“The best music is pretty straightforward and simple. I mean, what are you trying to do? When you first have the crazy notion in your head to follow your dream and think, ‘I’d like to do that, too,’ [Sabbath] are the guys you look to. You emulate your heroes until, at some point, your own identity starts to shine through.

“The lesson is that you’re just trying to find yourself and hope that at some point you have some sort of impact, too. But those are really lofty ideas that I don’t really think are front of mind.”

“First off, you just want to rock. [Laughs] You want to make your own rock that makes you feel like the rock of Black Sabbath, like, 'That’s badass, man,'you know? You want to create something that’s badass that has its own identity and flavor. We’ve been able to accomplish that, and that feels good.

“The lesson is to do what makes you feel happy and to create music you enjoy making. If you can satisfy yourself as an artist, and as a group, and throw something out there into the world, you’ve already won the game. Those are all the lessons and goals that we learned from listening to the bands that came before us, like Black Sabbath and Tony Iommi, one of my favorite guitar players.”

What’s a nuance of Tony’s playing that stands out, and do you have a favorite riff?

“The heaviness, the bends, the larger-than-life, doomy quality and the power of his guitar. I pretty much dig everything he’s ever done, so it’d be hard to pick out a riff. There are so many of them, but the first one I ever heard was Iron Man. That’s the one that struck me at the beginning.”

Have you decided what Alice in Chains will play?

“We had a little meeting a few months back, but it’s still in motion and in flux. We’re going into it like all the other bands, and we’ll do whatever they want us to do. We threw out a bunch of songs that we liked, like Children of the Grave, Hand of Doom and Fairies Wear Boots. They asked us what we’d be interested in, and we picked four or five, but we still don’t have a final idea of what we’re going to play.”

What does it mean to you to not only be a part of this show, but to witness it?

“As a fan, it’s something you want to do. You want to be there, and it’s going to be very satisfying. As a musician who’s been doing this for decades and been in a band that’s gone through changes like Sabbath has, it’s a triumphant thing. They’re representative of what it takes to last for decades and to be sent out on your own terms. It’s worth celebrating.”

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

You could be forgiven for bracketing Mike Inez as a rock bassist for hire. After all, he’s tackled the low-end with Ozzy Osbourne, and Alice in Chains, as well as featuring on albums by rock greats such as Black Label Society, and Motörhead.

“I really got to refine my style by virtue of playing with so many different artists,” Inez told Bass Player. “But a personal crowning moment for me was having Lemmy ask me to play on a Motörhead record!”

His vast range of musicality has also led to employment in the studio with rock titans Spys4Darwin, Guns N’ Roses legend Slash (Inez's grungy bass tone is all over It's Five O'Clock Somewhere by Slash's Snakepit), and Heart.

“I did five tours, an album, and a soundtrack with Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. That really stretched me out, musically. They’ll jam all day, perform at night, and then get on the bus and play Beatles tunes until 6AM. We would do country sessions jamming with Wynonna Judd, Carrie Underwood, Rufus Wainwright, and Gretchen Wilson. Music just oozes out of their pores.”

Talk of career highlights leads naturally to a discussion of Inez’s approach to the bass guitar. Having joined Alice in Chains following Mike Starr's departure after the recording of the Dirt album, his melodic, driving and grooving basslines quickly became an integral part of the band’s sound.

“Our music is so dense with guitars and vocals that sometimes I’ll just stay heavy and low to let everything ride on top. It all depends on the character of the song; I try to approach each one as it’s own entity.

“Often I’ll put a bass part down early on, and after I hear the guitars and vocals I’ll add to it or edit it down; or I’ll redo it altogether because I’ll hear a new line running through everything that will hook up all the notes. My dirty little secret is when I make a chart for a session, I chart it in treble clef, like a sax player.”

Inez is best known for his insanely evolved pick technique since time immemorial (well, 1989), and interviews with him tend to reflect that fact, but has he dabbled with any other technical approaches over the years?

“It depends on the song. I use the pick to slam a lot of fifths and power chords, especially behind the guitar solos, and I do a lot of string bends with my left hand, and I like using vibrato and slides to make my parts fluid, but there’s also something about playing fingerstyle that makes you feel like a bonafide bassist.”

His list of personal bass heroes reveals much about his style as a musician. But who was it that originally inspired him? Asked to nominate the bassists who were most influential to him, Inez says:

“Paul McCartney is Bass Playing 101; a great place to start if you are just picking up the instrument. If you sit and listen to his basslines as their own little pieces you’ll be blown away by how much personality and humor he puts into them.”

Rock bassists also formed a major influence on a young Inez, with Cliff Burton being a favourite, thanks to his melodic playing and gritty tone, as was John Entwistle.

“I was instantly drawn to John Entwistle’s aggression and lead bass tones as an integral part of the Who. He never took the easy approach to his writing, and always wrote in context with each individual song.

“I remember meeting him at a Hollywood restaurant when I was starting out, and I said to him, ‘Mr Entwistle, I think you are a brilliant bass player.’ He looked me right in the eye and without blinking, said, ‘I fucking know that!’ and walked away. I thought that was the coolest thing ever!”

“Cliff Burton was magical to watch in concert with Metallica. I always felt he wasn’t there to entertain you, he was there to kick your face in! He had a unique way of focusing all that aggression and angst into a finely-tuned assault, delivered with the explosiveness of a shuttle launch. He smashed stereotypes of what the capabilities and limitations of the instrument were at the time.

“John Paul Jones is another fantastic all-around musician. His solid fundamentals gave him a great platform to experiment as a bassist, songwriter, and producer. Chops, tone, and an inventive brain – this dude is an all-timer!”

• Alice In Chains are on tour across the U.S. right now and play Black Sabbath's Back to the Beginning show on 5 July, Villa Park, Birmingham. See Alice in Chains for dates and ticket details.

When Guitar World reaches the alternative metal icon – and founding guitarist of Alice in Chains – he’s been running the press gauntlet on a rare day off from his summer tour supporting U.K. rockers Bush.

This is Cantrell’s fourth call in as many hours, and while he’s more than willing to dig into the meat of I Want Blood – the guitarist’s sensationally snarling new solo album – he also notes that talking about himself for so long has worked up an appetite. In an admission befitting the record’s insatiable title, he says he’s ripping into a steak the second he wraps the interview.

Sure enough, there’s a ton of bite to I Want Blood, too. That much was clear once Cantrell unveiled first single Vilified, a brooding-but-teeth-bearing attack on social media pile-on culture and the rise of AI. Sonically, the bruiser is fueled by wah-and-talk-box-brawny riffage, a 7/4 metal-funk pre-chorus that conjures both Alice in Chains’ Dirt classic Them Bones, and the murky bang behind Cantrell’s earliest solo releases, 1998’s Boggy Depot and 2002’s Degradation Trip.

That patented gloom wasn’t entirely absent on his last record, 2021’s Brighten, but that eclectic outing also found Cantrell parting the clouds with moments of pedal-steel-blaring Southern pop-timism. In a sense, I Want Blood taps back into Cantrell’s primordially heavy essence, and it quickly turns into an all-out bloodletting.

“On this one I was pretty pure,” Cantrell says of an inherently viscous and vicious drive that pushed I Want Blood into “a much more aggressive lane,” following the relatively sunny days of Brighten.

“I love heavy music, and I love boiled down, minimal music… While I’m not intentionally trying to guide it that way, maybe psychically that’s an itch that needs to be scratched every once in a while.”

After concluding Brighten’s tour cycle in 2023, a scabrous writing period yielded Vilified, as well as the moody ’80s metal grandeur of Off the Rails, the grunge-groovy quarter-note bending Held Your Tongue and more. Though the songs were more sinister-sounding than anything on Brighten, Cantrell notes that his pre-production ritual at “Casa de Cantrell” remained unchanged.

“For any record I’ve been involved with – whether I’m with Alice or on my own – there’s three or four months of demoing shit in my house, with a friend of mine running all the gear so I can just play guitar,” he says.

“I’ve kept myself intentionally ignorant with recording gear, computers and Pro Tools so that I can have somebody fly that half of the plane while I’m doing all the other stuff. I like working in that way – in a tandem. I’m a team player. I’ve always been more comfortable working in that regard.”

Though Cantrell’s name is once again taking top billing, the guitarist graciously praises the crack team of musicians that helped him put together this latest release. This included the towering rhythm section of Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin, who’d previously backed Cantrell on Degradation Trip.

Longtime friend Duff McKagan likewise added low-end. Brighten co-producer Tyler Bates returned to co-write Southern gothic stompout Echoes of Laughter. Joe Barresi, who’d previously worked on Alice in Chains’ Rainier Fog, manned the boards and lent out some crucial gear.

Better Lovers vocalist Greg Puciato, who has been singing with Cantrell off and on since 2019, and Lola Colette, who likewise handles keyboard and guitar duties in Cantrell’s live band, added backups on a handful of songs.

Flanked by his friends, Cantrell came into I Want Blood with a prizefighter’s confidence.

The title track, he says, is about “stepping into the middle of the ring” for an existential boxing match with the personification of Time. While he knows it’s a losing battle – for no one, Cantrell says, beats the “all-time champion” – the musician is still determined to fight tooth and nail, every step of the way.

Judging by Cantrell’s words on the just-as-uppercutting chorus to Vilified, no matter the outcome, he’s bound to put on “a hell of a show.”

Vilified has got some classic Jerry-sounding riffs to it – scary as hell; heavy, yet oddly funky. How did you go about building that one out?

“It’s a gasser, is what it is. [Laughs] And I mean that physically – trying to sing and play that at the same time is pretty rough. A lot of the material on this album is me trying to hit a mark above where I normally think I can operate, and Vilified is a prime example of that.

“It felt scary. I felt like my face was smashed against the ceiling of my ability. That’s a great place to operate from, though, because you’re like, ‘I don’t know if I can pull this off, but I’m going to try.’ And then when you come up with something like Vilified, it’s like, ‘Fuck yeah!’

“There’s a couple of songs off this record that are tough to pull off live. You talk about patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. [Laughs] It’s like thinking in a completely different rhythm to what’s going on musically. That’s always interesting. Thankfully – both in Alice and also in the band I reside in for this tour – there’s a lot of really talented people to lean on. It takes a team.”

Thematically, Vilified is taking stock of AI, simulacra, digital assimilation, data mining and this downward slide toward technocracy. Seems like you’ve got a skeptical view on things. What are your general thoughts on AI, as it seems to be getting more and more integrated into our lives?

“I put it in the song because there’s been a hysteria about AI lately. It’s interesting that everybody has jumped on that particular aspect of the song, though, because that’s not the meat of it. It’s the seasoning. AI is the pepper on the steak, but it’s not the steak. The song is very human, actually.

“Maybe it’s a call to be better to each other. I think at times there’s a rush for us to throw people under the bus, or to want to point the finger and say, ‘That’s a horrible person; you don’t get to play on the playground anymore.’ We all make mistakes. That’s how you evolve as a human being, by making mistakes and learning from them.

“I think at times there’s a bloodlust, where it feels like people are willing to round people up, put ’em up on a hill and start throwing rocks at them. That’s what that song speaks to. The AI element is that the time that we’re living in [exists around] the iPhone and social media; [it’s about] how connected we are because of that.”

Sticking with tech for a moment, there are AI engines that have studied the songwriting style of Jerry Cantrell, or the nuances of the vocal harmonies in Alice in Chains’ music. People can feed their own songs into an engine and then make it sound like you or Layne Staley are singing it back to them. There are Alice in Chains lyric generators. What do you think of all that?

“It’s a facsimile. I’ve had a couple of buddies show that to me, though. I think Greg [Puciato] did it to me once when we were at Rainbow Bar & Grill [in Los Angeles], having some pizza. My buddy [stylist/designer] Kelly Cole was also like, ‘Check this out – you can make an Alice in Chains song!’

“I was like, ‘I don’t think so.’ [Laughs] They would create a version of something through the engine, but then I’d listen to it, or I’d read the lyrics, and I would never fuckin’ write something like that. It kind of sounds like me… but not really.

“The thing about it is, AI’s a tool. You can use a hammer to bash somebody’s head in, or you can use it to build a house. It’s really up to the user. Although it requires a lot of machines to make music sometimes – like mixing boards, guitars, amplifiers, cables, effects, batteries, Pro Tools and AI – it takes a human to put the emotion and the feeling into a song. I just don’t think that can be replicated by a machine.”

What can you say, then, about the human drive behind something like this record’s Off the Rails, which has this minor key, classic ’80s metal feel to it. There’s a lot of gravitas to that pull-off intro.

“I hear my influences come out every time I make a record. On that song in particular, that opening riff takes me back to listening to Maiden and Priest when I was in junior high – I love both of those bands.

“And then when the power chords come in behind it, I hear AC/DC and Metallica. But throughout it all, I also hear me. It’s cool to be able to hear those [influences] poke their heads through there, while your [own musical] identity is still just as strong as those, if not stronger.”

There’s a line on Off the Rails where you’re singing about “heat distortion.” We’re taking this out of context, but this seems like a good spot to get into some of the gear on this record. What were you literally bringing the heat with in the studio, rig-wise?

“I’ll give you something that you didn’t ask for first. I was stuck with that particular section of lyrics for a while. You know, you’ll go through periods where you’re writing music and then you hit a wall. Like, you’ve got a good bunch of words [to start with], and then everything you come up with sounds stupid.

“Sometimes you need a palate cleanser, and a well-made film does that for me. On [Brighten’s] Siren Song, for instance, [2019 psychological horror film] The Lighthouse was that palate cleanser. The song is not about a lighthouse… but there is a mermaid character in it.

“And with Off the Rails, I was stuck – didn’t quite know where to finish it – so I went and saw Killers of the Flower Moon. There’s this scene where all of the workers are burning the fields, and they become distorted figures on the screen. That’s where I got ‘heat distortion’ from. Even though it has nothing to do with the film, specifically, Martin Scorsese broke me out of my writer’s block and I was able to get a second verse started.”

“But heat-wise on the record? I experiment with a lot of stuff. I’ve worked with a lot of great producers: Dave Jerden, Toby Wright, Nick Raskulinecz, Joe Barresi. They all have one thing in common: they’re fuckin’ weirdo, gearhead rock ’n’ roll fans.

“They know things like, ‘Keith Richards used this effect and that cab and this amp.’ I’m not as knowledgeable, so I hang out with guys like that so that when I mention a song they go, ‘I know what he used on that!’

“Actually, there’s a Stones song in another Scorsese movie, The Departed [Gimme Shelter], and Keith Richards uses an amazing tremolo effect on his guitar. I copped that. We found a 1958 DeArmond tremolo pedal, and I put it on Echoes of Laughter and maybe another song.”

“But in general, my gear remains the same. Guitar-wise you’re always going to hear 'Blue Dress' and 'No War,' my two O.G. G&L Rampages, and you’re going to hear 'D-Trip,' the Les Paul I’ve had forever. Those three guitars are pretty much on every record. And you know… whatever other paintbrush we wanted to use: Flying Vs, SGs, Les Paul Juniors, Teles, Strats.

“Amp-wise, I used the Friedman JJ [Junior], but we also really leaned on Bogners. The Bogner Fish is the main amp on this record. We also used some Snorklers. We also brought in some elements from my early recordings, from the [producer Dave] Jerden years.

“Joe was really taken by Jerden’s way of layering, and recording different guitar frequencies on different amps. Like, the high stuff would run through a Rockman module, and the mids would run through a Marshall modified by Bogner, and then [there would be] another layer with another Bogner.”

At the top of the spring there was a bit of a snafu with your 'Blue Dress' Rampage. It got lost somewhere around San Bernardino – presumed to have been stolen at one point. You put the call out to social media to help you find it, but quickly retracted that when you’d figured out it was just misplaced. What all happened there? Was that during the recording sessions?

“We weren’t in session, but I was doing some photo shoots for album artwork. As the guitar was being moved around, it got put in the wrong place for a few days.

“The reason I acted the way I did was because a guitar that Eddie Van Halen gave me [went missing] for 18 years. I had a very personal guitar [a 1992 goldtop Ernie Ball EVH] stolen from me during the making of Degradation Trip that somehow walked out the front door of Henson Studios. I was lucky enough to get that back.

“So, I guess that’s why I was so quick to throw the call out there, just in case ‘Blue Dress’ was missing. Very happy to say I cried wolf, and that I was mistaken. More importantly, I was appreciative that so many people rallied around me.

“So many of my brethren and sisters have had really important guitars stolen or disappear. We rarely get them back. Luckily this one was just misplaced for a couple of days. I get to make another record on it. It’s on tour with me right now, and I’m rockin’ it as we speak.”

There’s obviously a panic that sets in when you think a guitar is gone for good. Did you play anything in particular once you had it back in your arms, to settle your nerves?

“I was done recording at that point, so I was probably running rehearsals for this tour. But yeah… I bought that guitar in Dallas in 1985, when I was 19 and working at a music store called Arnold & Morgan Music Company; I bought ‘No War’ a few months after that. I had both of those guitars while I was living out there and jammin’ with bands, right after high school. I’ve had those guitars for 39 years. They’re like a part of me, you know?”

You’re also playing bass guitar on a few songs from this record. What are the nuances of your rhythm style, compared to Robert Trujillo or Duff McKagan?

“I am a guitar player playing bass, and those guys are bass players. [Laughs] I can come up with cool bass riffs, and for certain songs I have a unique feel that maybe they wouldn’t come up with.

“Like on Brighten, for instance, there were a couple of times where Duff and I would Frankenstein a bass part together, because he liked a couple of things I did, but was like, ‘I can’t replicate that.’ It was kind of cool being produced by him, to become a better bass player through Duff McKagan – and Robert, too! Duff and I Frankenstein-ed a couple songs on this one, too, like Afterglow.

“I enjoy playing bass. I come from the kind of Mark Evans and Cliff Williams, AC/DC-fuckin’ straight simple bass. That’s my style – nice, solid and basic. I might throw a riff at you once in a while, but it’s all in service to the song.”

Thinking of some unique feels within I Want Blood, one of the wilder swings on the record is Throw Me a Line, which has this heavy, almost rocksteady hypnotism to it. It’s a different groove, compared to the rest of the album.

“The best part of that song is when that main riff comes back. The chorus is good, the B part is good, and the solo section is cool, but the highlight is when it comes back to that intro riff. It’s just relentless.

“I hear some Billy Gibbons in there. I hear some Tony Iommi in there. And I hear me, too. It’s a really fun song to play, but even though that groove sounds very simple, it’s tricky to sing that vocal line across that rhythm. I’m still working on that one.”

Texturally, there’s a lot of talk box going on in this song – and, actually, maybe through most of Vilified, too?

“There is a lot of Cry Baby and talk box on this record. We went heavy with those. We used two different kinds of talk boxes on Vilified and Throw Me a Line. One is the Dunlop that I’ve been using forever, which is just the box on the floor and the tube coming up to the mic. But while we were messing around with talk boxes one day, Joe showed me a clip of Jeff Beck with a Kustom ‘The Bag’ on.

“It’s much smaller – like a bag that hangs over your shoulder, with a much smaller straw and a wood bead for you to hold onto with your teeth. It was a different feel, but it was so fucking expressive! I had never seen that clip of Jeff Beck before, and then Joe was like, ‘I’ve got one of these, man. We should try this!’ So he whipped that thing out. I believe the Bag is what you’re hearing on Vilified and Throw Me a Line.”

When it comes to solos on this record, you’re really leaning into that dark, bluesy vibrato on Echoes of Laughter. What do you recall about putting that song together?

“That’s a song that Tyler [Bates] and I wrote together; it’s actually the one co-write on the album. Tyler’s always a strong sounding board for me. I trust his opinion. Even if we’re not actively writing a song together, I like to run things by him.

“He’ll give me ideas on where to go with arrangements. We operate in a similar space – we like dark, atmospheric, cinematic rock ’n’ roll. But we had also done Brighten together, and we of course toured together, too.

“I’d heard him play that main guitar figure a number of times. You sit down and jam, and sometimes you drift back to a favorite riff that you haven’t developed into anything yet. He was playing guitar with me one day and I was like, 'That thing wants to be a song! Why don’t we make something out of this, because you’ve been playing it for two years now.' [Laughs]

“So, it was me, him, and Maxwell Urasky, the engineer on the demo sessions for this record. I just kind of blurted out one of the lines off the top of my head, just as a placeholder, but it ended up being a great chorus, word-for-word. [Bates] kept trying to pass the guitar off, like, 'Here, you put something in there,” but I was like, 'Fuck it, dude, you’re doing great. Keep going!’

“I added a few elements, musically, but basically Tyler wrote the music for that song, and I wrote the vocal. It was a great collaboration with my friend. He also helped me through the process of bringing Brighten into the world. Even though he wasn’t as available, because he had other projects and commitments, he was definitely a guiding force on this record, too.”

Is there any push and pull in your mind between what could make a good Jerry Cantrell solo riff and what might end up as an Alice in Chains song?

“I think the only difference that really exists is the obvious one: if I’m with Alice and we’re recording it, then it’s an Alice tune. If I’m not with them, then it’s not. Alice in Chains is a really versatile band. It was important to us to have as much diversity as we could early on [to see] what people would accept from us.

“We took a few gambles between Facelift and Sap, and then between Dirt and Jar of Flies. You couldn’t get more different – going from heavy, to acoustic, to even heavier, and then another fuckin’ weird, ethereal kind of acoustic EP.

“We opened the playing field for ourselves so that we could go anywhere… we earned that for ourselves. But you know… it’s really just that: if we’re together recording songs, it becomes an Alice song. Doing songs with some other folks that maybe has elements of what I do with Alice? I carry that with me, but it’s not an Alice thing.”

It’s been a few years since Alice in Chains put out Rainier Fog. We’re here to talk about I Want Blood, but, respectfully, have you been working on any music with the band behind the scenes?

“I’m just at the very beginning of the campaign for this record, so right now I’m committed to doing this. I began writing for this record last year, and I recorded the album this year. I’m already on tour for it. I’ll probably wrap this thing up sometime next fall. That’ll be the end of the campaign, but that’s a long way to go. So, right now this is where I’m at – I want blood, man!”

• I Want Blood is out now via Double J.

Alice in Chain's founder, lead guitarist, main songwriter, and co-lead vocalist Jerry Cantrell has etched his name in the rock history books as an integral part of the hugely influential '90s grunge guitar sound. However, as an aspiring artist cutting his teeth in Seattle, Cantrell sought every way possible to make a mark – including attempting to hand over an Alice in Chains demo tape to a certain classic rock band, back in 1988.

“Like all young artists, sometimes you run into somebody that's one of your heroes and, you know, pass them on your demo tape or whatever,” he explains on the Broken Record podcast.

“I lived right behind the Seattle Center, and that's where they [Guns N' Roses] were playing. So, I handed it to his [Axl Rose's] security guard, and his security guard threw it away as they were walking, so it wasn't Axl's fault.”

Fast forward to Cantrell actually making it with Alice in Chains, and he eventually got to know the Guns N' Roses members personally. Naturally, he relayed this anecdote from these early days…

“Now, I told Axl that story too, and we laughed about that as well!” he concludes.

Years later, in a true full circle moment, Alice in Chains would go on to tour with the classic rock greats as the openers of their 2016 reunion tour.

In other Jerry Cantrell news, the guitarist recently opened up about temporarily losing his trusty G&L 'Blue Dress' Rampage – the guitar behind practically every key Alice in Chains record – last year.

Last year, Jerry Cantrell flexed his riff-writing chops once again with his latest solo album, I Want Blood – and, for two of those tracks, it turns out he was inspired by Jeff Beck to use an oddball piece of rare gear.

To no surprise, the record’s tones are exquisite, with the Alice In Chains icon's trusty G&L Rampage electric guitar playing a key role. However, beneath the riffs are some weird and wonderful textures at play. For those, Cantrell dug out some old faithfuls, as well as some new favorites.

“There is a lot of Cry Baby and talk box on this record,” he tells Guitar World. “We went heavy with those. We used two different kinds of talk boxes on Vilified and Throw Me a Line. One is the Dunlop that I’ve been using forever, which is just the box on the floor and the tube coming up to the mic.”

The album was recorded at JHOC Studio in Pasadena, California, and a search for more textural goodness saw Cantrell and co-producer Joe Barresi (Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, Melvins) turn to some old clips for inspiration.

“While we were messing around with talk boxes one day, Joe showed me a clip of Jeff Beck with a Kustom The Bag on,” Cantrell continues.

Released in the late 1960s and brought to the stage by Peter Frampton and Steppenwolf's John Kay, The Bag looks like a weird cross between a bagpipe and a talk box. It’s slung over a player’s shoulder with a tube running from a bag to he player’s mouth for wah/talk box tones. Not many were made.

Jeff Beck most notably used it on the Blow by Blow record on the track She's A Woman. The below clip was possibly the one that captured Cantrell’s imagination so vividly.

“It was a different feel, but it was so fucking expressive,” Cantrell says of the clip he say. “I had never seen that clip of Jeff Beck before, and then Joe was like, ‘I’ve got one of these, man. We should try this!’ So he whipped that thing out. I believe The Bag is what you’re hearing on Vilified and Throw Me a Line.”

The record has, understandably, been warmly received by fans, with Cantrell declaring it to be “some of my best songwriting and playing.”

Bass duties are spearheaded by a heavyweight one-two of Duff McKagan (Guns N’ Roses) and Robert Trujillo (Metallica), while Faith No More’s Mike Bordin also features on drums. That essentially saw the Cantrell/Trujillo/Bordin line-up behind 2002’s powerhouse double album Degradation Trip re-unite.

Cantrell had caused a minor stir last year when he declared that his iconic G&L Rampage Blue Dress guitar had been stolen, only to find out it had just been misplaced. It may have seemed an overreaction, but he’s now offered more context to his panic, revealing he once lost an electric guitar that Eddie Van Halen had gifted him nearly two decades over.

He’s also spoken out against amp modelers and has admitted that tracking solos are usually expletive-filled affairs for him.

Jerry Cantrell has opened up about the relief he felt after he lost his beloved ‘Blue Dress’ G&L Rampage in April 2024, only to find it turned up safe and sound, having been misplaced.

At the time, the blue lights were officially flashing in search of the ‘Blue Dress’ and G&L said it was on standby ready to build Cantrell a replica – having previously released a signature guitar based on the Rampage.

The Alice In Chains guitarist even offered the promise of a reward for anyone who could secure its safe return. Fast-forward 24 hours, though, and the Rampage was recovered, as a sheepish but mightily relieved Cantrell thanked everyone for their interest, acknowledging it had been misplaced, not stolen.

Now, speaking to Guitar World, Cantrell explained he has no regrets that he “cried wolf” because he had seen this movie before.

In 2002, while recording Degradation Trip, his 1992 goldtop Ernie Ball Music Man EVH that was a personal gift from Eddie Van Halen was stolen, and it took the best part of 20 years to get it back.

“The reason I acted the way I did was because a guitar that Eddie Van Halen gave me [went missing] for 18 years,” said Cantrell.

“I had a very personal guitar [a 1992 goldtop Ernie Ball EVH] stolen from me during the making of Degradation Trip that somehow walked out the front door of Henson Studios. I was lucky enough to get that back.

“So, I guess that’s why I was so quick to throw the call out there, just in case ‘Blue Dress’ was missing. Very happy to say I cried wolf, and that I was mistaken.”

Cantrell’s ‘Blue Dress’ G&L Rampage – serial #: G016467 – is one of the most important guitars in grunge history. It has been on every Alice in Chains record and, indeed, almost everything Cantrell has ever recorded. Prior to its disappearance last year, the Kahler-equipped Strat-style guitar had been on display at Seattle’s MoPOP Museum.

“I bought that guitar in Dallas in 1985, when I was 19 and working at a music store called Arnold & Morgan Music Company; I bought ‘No War’ a few months after that,” he says. “I had both of those guitars while I was living out there and jammin’ with bands, right after high school. I’ve had those guitars for 39 years. They’re like a part of me, you know?”

Cantrell says he was taken aback by the response to his missing Rampage and he knows many of his friends have not been so lucky.

“So many of my brethren and sisters have had really important guitars stolen or disappear,” he says. “We rarely get them back. Luckily this one was just misplaced for a couple of days. I get to make another record on it. It’s on tour with me right now, and I’m rockin’ it as we speak.”

Getting a stolen guitar back is easier said than done. The first job is finding it. Even if you’ve got a fanbase on the hunt for it these things take time. That Eddie Van Halen guitar was lost in the wind before some Alice In Chains fans did some Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew-style sleuthing and intervened.

“A couple of AIC fans and collectors tracked it down and tried to do a sting on this kid who had it and was trying to sell it,” said Cantrell, speaking to Guitar World in 2021.

“He went dark on the first guy, who was from Florida. The second guy was a separate collector from San Diego. Between the two of them, it took about two weeks for me to get that guitar back… after 19 years!”

What is it?

How far does £99 get you when it comes to adding a tailored distortion to your pedalboard? You might be surprised to find out that the answer can be ‘further than you think’.

In the last few years, pedal prices and options have shot up, and now to get something outside of the mainstream Big Brand catalogues can be a costly exercise. But, that’s where Funny Little Boxes comes in.

The company started in 2020 as a retailer, but a year later, founder Andy Ilgunas picked up the gauntlet laid down by Let’s Play All Guitar’s Matt Webster to create an overdrive pedal based on the guitar tones from Pearl Jam’s Ten album, resulting in the Funny Little Boxes 1991.

It worked, and worked very well. Since then, we’ve been impressed by FLB’s pursuit of QOTSA’s guitar tones with the Skeleton Key, and now with the release of the Dirt pedal, it’s got its eyes fixed on another alternative guitar hero from the ’90s: Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell.

Now, it’s arguable that listening to Alice in Chains might leave you with a question: what exactly is the Jerry Cantrell guitar tone? To me, it’s a mix of modulated clean sounds, bluesy crunch and, at times, borderline metal tones. Just as with the 1991 and Skeleton Key, the Dirt doesn’t aim to create a carbon copy of any one sound in particular, instead delivering the essence of AiC’s guitar sounds as a cross section.

That said, Cantrell and the band worked with producer Dave Jerden on Dirt, and depending on who you listen to –– and when they said it –– recollections of what gear was used to forge the overall guitar sound from both Cantrell and Jerden vary to include a mix of amps from Randall, Bogner, Marshall, Mesa/Boogie and even the infamous Rockman amp.

What is clear, though, is that Jerry’s sound on Dirt was built on the concept of blending multiple amps together for each part, using the tonal qualities of each to highlight bass, mid and treble frequencies by balancing the faders for each, with a lot of double-tracking too.

So, what we’re looking for from the Dirt is a gain provider that can cover the more vintage/semi-clean side of AiC’s output, along with the more metal-leaning high gain sounds.

Similarly, Funny Little Boxes also acknowledges that the Dirt pedal lends itself to plenty of other tones from that era including Tool, Smashing Pumpkins and RATM, are we dealing with a jack-of-all-trades?

Specs

Launch price: $99/£99
Type: Distortion
Controls: Dirt (gain), Output, Bass, Middle, Treble
Features: Alice in Chains-inspired distortion in a box
Connectivity: Input, output, power
Bypass: True bypass
Power: 9-volt, 11 mA
Dimensions: 6.5x4x12.5 mm
Weight: 10.68oz/303g
Options: N/A
Contact Funny Little Boxes

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆

The Dirt comes built into a regular die-cast aluminium enclosure/project box and is powder-coated in an orange/red hue which looks a bit like a DS-1 with the heat turned up.

The surface is textured, with the finish applied evenly, and on the underside of the pedal are four screws to gain access to the inside. It’s unlikely you’ll need to do this, though, as the Dirt runs on a PSU only, so if you’re a fan of outfitting your pedals with 9-volt PP3s (and given the abundance of pedalboard power supplies available, it’s worth investing), you’re going to need to find another way to power it.

All of the sockets and nuts are metal, which feel sturdy and inspire confidence over some affordable pedals which use plastic-barrelled jacks and fixings, and the control knobs are attached using brass screws in order to avoid them popping off easily.

A quick peek inside reveals a neatly-made PCB, complete with the Easter egg “Into the flood again” from Alice in Chains’ Would? screened onto the board.

As well as this, there’s the FLB and Let’s Play All and Dirt logos along with credits for ‘Tone Consultant’ (LPA’s Matt Webster), PCB design (Soundlad Liverpool’s Marc Dunberry) and a nod to John Stewart who designed the tasteful Dirt graphic printed on the control face of the pedal. One of the screws took a little more care to connect to the thread, but it did reconnect smoothly.

Overall, it spans the more bespoke feel you get from a more boutique pedal and the quality we’d hope for from a mass-produced stomper.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★½

As you can see, the layout of the Dirt is quite simple: there’s a Dirt (gain) control, master volume, three-band EQ and a switch for engaging/bypassing the pedal. With top-mounted sockets, powering and routing within a pedalboard is convenient, and a simple LED lets you know whether the pedal is on or off.

The Volume pot is a logarithmic (audio) taper, so there’s a smooth, more subtle run-up to unity gain at around the 2 o’clock position, beyond which the curve becomes steeper for the rest of the control’s travel.

It’s all quite self-explanatory, but if you’re looking for setting suggestions, Matt Webster from Let’s Play All has created a video with heaps of AiC-inspired tone settings for the Dirt, as well as some non-AiC sounds which is definitely worth checking out above.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

Between his single-pickup G&L Rampage and Gibson Les Paul Custom, the lion’s share of Cantrell’s sounds are built on humbuckers. Armed with an HSS-loaded Strat and Les Paul Standard, I set about getting my bearings with the Dirt.

Plugged into the clean channel of a valve amp, the Dirt’s starting point with the gain at minimum begins with a crunchy overdrive. At the other extreme, you might be expecting super-saturation, but the Dirt’s gain range maxes out at a heavy rock distortion. Further proof that heavy guitar sounds aren’t solely based on an excessive blanket of gain.

With the clipping restored to its minimum and the output at unity, experimenting with the tone controls yields some interesting results. First is that the bass control is relatively subtle. Don’t expect huge low end from this pedal, if anything, cutting the control has the biggest effect, working more like a studio-style high-pass filter to remove mud rather than imparting heaps of bass into the mix.

The treble control adds a layer of bite into the sound that remains nice and smooth for all but the most extreme settings, but the biggest surprise comes from the mid control. There’s a lot of mileage here, with a parametric-style ‘swoosh’ as we turn the control; when cut you can achieve a pretty heavy scoop that works nicely for the ’90s-style tones. But equally impressive is the breadth of frequencies present when boosting too.

Often, midrange controls on gain pedals can turn boxy and almost ‘radio’ effect-like at their higher settings. While the Dirt will do this, the boosted mid sounds lend some nice attack and harmonics into the sound that does a great job of –– sorry ’90s fanatics! –– going after some hot-rodded ’70s and ’80s sounds.

The EQ section all feels very interactive, particularly between the mid and treble controls, where there seems to be some overlap, so it’s definitely worth getting stuck-in.

With the gain pumped up, the Dirt does a great job of maintaining its dynamics. Pick attack remains strong and note separation is still present, making it work for beefy drop-D chord chugs alongside arpeggiated riffs alike.

I rattled my way through some of LPA’s suggested settings and the Dirt delivered. Swapping to the Strat’s single coils and pairing some chorus at lighter gain settings is a lot of fun too. It’s here that the Dirt displays its versatility, and it’s hard to argue with Funny Little Boxes’ claims. Grunge fans won’t be disappointed.

Verdict

Funny Little Boxes and Let’s Play All’s collaborations trigger the ‘collector’ part of the brain. If you grew-up in an era of physical music, and more specifically, the golden age of the ’90s, there’s every chance you’re going to want to buy the Dirt along with the two previous pedals for completism.

But, where the Skeleton Key goes after a very pointed tonal flavour, it’s arguable that the Dirt is the least tailored of the trio. It does everything it sets out to do, but does beg the question: is the allure of Cantrell’s playing in the sounds or his style? I’d argue it’s a combination of both.

Slow, lawnmower bends, discordant arpeggios, drop-D tuning and fantastic lead hooks peppered with odd timings are all part of the recipe. But throw them at the Dirt, and you’re rewarded with authenticity.

It’s pitched just right (arguably too low) price-wise, too, making it a versatile all-rounder within its fairly wide target wheelhouse. Get the tones without shelling out them bones and you’ll be onto a winner.

Guitar World verdict: While the Dirt perfectly apes Jerry Cantrell's guitar sounds, it also does a great job at plenty of other bands from the era. For the price, it's excellent value, nailing the brief and delivering a wider scope than the name suggests. You'll need a PSU to power it, but hey, it's 2025.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Funny Little Boxes

• Funny little Boxes 1991 Overdrive review

Jerry Cantrell took part in a fan Q&A in the newest issue of Metal Hammer, during which he teased the possibility of a high-profile collaboration with another big-name player in heavy music: James Hetfield.

The Alice in Chains electric guitar star is no stranger to impromptu partnerships, and over the years has sporadically joined forces with Metallica specifically for a suite of collaborations.

In 1998, he featured on Metallica’s take on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tuesday’s Gone, which dropped as part of the band’s Garage Inc cover album, and on stage he’s linked up with Hetfield and co at a number of benefit concerts.

And, when quizzed over whether he and Hetfield would revive their partnership any time soon – be that for a one-off single or a fully fledged album – Cantrell refused to rule it out, revealing the pair have already been jamming together and discussed it... sort of.

“James and I have talked about it, kind of,” Cantrell responds. “We never had a formal conversation but I’ve jammed with him at Kirk [Hammett, Metallica guitarist]’s place.

“I’ve even spent a night or two at his house, and we’ve ended up with guitars in the kitchen and on the porch. It’s something I’d be really curious about, even to just write a song with him.

“As for whether it’d turn into something more than that, he’s got a pretty demanding day job. Ha ha! So I’d understand if it never comes to be.”

That doesn’t sound like a definitive ‘no’ to our ears, but unfortunately it’s still a far cry from an official confirmation of a future team-up.

Nevertheless, Cantrell’s enthusiasm is quite clearly there, and such enthusiasm is further bolstered by the fact the grunge hero has previously gone on record to voice his admiration for the Metallica frontman.

In fact, in a separate interview with Metal Hammer from 2020, Cantrell named Hetfield the greatest frontman in metal.

“As a guitarist, I come from the Malcolm Young school of rock, which is about rhythm and songwriting,” he said. “If you talk to anybody, I’m not really known as a virtuoso soloist. Where it’s at for me is rhythm, tone, feel and arrangement. I think James comes from that school too.

“What makes James such a great frontman is his physical presence. Nobody else commands the same kind of respect and attention without it being self-seeking or egocentric.

“Will he go down in history as a rock icon? He already has – he’s the godfather, man.”

Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the new issue of Metal Hammer.

Jerry Fulton Cantrell Jr. is a master storyteller. If you’ve listened to any of his recordings with Alice In Chains or as a solo artist, you’ll know he has a panache for getting to the heart of the emotion behind the music, embedding the listener deep within the sonic world he’s created.

The pictures he paints using his guitar and voice feel inexplicably vivid, attacking the human senses from all mediums, with melodies and harmonies you can almost touch, see and taste.

In the early ’90s, Cantrell’s powerful chemistry with singer Layne Staley made Alice In Chains one of the most influential bands in an era when Seattle was the crucible of alternative rock.

There was an intense emotional darkness in their music – not only in heavy, riff-driven songs such as Man In The Box, We Die Young, Would? and Rooster from the albums Facelift and Dirt – but also in the beautiful acoustic tracks laid down on the EPs Sap and Jar Of Flies.

But even without Staley, who died in 2002, Cantrell has steered Alice In Chains through a second phase with frontman William DuVall alongside the classic-era rhythm section of bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney on three acclaimed studio albums.

And while the band has kept Cantrell busy since 2005, recent years have seen him working again as a solo artist. His 2021 album Brighten was his first solo release in almost two decades since 2002’s Degradation Trip.

And now comes I Want Blood, a more up-tempo and hard-hitting record than the acoustic-focused Brighten. It proves that Jerry Cantrell’s creative remit is one that’s unusually broad for an artist working within the confines of rock. The sky really is the limit for this guitar hero…

This album has more distorted electric guitars and less acoustics that your last one. What made you want to take off the cowboy hat and get heavy?

“The last one probably had some country tinges, but if you were expecting another one of those, well, I just did that! If you look at my discography and listen to what came before what followed, the next one usually doesn’t match the last. That’s what I find fun. I don’t know where it’s going when I start.

“The cool thing for me is we covered a lot of ground early on in Alice In Chains. People got used to us doing face-melting f*ckin’ metal stuff to acoustic things like Sap or Jar Of Flies. We cut a pretty wide field for us to play on early on and that’s something I always do, whether it’s with Alice or not. I like to explore all the space.”

It’s interesting what happens when you submit and go with the flow.

“Yeah! I don’t sit down and think I’m going to write a heavy or acoustic record. I just get the urge to take the journey and create something. That’s part of the fun. You’re operating in the dark. I don’t have a light... alright, maybe a little flame in front of my face, but that’s it. I look to create things that don’t exist, making something out of nothing.

“It’s always interesting to see where I end up. I like the heavy stuff as well as spacious, acoustic ideas and everything in between. I’m very proud of this record, it’s got some ferocity and teeth to it. I’m glad it’s nothing like the last one!”

The lead track, Vilified, has some atmospheric harmonised leads rather than full-blown shredding. Your solos always make a point, serving the song first and foremost.

“I make do with what I can do. As you correctly stated, I am not a shredder. I wish I could shred, but I kind of gave up that conquest years ago! I always treat my solos like a scene change. I try to make them singable. Those seem to be the solos that have the longest lasting impact with me as a fan.

“I like the melodic, cool things that have more vibe than technical prowess. Sure, I can play, but there are plenty of guys out there who could smoke me technically. I do what I do, and would like to think I do it well. And yeah, with every record, it’s interesting to see what I can achieve through harmonies.

“I’m such a huge fan of guitar duos. I hear Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. I hear the Schenker brothers. I hear Kirk and James from Metallica. I hear Joe Perry and Brad Whitford. I love Thin Lizzy, what can I say? Those elements are always in me.”

The lyrics to Vilified discuss the topic of A.I. – which begs the question, have you ever plugged your guitar into your laptop or amp modeler?

“I look at them as tools, but I prefer old analogue tube amps. When I record, that’s pretty much what I use. I have used a Fractal, Kemper or plug-in in the past, just for little parts to create an effecty-type thing.

“But in the demo process, I’m almost exclusively playing through my Kemper. I’ve got every amp I’ve ever played through, plus everyone else’s loaded into that thing, including bass amps. It’s a great tool for not having to carry a bunch of gear around.

“My studio is very spartan and lo-fi. It’s just a little Pro Tools rig and a Kemper with some guitars and basses on the walls. I will usually do the basses through a Sans Amp direct. That’s the demo process. When I get to the real recording, I start whipping out the tube amps, analogue effects and all that stuff.”

A lot of players use digital gear to make touring easier, too. Have you ever tried that?

“I’m reluctant to use digital gear live, but a lot of compatriots think that the technology is getting better. I understand that moving heads and cabs around internationally comes at an astronomical price. A lot of my peers have turned to Fractals as a smaller and inexpensive way to get close to their sound. I have looked at that but I’m not there yet.

“I’ve done a few gigs outside of the US with those things and it still feels like a fuckin’ electronic toy to me. But I think Metallica guys were the first ones I heard about using those live. I was like ‘Fuck, man, what are you playing through?’ and they’d tell me it was a Fractal. So it definitely can sound good.

“But, like anything else, you’ve got to know that tool and spend the time or have somebody around who knows how to run those things. I’m about as dumb as it gets when it comes to being a gearhead.

“I’m the guy who owns a 1963 and 1967 Corvette, but couldn’t do anything mechanically on them. But I know people who can keep them running! I’m not an audiophile when it comes to every guitar, effect and amp. I try to keep my focus on a narrower zone for creation.”

You once said you got into vibe pedals like your Rotovibe because of Robin Trower’s tone on Bridge Of Sighs. Now, there’s a sound…

“Oh, for sure! I think there’s a solo section in the song It Comes that references that. My producer on this album, Joe Barresi, is a big gear nut and guitar head. It’s really fun working with him because he has just about every colour, paintbrush and canvas you can think of.

“We were tripping on Robin Trower and Jeff Beck while making this record, watching old clips of Robin with the vibe or Jeff using his old school talk box in between takes. When it came to that solo, I think we used a Rotovibe and something else to get the Trower sound.”

The intro for Off The Rails almost has a cheeky nod to Iron Maiden’s Wasted Years. Can you hear it?

“Fuck yeah, dude! I’m a huge fan of Iron Maiden. I wanted Alice to be a guitar duo band precisely because of bands like that. And we kind of are, now, since William DuVall joined. Earlier on, Layne would pick up a guitar and play a little bit, but we were mostly just a three-piece with a singer. Now we actually have two guys playing a lot of guitar, so I got my wish!

“But when we initially talked about starting a band, I wanted another guitar player and that was purely because of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith. Or the guys from Priest or Aerosmith. I love the Young brothers [Angus and Malcolm, of AC/DC fame]. There’s something special about bands with two guitar players working as a unit.

“And you’re right, I hear Iron Maiden in that intro for Off The Rails. I’m immediately drawn to those flavours, just because I love that band. It’s cool to hear your influences coming out organically, because you don’t sit down and intend to do anything. It just happens and you can tell that it’s in there.”

Duff McKagan says you swear a lot and are fighting for your leads when recording a solo. Is that true?

“Making music is a really joyous thing in the end, and the process is enjoyable too, but it’s a battle, man! You don’t have to travel very far to bump into the edge of your limitations! But that’s also part of the process and also part of the challenge. Can you put together something together that’s pretty cool?

“You end up surprising yourself a lot of the time. It’s like, ‘I didn’t think I could pull that off!’ That’s exciting, it keeps you interested. Duff’s right, by the way. If you’ve ever been in the studio with me, you’d think I had Tourette’s! I’ve got the worst gutter mouth in the world.

“When I get frustrated or blow something, it erupts. It’s not at anybody, it’s just the situation, man. So I’m talking to me but it’s like, ‘Fuck, man, goddamit!’ There’s a lot of that. If you’re faint of heart and can’t stand some blue exclamations from time to time, it’s probably not very fuckin’ peaceful to be with me in a studio. But it’s actually pretty funny…”

You tend to stick with your main Les Paul and G&L guitars going into your signature Friedman amps. Was there anything else on this album?

“We did make a little bit of a change, going a little more retro and looking back to the earlier years of Alice. We dug out the old Bogner Fish preamp. I think I used a VHT power amp with it back in the old days but now it’s a Fryette, which works really well. When I started talking to Joe, he said we should switch that Fish back in.

“I didn’t even know if it worked but he was like, ‘Well, let’s get it over to Reinhold [Bogner] and get it tuned up.’ Then Reinhold got hold of it, tuned it up and put it side by side with his Fish. Then he said mine sounded better, because of the weird tubes somebody put in over the years. And he didn’t want to f*ck with it because three of my channels sounded better, while only one of his to mine.

“So we only used my Friedman JJ on a couple of songs, and the rest was the Bogner Fish. And there was also a sprinkle of the old Rockman stuff I had used on Facelift and Dirt. That was the main core rig, but we had Wizards, Oranges and a Bogner Snorkler for layering.”

Which guitars won the shoot-out, then?

“There were three we kept coming back to. I used a ton of guitars on this record. Billie Joe Armstrong gave me one of his Juniors a couple of years ago. I used that on quite a few tracks for rhythms and stuff like that. We really leaned heavily on my original Blue Dress and No War G&Ls, plus my D-Trip Les Paul, also with SGs, Teles and Vs going on top.

“We even used a Steve Miller Ibanez Iceman on something with all sorts of cool pedals. And that Jeff Beck talkbox I mentioned earlier is on there, too – one of those old-school bag things [The Bag]. It has a thin tube and a bit you put in front of your teeth.

“Joe Barresi pulled it out, you wear it kinda like a strap and hold it under your arm. It was very cool, I’d never seen one of those before. We did a few tracks with that, including the breakdown of Vilified.”

G&L recently announced they were bringing the Rampage back, which will make a lot of Alice In Chains fans happy…

“Yeah! It is cool. And they’ve said they’ll add a couple of frets to it, and that’s two more frets I’ll have to swear at as I try to play! I love G&L. I’ll be forever tied to those guys, I love their guitars. They’re a great company. It’s the guitar that’s always felt right to me. That and the Gibson Les Paul.

“The way I see it, there are only two guitar brands I play – my G&Ls and my Gibsons. Those have been the main axes on every record. And I’ve actually been talking to Gibson about doing another guitar or two for this cycle, so who knows, there might be more to come there…”

• I Want Blood is out now via Double J.

Funny Little Boxes and Matt Webster of the Let's Play All YouTube channel have announced their third collaborative pedal, the Dirt distortion pedal – which promises to deliver the guitar tones of Alice In Chains' Dirt record and more for just shy of $110.

The pedal's brief was to nail Jerry Cantrell's sought-after guitar tones from the 1991 Alice In Chain's classic, with a particular emphasis on Them Bones – a gilt-edged metal anthem hinging on an angular riff that is known for its hairy yet defined tone.

But the no-nonsense device isn’t limited to encapsulating the sound of one specific song or album. Beyond that, Dirt offers “the crushing intensity, squalling lead tones, and chugging riffs” that epitomized 1990s metal, with its makers namedropping the likes of Slipknot, Silverchair, and Tom Morello with regards to other tones this budget stompbox can muster.

The pedal's distortion comes to life via simple and interactive controls; Dirt for distortion dialing, Volume for pushing the amp, and a three-band EQ. As such, while the pedal can be violent and aggressive, the collaborative minds behind its creation have endeavored to ensure it also packs a lot of clarity.

The “target tone” of Them Bones can be found with the Dirt dial around noon, and the volume at two o'clock. The Bass, Treble and Mids should be pulled a little past the halfway mark.

The song's solo tone is a different beast, and those sounds can also supposedly be coaxed from the pedal. It can be achieved by maxing the Dirt control, dialing the Mids further back, and giving a slight boost to the Treble dial.

Webster says the Dirt's development saw everything from “technical gremlins to hospitalizations”, and required help from Marc Dunberry of Soundlad Liverpool and Simon Andrews of JSA Effects in order to get over the line.

He also muses: “Perhaps it is fitting that a pedal that pays tribute to one of the darkest mainstream albums ever made had such a torturous development process.”

The pedal requires the standard 9V of power and does not come with a battery compartment, meaning daisy chaining and power bricks are needed to get these bad boys growling on your pedalboard.

Webster and Funny Little Boxes' previous collabs have bottled the sound of Pearl Jam's momentous LP, Ten, and Josh Homme's Queens of the Stone Age tones into similarly tiny and budget-friendly boxes.

The Funny Little Boxes Dirt pedal is available to pre-order now for $109.29. No specific shipping date has been listed at the time of writing.

Check out Funny Little Boxes for the full lowdown.

Jerry Cantrell says he has “the worst gutter mouth in the world” when it comes to tracking guitar solos, and the making of his dark and brilliant new solo album, I Want Blood, was no exception.

The Alice in Chains man has previously stressed that he’s still committed to the grunge icons but is currently happily riding the wave of his solo career right now, having recently followed up 2021’s Brighten with a far grittier, electric guitar-littered affair.

He’s tapped Metallica’s bass player Robert Trujillo and Guns N’ Roses’ low-end bringer Duff McKagan for the record, which shares some closer sonic similarities to his Alice in Chains albums. It’s also one that he says features “some of my best songwriting and playing”.

McKagan has previously spoken about how “Jerry fights for his leads” and how he swears like a sailor while committing them to tape. Now, the guitarist has admitted to his explosively expletive approach to tracking solos.

“Making music is a really joyous thing in the end, and the process is enjoyable too, but it’s a battle, man,” Cantrell says in a new interview with Total Guitar. “You don’t have to travel very far to bump into the edge of your limitations. But that’s also part of the process and also part of the challenge.

“If you’ve ever been in the studio with me, you’d think I had Tourette’s,” he continues. “I’ve got the worst gutter mouth in the world. When I get frustrated or blow something, it erupts. It’s not at anybody, it’s just the situation.

“If you’re faint of heart and can’t stand some blue exclamations from time to time, it’s probably not very f*ckin’ peaceful to be with me in a studio. But it’s actually pretty funny.”

Earlier this year Cantrell made headlines when he announced his beloved ‘Blue Dress’ G&L had been stolen, only for him to later – and somewhat sheepishly – admit it had just been misplaced.

Cantrell's TG chat also find him, naturally, talking tone. While he isn't wholly convinced by amp modelers yet, he's now opened up about how he was suitably flabbergasted when he discovered the tonal benefits of digital amps via Metallica.

Jerry Cantrell may not be completely averse to using digital guitar gear, but as he explains in a new interview with Total Guitar, he’s still not wholly convinced by the wealth of amp modelers that are currently on offer – and doesn’t expect himself to make a permanent switch any time soon.

Behind the scenes, Cantrell has warmly embraced the benefits of digital gear. To track demos, his go-to guitar processor is a Kemper, which he views as “a great tool for not having to carry a bunch of gear around”.

However, when it comes to cranking his rig on stage – or when he sets about properly recording his guitar parts – the Alice in Chains icon favors good old fashioned tube amps. For him, digital replacements still can’t quite capture the intangible sonic magic that comes with physical amps.

“I’m reluctant to use digital gear live, but a lot of compatriots think that the technology is getting better,” he tells Total Guitar. “I understand that moving heads and cabs around internationally comes at an astronomical price.

“A lot of my peers have turned to Fractals as a smaller and inexpensive way to get close to their sound. I have looked at that but I’m not there yet. I’ve done a few gigs outside of the US with those things and it still feels like a fuckin’ electronic toy to me.”

As Cantrell mentions, many of his fellow hard rock guitarists have swapped real amps for amp modelers. Dave Mustaine plays through a Neural DSP Quad Cortex, Iron Maiden’s Dave Murray recently switched to Fractal’s Axe-Fx, and Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett switched to amp modelers for his solo tour. These success stories haven’t fully tempted Cantrell, though.

“I think Metallica guys were the first ones I heard about using those live,” he continues. “I was like ‘Fuck, man, what are you playing through?’ and they’d tell me it was a Fractal. So it definitely can sound good.

“But, like anything else, you’ve got to know that tool and spend the time or have somebody around who knows how to run those things. I’m about as dumb as it gets when it comes to being a gearhead.

“I’m not an audiophile when it comes to every guitar, effect and amp. I try to keep my focus on a narrower zone for creation.”

Carmen Vandenberg recently joined Jerry Cantrell on guitar duties at his show in Raleigh, North Carolina, on August 27. The former Jeff Beck guitarist played on a rendition of Man in the Box, the Grammy-nominated Alice In Chains classic.

“Raleigh, great show tonight thx for hosting us,” wrote Cantrell on Instagram. “Carmen Vandenberg jumped up on MITB and killed it. My good man Herb made yet another successful catch of the flying Blue Dress. Fun night all around.”

Vandenberg accompanied the Alice in Chains guitarist on rhythm guitar before delivering her own rendition of the iconic Man in the Box solo that Cantrell played on the original record, all while brandishing a Duesenberg Julia guitar.

Cantrell opted for the G&L ‘Blue Dress’ Rampage he's consistently used throughout his career.

In a recent Total Guitar interview, Vandenberg talked about cutting her teeth with Jeff Beck and discussed an off-kilter test she had to undergo to become part of Beck's band.

“The first time I went to his house, he sat me in front of a ton of amps, no pedals or anything, and gave me a guitar. The test was, he would put me through each one of the amps, and he wanted to see if I could get my tone no matter what he put me through or how he set it.

“Because technically, your tone is all on your fingers and the way you play, and you’ve got some control with the guitar itself. But, you know, Jeff would always sound like Jeff no matter what you put him through. That was his test.”

In April, Cantrell's 'Blue Dress' G&L was reported stolen by the Alice In Chains guitarist and his team, but it turned out to just be misplaced.

Alice in Chains guitar icon Jerry Cantrell has announced I Want Blood, his fourth solo record, will be released on October 18 – and it features a host of high-profile guests.

Bass duties are handled by Duff McKagan (Guns N’ Roses) and Robert Trujillo (Metallica), while Faith No More’s Mike Bordin also features on drums, in effect reuniting the Cantrell/Trujillo/Bordin power trio behind 2002’s epic double album Degradation Trip.

Other guests include drummer Gil Sharone (Team Sleep, Stolen Babies), with backing vocals provided by Lola Colette and Greg Puciato (Better Lovers, ex-Dillinger Escape Plan).

Opening track Vilified is the first taste of the record, which finds Cantrell breaking out both the talk box and the wah over a 6/8 groove that wouldn’t sound out of place in early ’90s Alice in Chains.

Accordingly, the 45-minute collection is an altogether heavier effort when compared with Cantrell’s previous album, the folk-infused Brighten (2021).

“This record is a serious piece of work. It’s a motherfucker,” Cantrell says of his upcoming release. “It’s hard, no doubt, and completely unlike Brighten. And that’s what you want, to end up in a different place. There’s a confidence to this album. I think it’s some of my best songwriting and playing, and certainly some of my best singing.”

The record was co-produced by Cantrell and Joe Barresi, whose resume includes Tool, Queens of the Stone Age and Melvins – and explains why the guitar tone is quite so ferocious on this opening cut.

I Want Blood is out on October 18 via Double J Music, and available to preorder now. The full tracklisting is below.

Jerry Cantrell kicks off his North American tour with Bush this evening – see JerryCantrell.com for full dates.

Earlier this year, Cantrell put out a call for fans to be on the lookout for his original G&L Rampage – one of grunge’s most important guitars – which he believed to have been stolen. It was found the very next day, with the AIC leader admitting it had just been misplaced.

Jerry Cantrell – I Want Blood tracklisting

1. Vilified
2. Off The Rails
3. Afterglow
4. I Want Blood
5. Echoes Of Laughter
6. Throw Me A Line
7. Let It Lie
8. Held Your Tongue
9. It Comes

Heart's Ann Wilson has revealed the trick she used back in the ’90s to compel her musician peers to jam whenever they passed by her house.

In an interview with the Broken Record Podcast, she recalls, “Usually, it would happen after somebody's concert, and everyone would show up for the concert. And then whoever was free afterward would show up at my house, and they'd all come in and start drinking beers and smoking ciggies and sitting up on my counters, and then pretty soon somebody has started to play.

“I was no fool – I would always have in my living room, I'd have guitars laying around, casually, and a piano and a couple of little amps.”

The musicians who happened to jam at Wilson's house included Alice in Chains' Layne Staley, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, and Kim Thayil, and Pearl Jam. The musicians were all part of the Seattle music community, who quickly embraced Wilson and her sister after they moved to Seattle, and formed their acoustic side-project, The Lovemongers.

“Oddly enough, a lot of those musicians that were part of the Seattle community then loved The Lovemongers, and we loved them, and we'd all show up at each other's shows. And it didn't matter that it was at this little club. It really didn't matter. It was just about the music and about playing camaraderie," she adds. 

In a recent interview with Total Guitar, Wilson's sister and bandmate, Nancy Wilson, described what it was like for the two of them to return to Seattle after grunge annihilated the hair metal scene. “We were so embarrassed to come back during the explosion of Soundgarden and Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam,” she admits. 

“All those guys were our brothers from our hometown. When Mother Love Bone’s singer Andy Wood died, my best friend Kelly Curtis, who managed Pearl Jam, invited us to come to his memorial party. 

“That’s where I met Chris Cornell and all these guys that I’m still really tight with – Eddie Vedder, Mike McCready and Kim Thayil. It was such a relief to be accepted into that rock community in our hometown, after the big hair and the artifice in the ’80s.”

Heart are currently on their Royalty Flush tour. The North American leg wraps up on May 24 at Atlantic City Hard Rock Live, New Jersey. This will be followed by a European and UK leg, which includes their largest-ever UK headline show on July 1 at London's O2 Arena.

Nuno Bettencourt has recently revealed how Alice in Chains' Layne Staley radically influenced the way plays guitar on stage.

On The Jay Jay French Connection podcast, Bettencourt recalls a touring story that played a crucial role in his journey to embracing the way he presents himself on stage, and, more importantly, his playing style.

“When Extreme first started doing tours, Alice in Chains [were] opening for us, with nobody in the crowd. I remember at soundcheck, seeing Alice in Chains for the first time when Layne Staley came up on stage and they did Man in the Box, and they started playing it. I was like, ‘Wow that's soundcheck. Really interesting, cool band, great guys.’

“Then I saw the show and I came out, and there was Layne again, and there he was, standing there, with his eyes closed. And he was just singing. I remember a fan after the show came up. He goes ‘Man, I don't get it. That Layne Staley, he just stands there. It's like concrete shoes.’”

However, Bettencourt himself was in awe of Staley. “I could not take my eyes off this guy. I could not. Why am I in awe? I realized that day is, you don't perform for people. You don't prove anything to the audience. You take them with you. You take them with you on your journey.

“When I was watching Layne I thought, 'Oh my god, everybody thinks it's like scoring points. Like how was the performance from one to 10? Like gymnastics.’ It isn't. That's what makes you go home with an experience. As a fan, you go like, ‘Fuck man. I was there when I saw the show.’

“That's what musicians, guitar players, anybody, needs to know, is just, there is only one of you. Nobody else can do what you do.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bettencourt mentions how this experience, as well as Queen’s Brian May, changed the way he sees songwriting, in particular the pressure to add guitar solos.

“One of the things that I learned early on was like, I was always disconnected with guitar players when I heard a song and then a solo came,” he says. “And I always thought, ‘Jeez, oh well, I wonder why I didn't connect with the solo, even though the solo is great.’ But Brian May always taught me to play the solo for the song.

“Instead of like, somebody going, ‘Hey, you got eight bars, take a solo.’ It's like no, you got eight bars to feel the song, and to respect the song and make it a full composition for years to come. What's happening is, it will live beyond you. It's more important than you.”

Bettencourt put these words into action when he joined Stone Temple Pilots on stage just a few days ago to perform the alt-rock icons’ Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart.

UPDATE: Jerry Cantrell's G&L 'Blue Dress' Rampage has been found. It had not been stolen as originally reported – it was misplaced during transit.

Jerry Cantrell’s original G&L – the electric guitar behind practically every iconic Alice in Chains recording – has been stolen.

According to a post published to Cantrell’s official Instagram, the classic Rampage ‘Blue Dress’ instrument is believed to have been stolen from the guitarist’s car in either Los Angeles or San Bernardino/Highland.

The guitar was kept in a black G&L gig bag, and has the serial number G016467. The post is appealing to anyone who may have information regarding the whereabouts of the guitar to contact info@velvethammer.net.

“We’re offering a reward to anyone who can help us locate the guitar,” the post concludes. “We sincerely appreciate your help.”

The Rampage itself is of the highest cultural and musical significance, and is one of the most important guitars in grunge. Having been purchased by Cantrell way back in 1985, the G&L was subsequently used on almost every single song the guitarist has ever recorded.

A single-humbucker 1984 G&L Rampage at its core, the instrument features a distinct circle-and-square pattern that was inspired by both Eddie Van Halen’s Frankenstein stripes and Randy Rhoads’ Polka Dots, and the sticker of a blue-dressed pinup girl below the Kahler tremolo.

There are also three “Rock” stickers (one of which has heavily worn off) on the body from a local radio station that championed Alice in Chains in their early days, and another one that reads “This Is Your Life” on the headstock.

Other identifiable features include some band stickers on the rear, including those of Soundgarden and Son of Man.

Recently, the guitar was on display at Seattle’s MoPOP Museum. During a visit to the display, Cantrell discussed the importance of his Blue Dress Rampage, explaining how it made its way onto almost everything he’s recorded – making it one of the most important guitars in grunge history.

“I bought that in 1985,” he recalled. “That guitar has been on everything I’ve ever recorded, pretty much – 98.9% of every song, that guitar’s on there somewhere. I tried for decades to wreck it and it still exists.

“I’ve surfed it across the stage, jumped in the audience with it, fans running up and getting their hair caught in the keys, and then trying to jump back in the audience pulling me with them…”

Cantrell’s original G&L had largely been forced into touring retirement owing to some structural problems that threatened to seriously damage the guitar. In its place, Cantrell took to playing some Rampage reissue models that had been produced over the years.

In 2009, G&L reissued the Rampage as a Jerry Cantrell signature model, which arrived without Cantrell’s additional aesthetics. A more faithful replica of the Blue Dress G&L had also been released as part of an ultra-limited run.

“It’s nothing fancy. There’s plenty of fancier, cooler guitars, but it’s just a meat and potatoes guitar,” Cantrell told Total Guitar in 2014, “and that’s always felt comfortable for me to play from the get-go.”

In the wake of the news, G&L has offered to build Cantrell a new guitar that will “help ease the pain” of losing the “irreplaceable” instrument.

Visit Jerry Cantrell’s Instagram page for updates, and email info@velvethammer.net if you have any information concerning the guitar.

Last weekend (October 29), the Seattle Seahawks recruited Alice in Chains electric guitar hero Jerry Cantrell to perform The Star-Spangled Banner prior to their home game against the Cleveland Browns.

Though also (and more recently) a Gibson endorser, Cantrell picked up an older signature guitar of his – the G&L Jerry Cantrell Rampage – for the occasion.

Cantrell's take on the US national anthem – and indeed his choice of the Strat-style Rampage, rather than one of his signature Les Pauls – seems to indicate that another Seattle guitar hero, one James Marshall Hendrix, was on Cantrell's mind.

Though not quite as avant-garde as Hendrix's immortal Banner rendition at Woodstock, the Alice in Chains man's take on the song has more Marshall power – and certainly a lot more wah pedal – than your average sporting event national anthem performance. 

“What a great weekend, got to play the national anthem before the Seahawks game,“ Cantrell wrote of the performance on Instagram. “Hawks brought home the W at the end of a slugfest with the Browns. Very proud to have been a part of the festivities. Thank you Seattle!“ 

The up-close, HD video of Cantrell's Banner performance offers a killer look at his vibrato, and the physicality of his playing. 

In a recent interview with MusicRadar, that very physicality was discussed by Guns N' Roses bass guitar player Duff McKagan, who recruited Cantrell for a guest solo spot on I Just Don’t Know, a tune from his recent solo LP, Lighthouse.

“Jerry fights for his leads,” McKagan said. “I’ve seen so many different guitar players. Some guys can just come in and [do it]. And, ‘Wow, that’s fuckin’ amazing.’

“Jerry comes in and he fights. He fights his guitar and, by the end – by the time he gets the lead on – it’s like, ‘Wow man, that was a piece of work. I saw your brain working.’

“He fuckin’ swears,” McKagan continued. “He gets through this thing. I’ve seen him do it plenty of times, and I knew he’d do it on [I Just Don’t Know].”

“AAARRRRRGGGHH!!! THIS IS so flippin’ AMAZING! Hahahaha. Hmmm, what should I do first? Burn my guitar … or light MYSELF on fire! Give me MORE, but GOD ALMIGHTY, MAKE IT STOP!”

Does that sound insane? Yes, indeed. But that was the kind of crazy talk many guitarists engaged in during the ’80s. And who could blame them? George Lynch, Vito Bratta, Steve Vai, Nuno Bettencourt, Reb Beach, Yngwie Malmsteen, Kirk Hammett, Eric Johnson, Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman and about a billion other handsome virtuoso shredders just kept getting faster and better until all you could scream was, “I surrender! Fuck playing the guitar, I’m gonna join the Marines.”

Then suddenly on September 10, 1991, a date that will live in infamy, everything changed. Nirvana, a melodic punk rock band from Seattle, released a simple four-chord slugfest titled Smells Like Teen Spirit and sparked a musical revolution that blew all the fleet-fingered pretty boys out of the water. 

Nirvana and their charismatic singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain championed gritty “authenticity” over the glamorous excesses of the hair metal of the ’80s, and their disheveled presence suddenly made bands like Winger, Warrant and Whitesnake look like dolled-up saloon girls in comparison. And just like that, the guitar virtuoso crazy train was completely derailed like the Norfolk Southern locomotive in Ohio. 

As shredder extraordinaire George Lynch recalled in Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock’s excellent 2021 book Nöthin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the ’80s Hard Rock Explosion, “Unfortunately, [’80s hair metal] worked its way to an apex, and then we backed ourselves into a corner. There was no place to go. Because you could only play so fast and then what did it really matter? Nirvana came along and said it all with one nasty, dirty, attitude note. You go, ‘Ah, that’s rock and roll!’”

In a purge that would’ve made a Russian dictator green with envy, anything to do with ’80s guitar hair metal – the Spandex, the decadence, the pointy guitars, the makeup, the tapping, the whammy dives – was put up against the wall and shot. And whoever managed to escape was sentenced to live out the rest of their days doing hard labor at the bottom of the charts or playing 400-seaters in Poughkeepsie.

While some Guitar World readers mourned the loss of their well-coiffed heroes, many more breathed an audible sigh of relief. You no longer had to be genetically superhuman to play rock ’n’ roll or get a record deal; being a talented schlub was just fine. 

You still had to play well, but you didn’t have to lock yourself in a room like a Benedictine monk and practice arpeggios in three octaves for 10 hours a day. A good song with a solid riff was all you needed, and you were good to go.

The myth of grunge guitar #1

One of the biggest myths of the ’90s was that the alternative musicians of the day were as primitive as cave-dwelling mud people. The truth is, there were many imaginative, if not downright sophisticated guitarists during that era, including Nirvana’s great insurrectionist, Kurt Cobain. 

While Cobain’s primary gift was writing spectacular vocal melodies over surprising chord changes like on Lithium, he was also a ferocious rhythm guitarist who rarely lost the groove, even when hurtling himself across the stage with total abandon or screaming the choruses to any of his memorable anthems.

“All the years I spent practicing scales and virtuoso-type riffs, [Cobain] was locking onto these chords in a very connected way,” shredder icon Steve Vai once observed. “When you saw Kurt strumming chords, it was virtuosic in a sense because it sounded like an orchestra when he slammed that guitar. Every string had its own ZIP code, if you know what I mean.”

Even if you don’t buy Vai’s assessment that Kurt was a “virtuoso,” there were plenty of other alternative rockers that deserved the title during the Great ’90s Reset. Seattle’s Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, for example, created daring textures via unorthodox drop tunings and unusual time signatures on many of their biggest songs.

In 1994 the duo used a bizarre E-E-B-B-B-E tuning over an unconventional 5/4 time signature on their single My Wave, a song made even more unusual by the fact that Ben Shepherd used a wah pedal on his bass.

And there was no denying the greatness of Thayil’s wild-ass solo on the band’s chart-topping Black Hole Sun. Sounding like it was being played forwards and backwards at the same time, it was perhaps the most avant-garde lead guitar break on a Number 1 song in the history of rock. (It’s interesting to note that Black Hole Sun also went to Number 1 in Iceland, because if I had to guess what Icelandic rock music sounded like, it would probably resemble the alien splatter-art guitar solo on Black Hole Sun.)

In addition to Soundgarden, there were other groups and guitarists serving up more great riffs and solos than you could shake a Led Zeppelin at. Hard rock bands like Alice in Chains (Man in the Box, Them Bones), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Under the Bridge, Give It Away), Stone Temple Pilots (Interstate Love Song, Plush), Smashing Pumpkins (Bullet with Butterfly Wings, 1979) and Green Day (Longview, Basket Case) kept mainstream rock radio humming for the next decade with ballsy, memorable guitar rock.

And it could be argued that the ’90s was superior to the ’80s when it came to top-notch, up-your-nose-with-a rubber-hose heavy metal. Just skimming the surface, you had Ozzy Osbourne (with Zakk Wylde), Tool, Korn, Deftones, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Meshuggah, Machine Head and Napalm Death releasing brilliant and innovative albums.

Come as you are

Not only did attitudes regarding guitar playing shift, but so did just about everything else. Lyrics became more introspective, and attitudes toward the opposite sex and gay people became more enlightened. 

Seattle punk rock also introduced a more relaxed dress code, which also came as a relief to many guitar players. To be a guitar hero in the ’80s you had to have chiseled cheekbones, washboard abs and look good in tight pants. 

You also had to know how to apply hair dye and eye makeup with the expertise of supermodel Cara Delevingne. It was exhausting. While it was hard enough to play like Whitesnake’s John Sykes, it was even more difficult to look like him!

In the ’90s, being a slob was no issue. You could wear jeans or baggy shorts, a thrift-shop T-shirt and a flannel shirt or hoodie and be done with it. That was a fantastic development if you had a gut and would rather pound a beer (or seven) rather than spend a week’s pay on a line of cocaine. And if you were balding and sorta ugly it didn’t matter that much… you could just grow a beard, get some tattoos and shave your head. That was awesome, too!

That development was particularly good news for Pantera and their incredible metal guitarist Dimebag Darrell. Pantera had struggled throughout much of the ’80s because, frankly, they looked ridiculous in the Spandex. But once fashion trends shifted, and they were able to become who they really were – a bunch of drunk, lovable dirtbags from Texas – the world became their öyster. 

Unplugged

Another interesting manifestation of the Great ’90s Reset was the enormous success of Unplugged, the MTV music series that showcased musicians performing acoustic versions of their songs. What could be more “authentic” than stripping your biggest songs down to their bare essentials than playing them on a Gibson Hummingbird with no amplification?

New-school bands who performed on the show like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Hole, Stone Temple Pilots and Oasis took great pleasure in demonstrating that they didn’t need big-ass amps to bring drama and intensity to their songs. 

At the same time, the show allowed classic rockers like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Kiss to reemerge, while showing “the kids” how big boys played “real” guitars. 

Superfuzz Big Muff

Guitar gear also went under some major transformations in the ’90s. During the ’80s, players took pride in performing with shiny, candy-colored, custom instruments tricked-out with things like locking tremolos, scooped fretboards, pointy headstocks and unusual pickup configurations. 

Whereas in the ’90s, even being seen with a guitar that had any of those qualities could get your grunge card revoked permanently (unless you could prove you were being ironic!).

Most new-school guitarists gravitated toward vintage models, like Foo Fighter Dave Grohl who could be seen playing a Pelham blue 1967 Gibson Trini Lopez guitar. But really, almost any guitar would do as long as it had some wear and tear and didn’t look like it cost an arm and a leg.

In a hilarious Guitar World interview conducted with Cobain by our ne’er-do-well Seattle correspondent Jeff Gilbert, the Nirvana iconoclast summed the general aesthetic and attitude of the era perfectly. 

After proclaiming his love for Fender Mustang guitars, he counterintuitively explained why. “They’re cheap and totally inefficient, and they sound like crap,” he said. “They are also small and don’t stay in tune, and when you want to raise the string action on the fretboard, you have to loosen all the strings and completely remove the bridge.

“You have to turn these little screws with your fingers and hope that you’ve estimated right. If you screw up, you have to repeat the process over and over until you get it right. Whoever invented that guitar was a dork.”

And that was why it was his favorite instrument!

Pedalboards also shrank in size and ambition. Just a few years earlier, elaborate Bob Bradshaw rigs that allowed you to control a bunch of rack-mounted effects were all the rage, but in the punk rock ’90s, a few pedals seemed to do the trick.

Even Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, a man known for his innovative use of effects, pulled most of what he needed out of a modest four or five pedals and a Marshall amp.

Speaking to Guitarist, Morello laughed off any assertion that he had a gargantuan pedalboard.

“I’ve been accused countless times of using a ton of effects – but I’ve used the same four pedals for the last 30 years: a wah, a [DigiTech] Whammy, a delay and a phaser. It’s just about finding different applications for the same old shit. The electric guitar is a relatively new instrument on the planet. It’s just a piece of wood with six strings and a few electronics. But you can manipulate it.”

He continued by explaining his unique hip-hop approach to his place in the band: “As soon as I had that revelation in Rage, it was like, ‘I’m the DJ in the band, but rather than sampling, I’m gonna use my bare hands to create this new vocabulary for the electric guitar.’ ” And he did exactly that.

But perhaps the most hilarious irony of the ’90s came when Korn released their debut album in 1994. Guitarists James “Munky” Shaffer and Brian “Head” Welch raised more than a few eyebrows when they each appeared on stage with the ultimate tricked-out ’80s guitar – a Steve Vai seven-string Ibanez Universe.

But instead of using it to shred, they took advantage of the low seventh string to produce some of the dirtiest, most bone-rattling power chords the world had ever known.

According to the duo, they stumbled upon the axes at a local California pawn shop. During the early days of the ’90s, no guitarist wanted to be caught dead with one, so the price of the instruments had fallen through the floor. 

Although the two guitarists were broke, the guitars were so cheap they decided it was worth buying a couple of them as an experiment. To their amazement, they discovered the gleaming seven-string guitars were actually incredible for creating the ugliest of sounds.

“I knew that somewhere, some kid was going to get the concept of the seven-string and do things with it that were beyond what I was doing,” Vai told Ultimate Guitar in 2020.

“Then, I’m driving down the street and this song comes on the radio and I’m like, ‘What the heck is that?’, and I pull the car over. It sounded so heavy, I instinctively knew it was a seven-string and somebody was doing something with it that was much different than what I was doing. And that band was Korn. That was sort of the rebirth of the JEM Universe.”

The myth of grunge guitar #2

Which brings us to perhaps the biggest myth about the ’90s. Grunge and alternative rock did many things, but one thing it didn’t do was kill shredding. A number of brilliant guitar technicians came of age during that era, including Dimebag, John Petrucci, Ben Weinman, Adam Jones, Buckethead and Jeff Loomis, to name just a few.

The real difference was in the ’80s, you had to be one of the attractive “popular kids” to play in a rock ’n’ roll band. The genuinely awesome thing about Seattle punk rock was it knocked down those walls and gave everyone permission to participate. 

You could be tall, short, fat, bald, hairy, pretty, ugly or even wear a bucket on your head, but as long as you had soul, wit and imagination, you could at least jump on stage without everyone laughing at you. Like a rock ’n’ roll sequel to the Revenge of the Nerds, everyone laughed, cried and learned.  And that, as the great philosopher Miley Cyrus once said, “was pretty cool.” 

Duff McKagan has described the intense process behind Jerry Cantrell’s approach to guitar solos, with the Guns N’ Roses basis likening the experience to that of a “fight” between the guitarist and his guitar.

Cantrell guests on McKagan’s new solo album Lighthouse on a track called I Just Don’t Know. The record pulls several threads, weaving in older unreleased tracks among new material written during the Covid years at McKagan’s Seattle studio. 

Now, in a new interview with MusicRadar, the bassist discusses several of the guest solos on the record, including contributions from the aforementioned Cantrell (a fellow Seattle resident) and his GN’R bandmate, Slash.

“Jerry fights for his leads,” comments McKagan of Cantrell’s soloing approach. 

“I’ve seen so many different guitar players. Some guys can just come in and [do it]. And, ‘Wow, that’s fuckin’ amazing.’

“Jerry comes in and he fights. He fights his guitar and, by the end – by the time he gets the lead on – it’s like, ‘Wow man, that was a piece of work. I saw your brain working.’”

If anything, the insight makes us like Cantrell’s lead work even more. There’s a popular misconception that killer solos just come easily to big-name players, so it’s always reassuring to hear of a guitar great that has to wring it out of the neck.

“He fuckin’ swears,” says McKagan. “He gets through this thing. I’ve seen him do it plenty of times, and I knew he’d do it on [I Just Don’t Know].”

Elsewhere, in the same piece, McKagan discusses Slash’s lead spot on the track, Hope – one of the songs initially made for a solo release that McKagan’s then-label, Geffen, left on the shelf. 

“That’s a song I did in 1996 at my house in LA, in the Hollywood Hills,” says McKagan. “Slash had come over to my house one day and heard that song… He was like, ‘Hey man, do you want me to put a guitar on this?’ Yeah, for sure! I had an amp set up and I recorded it. This was back in the days of tape, of course, and I was good enough to record him. 

“So, I got those masters back during [Covid]... and it’s a very pretty song. Slash plays thematic things in there. He’s so good at that.” 

Amusingly, McKagan notes that more recent discussions with Slash have revealed the guitarist has no recollection of the session. 

“He doesn’t remember playing the song,” concludes McKagan. “It was during an interesting time in his life!”

To read the full Duff McKagan interview, head to MusicRadar, and for more from Duff, check out our interview where he names the seven bassists who shaped his sound and explains how Prince shaped the sound of Appetite for Destruction.

Meanwhile, Slash has been working on his own “blues-orientated” solo album, due in 2024, which he has described as a spiritual sequel to his star-studded 2010 solo debut – revealing he’s already got a recording with Demi Lovato in the bag.

Post Malone has considerable form when it comes to rock covers. Often accompanied by (or in direct competition with) his friend and collaborator Andrew Watt, the hip-hop icon has previously performed War Pigs with Slash, a full Nirvana set with Travis Barker, and even dropped a section of Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover during a guitar battle. 

Now, in his latest appearance on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM Show, the hip-hop star wowed the veteran DJ with a version of the Alice In Chains classic, Them Bones. 

In the performance clip [above] Post makes effective use of both a well-worn Martin dreadnought acoustic guitar [we can’t tell the model from the footage, but that looks like a faded vertical Martin logo on the headstock – Ed.] and a full choir. 

Sadly, though he no doubt could if he wanted to, Post doesn't wrangle the Them Bones solo from that Martin neck, but that is probably for the best in this particular version.

Nonetheless, the performance leaves Stern taken aback, with the host labelling it “beautiful.” Indeed, it’s about as pretty as Post Malone – or Alice In Chains for that matter – have ever sounded.

Them Bones originally featured on Alice In Chains’ 1992 album, Dirt and was written by Jerry Cantrell. It features a classic Cantrell device of a shifting time signature, with a 7/8 verse that morphs into 4/4 for the chorus. 

“Off-time stuff is just more exciting,” Cantrell told Guitar World in 1998. “It takes people by surprise when you shift gears like that before they even know what the hell hit 'em. 

“It's also effective when you slow something down and then slam 'em into the dash. A lot of Alice stuff is written that way – Them Bones is a great off-time song.”

The above is not by any means Post Malone’s only acoustic performance – though this one went better than his Tiny Desk show. In that clip, he joked he’d messed up his chords to Circles, because “I was playing a Van Halen solo in my mind.” 

Which is an excuse that – let us be clear – is always going to fly with Guitar World. 

Fortunately, as the other clips we’ve seen attest, that’s not representative of his wider playing ability. 

Previously, the aforementioned Watt has heaped praise on Post’s six-string talent and, having produced everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones, he should know a decent guitarist when he sees one.

“Post is a great guitar player,” Watt told Guitar World in 2020. “And he's just an amazing musician. He's one of those guys that can do anything, you know?”

Few musicians could say they shaped the ’90s quite like Kim Thayil. The Soundgarden co-founder laid the foundations for what would become known as the “Seattle sound” and later get referred to as grunge or alternative rock, paving the way for a whole movement of world-conquering noise that included the likes of Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. 

Typically seen with a black Guild S-100 electric in his hands, and on occasion its S-300 sibling, his approach to guitar has been an incredibly multifaceted one, with an easily identifiable personality to his riffs and leads that ranged from the fast and furious to the doomy and esoteric. In that regard, he was and very much still is the full package and, by proxy, an inspiration to many. 

Soundgarden, who formed in 1984 and reunited in 2010 before disbanding after the tragic death of singer/guitarist Chris Cornell in 2017, rose to prominence as sonic daredevils hellbent on otherworldly experimentations – using natural harmonics and feedback to intricately detail their acid-laced hard rock. And while they embraced a number of alternate tunings, it’s arguably drop D that would end up becoming a defining feature for a lot of ’90s guitar bands. 

With the sixth string detuned a whole step to allow for one-finger power chords, its sound leant to a meatier and more muscular whirlwind of noise, inspiring some of the band’s most famous tracks such as Outshined, Spoonman and Jesus Christ Pose – anthems that, it’s worth noting, wouldn’t have sounded quite the same in standard.

“I can’t say we invented or designed these tunings,” Thayil says while sipping coffee out of a white Scrabble mug on a humid summer’s day at home in Seattle. “You’d hear stories about players like Keith Richards playing in open [tuning] and maybe only using five strings instead of six. I also remember reading about Kiss dropping their guitars half a step down and realizing a lot of rock players were doing that.”

By his own admission, his first adventures in drop D felt “kinda weird.” Early on, he’d ask himself why guitarists were purposefully choosing to play an instrument that tuned incorrectly, at least in the conventional sense. And then, of course, those lightbulb moments he built a career out of started arriving thick and fast. 

“When you’re learning, you start orienting toward what you are told is correct, but then you go on and liberate yourself from those constraints,” Thayil says. “Yes, there’s a common rule of thumb for tuning guitars, but there are other ways to approach it to facilitate playing or writing, or even just to change the tone. You loosen a string and get a different sort of sound… you can bend more, thanks to the extra floppiness!”

Do you remember when you first became aware of drop D?

“I was friends with Mark Arm [of Mudhoney fame] back in college. I don’t think Mudhoney were around at that point; I was in Soundgarden and he was in Green River. Buzz [Osborne] from the Melvins was hanging out a lot too. We’d listen to bands like the Young Gods, the Scientists and early Metallica at Mark’s apartment in the U District. 

“One time we started talking about our favorite Sabbath songs and Buzz told us about this tuning Tony Iommi used called ‘drop-D’ that made everything sound darker and heavier. I remember going home and being like, ‘Whoa, you don’t say!’ 

“I started farting around and realized you could make a power chord with just one finger. Playing them really fast up and down the neck became easy. It’s funny; I remember these purists and nitwits who would write into guitar magazines saying, ‘Drop-D is cheating; you’re not really playing if you do that!’”

It’s easy to forget that trolls existed before the age of the internet.

“Yeah! I’d be sitting there wondering, “What do you think this is… Monopoly?! Is it like ‘do not pass go’ or ‘head straight to jail’ just because you don’t approve of that tuning? What do you mean it’s not a proper way of playing guitar? ‘No wonder you’re sitting there writing angry letters to a guitar magazine instead of writing songs!’ 

“It was such a crazy thing to say: ‘Those Seattle grunge guys are cheating because it’s easier playing in drop-D!’ I’d be thinking, ‘Thank you, and you’re right, more people should be experimenting and having fun! Oh, and by the way, we’re doing this because Black Sabbath did it. Neil Young did it. Van Halen did it. How far back are we going? Are you going to tell Eddie Van Halen he wasn’t playing guitar properly?’ 

“Anyway, I went home from Mark’s that night and wrote Nothing to Say. I brought it to practice with Soundgarden the next day, saying, ‘Buzz showed me a Sabbath tuning and I came up with this!’”

That must have caused quite a stir.

“Chris and our first bassist Hiro [Yamamoto] were like, 'Whoa!' with their jaws dropped open. Chris got excited and said he had just the right lyrics to fit that idea, so he ran into another room and grabbed a pen. Then he started singing this melody that had that Dio-esque thing where he’d go up high. 

“At the time, heavy music was a bit like the Partridge Family through a distortion box. There was a lot of Aqua Net and Spandex! This thing was dark, psychedelic and trippy underneath Chris’ majestic voice. It generated a lot of attention from major labels and made me want to write more things like that. I loved the unorthodox way we were approaching heavy music.”

It almost feels like songs like Outshined simply wouldn’t have existed in standard.

“Heavy metal and drop-D is a match made in heaven… it just works. Then Chris started dropping his sixth string even further down to B, writing songs like Rusty Cage during the Badmotorfinger era. By doing that, we could make the octave by fretting up a whole step on the next string along… which sounded cool! So messing with tunings definitely spawned a lot of stuff. 

“Then Ben [Shepherd, bass] came along, and he had a background in country music with some open and slide tunings. Matt [Cameron, drums] started writing stuff with weird tunings too, like Birth Ritual, which had the sixth and fifth strings detuned. We were turning each other on to different ways of thinking.

“The drop-D thing became really big for us – and then other Seattle bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains. Smashing Pumpkins were doing similar things, too.”

What would you say are the other defining features of ’90s rock guitar?

“Feedback was a big part of the sound. One of our first recordings was Tears to Forget, and we only had eight tracks to work with, one of which was entirely dedicated to guitar feedback. Some people thought it was funny, but it sounded cool. Utilizing unorthodox techniques became a big part of our style, like playing behind the bridge or using harmonics as part of the riff as we did on Heretic. 

“We weren’t just using harmonics as an effect or lead element; it was part of the actual riff. And we did that frequently – if something sounded strange, we’d usually be inclined to explore. We’d say things like, ‘Let’s write a song where the riff is just feedback,’ or ‘Let’s come up with a riff mainly using harmonics!’ In drop D it felt a lot easier to bend the strings, almost like lead players would in solos.”

It’s a very Sabbathy move!

“Yeah, Sabbath did a lot of that. That became a very distinct signature of Alice in Chains. Jerry Cantrell writes the coolest riffs with those howling, sexy bends. Listen to It Ain’t Like That and you’ll see what I mean. I fell in love with that as soon as I heard it. That became Jerry’s thing, riffing with those awesome bends. 

“Nobody could bend the note the same smooth way as consistently as he could. I’d say the two signature elements of Alice in Chains’ sound was Jerry’s bent riffs as well as those vocal harmonies. And if you listen to the Nirvana song Blew from Bleach, Kurt [Cobain] was using bends as part of the riff. These were things that were probably introduced early on in the Seattle scene through us.”

You have a strong identity as a lead guitarist – mixing elements of classic rock pentatonics and more atmospheric ideas that seem to capture a moment in time.

“As for the impressionistic guitar solos, I’m definitely not a metal lead player. Those kinds of solos owe more to classical, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s ‘mom music’! It’s the kind of stuff you do to tell your parents, ‘See, I’m not just making noise, I’m not a long-haired drug-taking asshole… this is real music influenced by Paganini!’ 

“I feel like those really ornate and baroque-sounding passages are almost written to show other people you’re not a fuckup. Well, in that case, go play ‘real’ music. My approach has always been more like impressionism. It’s partly blurry and down to the feel. You hear a song and then it’s time for the solo, and there’s a way to attack it – whether that’s manic and chaotic or moody or sad.”

“That’s what the takeaway should be, rather than how many notes got played, where they fell and why. If that’s the question, my answer would be, ‘I don’t know; here’s a paint-by-numbers book for you!’ Of course, there are some songs where you have to write a part that’s melodic and emphasized, complementing the vocals or riff. 

“But I like the idea of getting to the solo section and having things fall apart, like a car careening off the edge in a dangerous way or something really noisy and inexplicable. I like making people go, ‘What the hell is going on there?’”

Players that came after you – including Tool’s Adam Jones and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood – also had that esoteric approach to their leads, almost as if they were painting through their guitars.

“Totally! It is a kind of painting, just using sonic colors. Music should be evocative. There’s something one-dimensional about having the notes occur linearly and in series… it can be compelling and stand for something, making you think, ‘What an interesting series of notes and intervals.’ 

“But in terms of mood, you can create more emotive ideas by freeing yourself. Is the solo dark, strange, uplifting or casual? You can tap into all of these things. Adam Jones and Jonny Greenwood are beautiful examples of guitar players doing amazing service to the song, choosing sounds that are emotive and colorful.”

What do you remember about recording Black Hole Sun?

“I remember when I heard those little arpeggios in the verse sections, I thought, “This is stylistically not like me!” It sounded more like a piano part – or like little fairies and angels dancing on the head of a pin. I thought, ‘I don’t know, man… it’s too crystal.’ 

“Obviously, I did end up playing that part live, but the song would come in during the middle of the set when I’d already had a few beers in me. It was really shifting gears, going from playing fast and free to, ‘Uh oh, I have to play all these notes in the right place!’ 

“It almost felt like I had to pull up a stool, sitting there with my legs crossed. So I had some resistance to that verse part. On the recording, I think I just played the chorus parts and solos. 

“Chris wanted me to do the verse, but here’s the problem… there’s a Leslie on it. If you stop, there’s no way they can punch you back in exactly where you were. It was so frustrating. Eventually I turned to Chris and said, ‘You wrote this part; you can probably get further than I can!’”

The solo seems to capture those different sides of you well; it’s frenetic and ambitious, almost shredding in places, but also abstract to a certain degree. 

“I think so! I have friends who have criticized me for playing too fast. They’d say, “You play so fast – we have no idea what you’re doing… Slow down, dude!” But they’re also players who mainly like Eric Clapton, Duane Allman… that kind of stuff. 

“I am a Cream fan, and on Soundgarden’s early European tours we’d play Sunshine of Your Love at the end, mainly because we’d been drinking through the show. We all loved the song, as well as the rest of Disraeli Gears. My friends who were more into soulful and blues playing definitely wanted me to slow down. I think what I do is soulful… it’s just not blues!”

It’s the 30th anniversary of Superunknown next year. Tracks like Let Me Drown and Mailman have an almost intoxicating sense of drag to them.

“Chris wrote that opening riff to Let Me Drown, and I added the harmonies. I used to like throwing in things like that because they sounded a little bit perverted. [Laughs] Matt wrote that Mailman riff. He’s very on it when it comes to tempos. It’s one of the three or four songs on the album that Chris didn’t play on. 

“I was using a single-coil guitar, either a Strat or G&L, that was tuned down to whatever Matt had written it in. I believe it was standard but with the two lowest strings dropped down to C and G. We have so many songs in weird tunings. That’s why we’d tour with so many guitars – eight or nine in some cases – because every few songs we’d need to change tuning. 

“It’s strange that I chose to use a single-coil guitar instead of my Guild on that one. And then on the track Superunknown I switched back to my Guild and Chris was playing his Les Paul on the verses. Fell On Black Days might have even been Chris on his Gretsch. Different songs needed different colors.”

What drew you to the Guild S-100?

“I found an affordable secondhand Guild electric. It had a black finish, and I think I got it for around $235 when I was 18. The new guitars were out of my price range so I had to look at the used models. This one was in good condition and a nice color. It had peculiarities too, because of that area behind the bridge. The pickups were somewhat microphonic, so you’d get this cool feedback. 

“It wouldn’t really squeal, unless you knew how, but you’d get this nice little hum. If you stood near the amp, you could move that hum around. There was also something cool about the fact it was a little lighter. 

“I could make all those cool poses like Ace Frehley, even though he used a Les Paul. Kiss made guitars look like some kind of action instrument. The lighter Guild facilitated all those poses, which, admittedly, I didn’t make because I was still busy trying to learn what to play and not screw up!”

Were you still using Peavey guitar amps or had you crossed over to Mesa/Boogie by this point?

“I don’t actually know. There was a transition around then because I’d been using the Peavey VTMs around Badmotorfinger. Mostly because we endorsed them and they gave us a lot of gear for the road, which you need. 

“There would be times where we’d break our amps or sometimes borrow a tube from one head and put it in another. By [1996’s] Down On the Upside, we were definitely using Boogies, but I’d also sometimes track with a Music Man head or a Fender.”

Songs like Spoonman and 4th of July also became fan favorites from this era of Soundgarden, but for very different reasons.

“Spoonman was crunchy and visceral. It had that percussive sort of feel, with Matt directing that heaviness. 4th of July was not as percussive, but it had more of a droney kind of element that relied more on ambience. It was a tough song to record because of the tuning. 

“We had to use really heavy strings that would interfere with how I liked how to play, in terms of bending and finger vibrato. Heavier strings are a bit tougher, but they are able to hold the tuning better. 

“Looser strings dropped down go sharp when you squeeze the neck too hard. It was a tough one to record; you’d think you got the take and then listen back to discover the guitars were slightly out.”

Looking back now, which songs are you most proud of?

“My answer changes every time I’m asked. 4th of July has this melodic lead that I doubled an octave up. It sounds very wilting and melancholic; there’s something about it that’s really sympathetic and sad, especially against the doomy riff. It could have been more chaotic and more recognizable as me throwing a bunch of paint against a wall… or shit, as the case may be. But it required something like that – a written lead in context of the song. 

“Then there’s Like Suicide, which has a frenetic sort of chaos with a sense of melody, too. A lot of my solos are like that: a combination of punching in and Frankensteining different takes. I was tapping into the lyrics and sadness of the song, which has a Beatles-y Dear Prudence vibe. When the solo comes in, it’s not crying but rather shrieking and wailing. It’s like this inconsolable outburst of tears.”

Which players do you think impacted you most – and in what ways?

“I’d like to remind all the perfectionist guitar nerds reading this to listen to Jimmy Page’s solo on [Led Zeppelin’s] In the Evening. It sounds like the guitar is falling down the stairs… It’s brilliant. I remember people writing about it in the late ’70s asking, ‘Did he mean to fuck up there?’ And I’d be thinking, ‘It’s just cool!’ 

“The same goes for Jimi Hendrix with all that feedback. He was always pushing himself and making people ask, ‘Why did he choose to go there?!’ He wouldn’t play things the same way every time because it came from his heart, not the chart or some textbook. He was living it, thinking it and feeling it. Feedback was all over the place. It was part of the passion and intensity… and a lot of that fed into what I was trying to do!” 

Jerry Cantrell and Jim Dunlop have teamed up for a new take on his signature JC95 wah pedal, dubbed the Firefly Cry Baby wah.

The Firefly features firefly artwork and a ‘JC Cantrell’ logo on the tread, both of which glow in the dark, as do the front badge and bottom plate text. 

This obviously makes it easier to plug up and find on a dark stage, which is useful in its own right, but also offers a nod to the pedal’s inspiration: Cantrell’s 2021 solo album, Brighten.

Much like the two previous Cantrell Cry Baby signatures, this latest iteration continues the tradition of printing lyrics on the bottom plate, in this case the album’s title track.

Previous editions of the pedal featured lyrics to Alice in Chains’ Black Gives Way To Blue and the band’s 2018 album title track Rainier Fog printed on the bottom plates. 

As with all the JC95 wahs, the Firefly is voiced to nail Cantrell’s trademark wah tones and features a side-mounted knob for dialling in the toe-down frequency.

The Firefly is the latest in a raft of signature guitar gear that has been masterfully timed to hit the market throughout the Brighten campaign. 

Indeed, the first video from the record, Atone, teased the arrival of what would turn out to be the Gibson Jerry Cantrell Atone Songwriter acoustic. The guitarist’s stunning and much-anticipated “Wino” Les Paul Custom arrived shortly after and was soon followed by two Epiphone signatures (The Wino and Prophecy models) this spring.

Back in May, Total Guitar conducted a series of polls on GuitarWorld.com. A staggering number votes were cast – just over 150,000, in fact – and now the results can be revealed.

Because we wanted to represent every era, from early classics to contemporary guitar heroes, we divided up our polls decade by decade from the 1960s all the way through to the 2010s and 2020s. Here, we present the top 10 guitar albums of the '90s, as voted by you.

Throughout the '90s, heavy music was redefined by Rage Against the Machine, Pantera, Soundgarden and more. But incredibly, four of the decade’s greatest guitar albums were released within a six-week period in 1991.

10. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)

Leaning harder into the funk of funk-rock than any of their peers, the Chilis’ defining moment finds John Frusciante drawing as much on Parliament-Funkadelic and Sly Stone as Hendrix. 

It turned out that playing James Brown riffs with a grittier tone and a drummer who wanted to be John Bonham was a winner. Frusciante’s angular soloing on Suck My Kiss and the graunching string bends of Give It Away explored how percussive lead guitar can get, while Under The Bridge is the best anyone has appropriated Hendrix’s combined lead-rhythm style. Amps? You don’t need one – John did most of this straight into the desk.

9. Tool – Ænima (1996)

Unlike his former bandmate Tom Morello, there’s no single aspect of Tool guitarist Adam Jones’ playing that is identifiably unique. Somehow, though, the overall effect sounds quite unlike anyone else. The majority of riffs are in 4/4, but the band’s knack for placing accents in different places for each instrument makes Ænima constantly rhythmically engaging.

Jones’ Les Paul tone is gigantic yet clear, coming from an early blueface Diezel VH4. His use of flangers gave the tone movement, and he’s one of the few guitarists to exploit his guitar’s tone control. The grooves in Ænima are so hypnotic that epic tunes flash by.

8. Soundgarden – Superunknown (1994)

For all the success of Superunknown, a number one in the US, Soundgarden’s fourth album saw fearless experimentation with time signatures. Spoonman is in 7/4, My Wave in 5/4, and Limo Wreck in a head-spinning 15/8 (five ‘triplet’ beats per bar). Their wild tunings included Open C (C-G-C-G-G-E), and Open E5 (E-E-B-B-B-B). 

Nevertheless, MTV found Black Hole Sun irresistible. Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil somehow retained clarity amid such sludgy riffing, thanks in no small part to Cornell’s choice of a Gretsch Duo Jet and Silver Jet and a Fender Jazzmaster to record all the rhythms, split through a Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier and 50-watt Marshall JMP.

7. Pantera – Vulgar Display Of Power (1992)

Dimebag Darrell was one of metal’s great characters – Zakk Wylde and EVH mashed into one fret-melting force of nature. On paper, Pantera should have been too heavy to get as big as they did, but Dime’s riffs had such an irresistible groove that everyone got on board. His vibrato was wider than the Grand Canyon, and his chromatic licks were vicious. 

The 12/8 rhythm of Walk defines groove metal, and its hand-crossing tapping lick is just plain fun. Dime proved you didn’t need valve amps for brutality, either. His preferred Randall solid-state heads grind with an unceasing fury here.

6. Alice In Chains – Dirt (1992)

Riffing harder than any of their Seattle contemporaries, Alice In Chains brought metal and grunge fans together. Them Bones successfully turned a piledriving riff in 7/8 into a hit single without sounding remotely prog, and Cantrell’s drop D grinding and layered parts earned him the admiration of Dimebag Darrell and Eddie Van Halen. 

Producer Dave Jerden recorded a separate amp for each EQ band. A Rockman supplied the treble, and a Bogner Ecstasy brought the mids. Bass was either a prototype Dual Rectifier or a Bogner Fish preamp, depending who you ask, but either way the resulting tone is colossal.

5. Megadeth – Rust In Peace (1990)

Marty Friedman’s choice soloing made Megadeth the guitar connoisseur’s favourite thrashers, and he was never in better form than on Rust In Peace. With exotic pentatonic scales and artfully chosen ‘wrong’ notes, he never sounded predictable but he kept enough blues influence to be accessible.

Standouts like Tornado Of Souls show a vibrato Kirk Hammett could only dream of and a perfect balance of technique and melody. Dave Mustaine isn’t outclassed either – his ‘machine gun’ alternate picking is blistering. He delivered his best riffs and songs to date, and went toe-to-toe with Friedman for Hangar 18’s duelling solos.

4. Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine (1992)

There’s a lot to say about Rage Against the Machine’s musical innovation, but ultimately every landmark album needs great songs, and Rage had ’em. Their debut had the best set of Jimmy Page-inspired blues riffs since Led Zeppelin II, and frontman Zack de la Rocha created slamming hooks without the need for singing. Drummer Brad Wilk had a Bonham-esque ability to hit each snare slightly late and guitarist Tom Morello also sat behind the beat, sounding like a T-Rex stomping through New York.

Morello’s preference for neck pickup tones on rhythms made him stand out. He used his Arm the Homeless guitar for standard tuning and American Standard Telecaster for everything in drop D, with overdubs from a Les Paul. 

Sick of tone chasing, Morello picked one amp setting in rehearsal and has stuck with it ever since. Luckily, his Marshall 2205 sounded awesome. Innovation is part luck, and Morello happened to be the first breakthrough guitarist with a DigiTech Whammy. But he also had an astonishingly creative mind and a refusal to be limited by conventional approaches.

His DJ scratching, created with a killswitch and a wide-open wah pedal, was brand-new. At times he’d unplug the guitar and exploit the noises made by a live cable. Somehow, Tom made it all work in context without sounding weird for the sake of it.

3. Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)

The ’90s didn’t really begin until Nevermind came out. There had long existed a punk scene for people who felt alienated by bands like Mötley Crüe. By 1991, that was the majority, and a generation embraced Nirvana for rejecting what had gone before.

Kurt Cobain had bought his Fender Jaguar because it was the only decent lefty he could find, but it helped that it looked unlike anything on MTV. Where ’80s chorus had been digitally pristine, Kurt chose an analogue MXR Small Clone. Where their distortion had come from giant amps, Kurt had a $40 Boss DS-1. And where they had shredded, Kurt played the vocal melody.

Ironically, producer Butch Vig didn’t let Nirvana sound the way they wanted. Nevermind’s sonics reflect the tension between Kurt’s urge for rawness and Vig’s radio-friendly instincts. Audiences connected to Cobain’s raw emotion, but they might not have done so in such numbers had Vig not persuaded him to multitrack a slick wall of guitars.

Beyond the sonics were Kurt’s immaculately crafted songs. The soft-loud dynamics were undeniably effective, and he had a Beatles-like knack for unexpected but satisfying chord changes. Lithium dances between D major and D minor for its verse and changes key for the chorus, while In Bloom somehow weaves a beautiful melody around the most jarring set of chords.

It’s hard to think about Nevermind without thinking of the overall tragedy of Kurt’s life, but it’s a monumental testament to the power of music – and guitars – to communicate feeling.

2. Pearl Jam – Ten (1991)

Stone Gossard and Mike McCready’s smart approach to having two guitars gave Pearl Jam’s debut its expansive sound. Generally McCready plays a Strat while Gossard plays a Les Paul, and one plays high while the other plays low. The distinct tones and frequencies from each guitarist give everything clarity and fill the entire audio spectrum with sonic excitement.

Pearl Jam have been called Seattle’s Rolling Stones to Nirvana’s Beatles. Like the Stones they have the knack of “weaving sonic tapestries”, as Keith Richards put it. Their thoughtful part writing also left space for Jeff Ament’s enormous 8- and 12-string basslines.

Mike McCready’s undisguised Stevie Ray Vaughan passion saw him bring Strats back into vogue. After a decade of compressed humbucker tones, McCready’s dynamic single coils underlined that this was a new generation.

He described his playing on Black and Even Flow as an SRV “rip off”, while he saw the epic outro solo in Alive as a copy of Ace Frehley’s solo in She by Kiss, which in turn was taken from Robby Krieger’s Five To One with The Doors.

Both guitarists used JCM800s for dirty tones and Fenders for clean parts. The guitarists happily shared the spotlight, with Gossard often playing main riffs on songs where McCready took solos. 

Kurt Cobain may have sneered that Ten had too many solos for an alternative band, but Pearl Jam were reconnecting rock with more organic tones and blues-rock roots, more Hendrix than hair metal. Ten was a classic rock masterpiece disguised as a grunge album.

1. Metallica – Metallica (1991)

The standout guitar album of the ’90s. The best-selling heavy metal album of all time. A sonic and creative benchmark for the genre. Metallica’s self-titled fifth album, forever known as The Black Album, is also the inspiration for countless young guitarists, with lead single Enter Sandman an essential riff for every new player. And for Matt Tuck, leader of British metal stars Bullet For My Valentine, the influence of this album is profound.

“They were a big band before that anyways,” Matt says, “but as soon as they released The Black Album it went stratospheric. They’ve been untouchable ever since, as far as getting an album to connect with as many people as they did. The amount of sales, how relevant it is 30 years later – it’s just a phenomenon!”

Tuck tells a story millions of metal fans can relate to: “I was 14 years old. We had just got Sky installed so we had MTV. We put it on and there was this music video on of a truck smashing through a man’s bed, with all these crazy low-end toms raging. It was Enter Sandman. The moment I heard it I was like ‘What the fuck is this?’ I was hooked from that moment. Within a couple of weeks I went out and bought my first ever album, Metallica’s Black Album.”

In that moment, Matt Tuck’s future was set. “I started to learn to play guitar by myself that year, off the back of that album,” he continues. “I learned some basic chords, then put on that album and started to work it all out. I wanted to be James Hetfield!”

In the early ’80s, Metallica had risen to cult status as pioneers of thrash metal, a super-fast, super-heavy hybrid of metal and punk. After a doggedly anti-commercial start to their career, they had made their first MTV video, for the song One, in 1988. 

The following album would be a risky move into the mainstream. For this, they enlisted producer Bob Rock, best known for working with Mötley Crüe and Bon Jovi. James Hetfield’s touring guitar had long been emblazoned with a “Kill Bon Jovi” sticker, and some Metallica fans were nervous.

Rock was famously demanding in the studio. Tensions between band and producer are visible in the Year In The Life Of Metallica documentary, and there were times during the making of the album when band and producer were barely on speaking terms.

Matt Tuck compares the process to working with producer Don Gilmore (Linkin Park) on Bullet’s 2010 album Fever. “We’ve never had that kind of ascendancy,” he says, “but Fever felt like a big stepping stone for us. That took us from Brixton Academy to Wembley. Up until that point, nobody questioned the songwriting. Don Gilmore was the only guy that really challenged me as a writer and I didn’t like it! He’s trying to get us to take out double kick patterns and not dumb it down, but just try and make it a little bit more Black Album.”

Matt can understand Metallica’s difficulties with Rock. “It’s such an intimate long-term personal process. The first time you work with these guys you don’t know them, there’s no relationship, there’s no trust. It’s only really when the dust settles and you can look back on it a couple of years later that you actually appreciate the process.”

The Black Album’s monochrome cover both earned its nickname and invited comparisons to AC/DC’s Back In Black. The albums have more in common than just their ultra-noir sleeves. Both were made at the turn of a decade by bands in mourning (AC/DC for singer Bon Scott, Metallica for bassist Cliff Burton).

Both bands had begun with cult followings and made steps towards the mainstream with Highway To Hell (1979) and ... And Justice For All (1988) respectively. For both bands, though, black albums marked the leap to global stardom, securing their places in the rock pantheon – even if diehard fans still prefer their earlier work.

The AC/DC connection was conscious. Drummer Lars Ulrich told Uncut magazine’s John Robinson in 2020 that they listened to the Australians when writing The Black Album: “We thought about the art of simplifying and writing shorter songs... A little more bounce, to make the music more physical than cerebral.”

Where Metallica’s trademark in the ’80s had been fast and furious, AC/DC often made songs heavier by slowing down.

The Black Album was notable for establishing scooped mids as the dominant metal guitar tone. The main rhythm amp was a Mesa/Boogie Mark II-C++ as it had been since Master Of Puppets, but a modded Marshall JCM800 and a Boogie Mark V were among the other amps to hand. 

On Hetfield’s Mesa, mid control was at 0 and the amp’s graphic EQ was a shaped in a V, with the middle 750Hz band all the way down at -12dB. There were two further parametric EQs in the FX loop, cutting mids at 900Hz and 1.2kHz and boosting presence at 4.2kHz and 6kHz. By now, Metallica were using ESP guitars with EMG pickups.

It was directly the opposite of classic mid-heavy tones from bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden, but Metallica did strategically replace some of the lost mids with the Marshall amp. Rock’s JCM800 was modified by Jose Arredondo, famous because Eddie Van Halen had claimed (falsely, it later emerged) he had modded Ed’s famous Plexi.

“James wanted crunch,” Bob Rock told Reverb.com. “Crunch to me is upper mids. Crunch to him is that resonance when he palm mutes and it goes gonk! It’s the sound of the room we made for the guitar sounds, it’s not all close mic’ed.”

Rock’s input on the guitars was huge. He suggested they tuned down to D standard for Sad But True after noticing all the songs were in the same key. He pushed Kirk to try harder on solos, insisting on him laying down an improvised solo with every live take of each song.

When lead guitarist Kirk Hammett recorded the final solos, they used the improvised takes for inspiration. Rock rejected Kirk’s initial idea for The Unforgiven, and suggested Kirk fingerpick the clean half of the solo – “really pull on the strings and slap them against the frets,” as Kirk recalled to Guitar World. His insistence paid off and Kirk can be seen grinning in A Year In The Life...

“It’s pretty much the type of guitar solo I’ve been trying to do for the last five or six years,” he said, “and I’m really proud of that.” 

It was also Rock who gave James the confidence to pursue the ballad Nothing Else Matters, notable for Hetfield’s first Metallica solo. The Black Album forever positioned Metallica as metal giants. And for Matt Tuck, is still stands tall as a masterpiece.

“We’ve managed to play a few festivals and shows with Metallica,” Matt smiles. “It’s always a bit of a headfuck, I’m not gonna lie. They’re such a huge part of my life from such an early age and they’ve defined me as a person and my career. It’s as big as that for me. So for them to pass me in the corridor at a festival and go, ‘Hey, Matt!’ just blows my mind. They’re the most important metal band there’s ever been, and The Black Album deserves every accolade. They are the kings.”

Last September, it was announced that Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell was linking up with Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil to spearhead a grunge-focused Rock ‘N’ Roll Fantasy Camp, the aptly titled Sounds of Seattle.

The event itself took place a fortnight ago (February 17-20), and now footage has made its way online, showcasing the electric guitar stars performing a number of their respective bands’ biggest hits alongside a host of camp attendees.

When the event was first announced, Thayil said he was “super excited about the opportunity to connect and re-engage with fans at the Rock ‘n Roll Fantasy Camp”. 

“The past few years have been unusually difficult and at times truly bizarre for the nation and world in general,” he added, “and for the music industry and rock bands in particular."

Well, Thayil made good on his word to reconnect with fans, and can be seen in one video onstage with a vocalist, two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer performing Soundgarden’s 1991 Badmotorfinger number Slaves & Bulldozers.

His camp co-leader Cantrell also got in on the action, with a second video showcasing the Alice in Chains icon joining up with an impromptu house band of fans for a performance of Ain’t Like That. Both videos can be seen above.

As part of Sounds of Seattle, fans were also given the opportunity to perform publicly at a handful of notable Hollywood venues, including The Viper Room and The Whisky-A-Go-Go.

Jane’s Addiction/Porno for Pyros drummer Stephen Perkins, Nickelback bass guitar player Mike Kroeger, Whitesnake’s Joel Hoekstra and Vixen’s Britt Lightning also featured at the event as guest instructors.

Last month, Megadeth's Dave Mustaine made an appearance at Florida's own Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy Camp, and joined fans in the rehearsal room to jam Symphony of Destruction and A Tout Le Monde.

Alice In Chains have become the latest established act to sell off rights to their back catalog, with two firms making rights and royalties acquisitions in recent days.

Independent publisher Primary Wave announced yesterday that it had acquired music rights from the estates of Layne Staley and Mike Starr, the band’s late frontman and bassist.

According to Primary Wave, the deal bought the firm a stake in Staley and Starr’s publishing catalogue and master royalty income from hits like Would?, Man In The Box and Rooster.

Staley passed away in 2002 and was followed by Starr in 2011.

David Weitzman of Primary Wave had this to say :“Primary Wave is pleased to partner with the estates of Layne Staley and Mike Starr to honor their musical legacies as part of the classic era lineup of Alice In Chains, who created the amazing songs and records that comprise the albums Dirt and Facelift, and the acoustic EPs, Jar of Flies and Sap. These projects represent the greatest works from one of the best artists of the iconic ’90’s Seattle based grunge era.”

Meanwhile, in a separate deal, the band’s current members (including Jerry Cantrell, Sean Kinney, Mike Inez and William DuVall) have sold their own shares in the band’s back catalogue to a different publisher, Round Hill Music. 

The deal, which Variety reports to be worth $50 million, is for a 100% interest in masters, publishing and neighboring rights from the four remaining band members, including all of Cantrell’s compositions for the group. This entitles the firm to a share of to the rights for all of the above songs, plus all of the music made since the band's early-00s revival. Cantrell’s solo work is not included in the deal.

“If you look at the grunge category, there was Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden,” says Round Hill CEO, Josh Gruss. “There’s such a loyalty with the fan base and such quality to the music. Alice in Chains music still holds up really, really well, and there’s just nothing else like it.”

As a result, fans might reasonably expect an uptick in licensing and increased appearances/profile for the band’s music across various media formats. 

During a conversation with Tom Morello on his Maximum Firepower podcast, Jerry Cantrell has recalled Layne Staley’s early fascination with the Rage Against the Machine firebrand’s guitar playing.

Alice in Chains and RATM were both part of the bill at Lollapalooza 1993, an experience Morello cites as formative given it was the politically charged outfit’s first major tour, but it also marked an influential time for Staley’s development as a guitar player.

“I remember, during that tour, Layne really had a shine for you,” Cantrell recalls. “He wanted to play guitar more, and he was kind of intimidated because he didn’t play that much guitar, but he really was turned on by how you played guitar – I was a little hurt by that. [Laughs]”

“But I remember that, and you gave him the spark to learn how to play guitar and write more songs.”

Staley, who favored Gibson SG and Les Paul models, wrote and played guitar on Alice in Chains’ Angry Chair, Hate to Feel and Head Creeps, and also performed on Mad Season’s I Don’t Know Anything during their performance at the Moore Theater in Seattle.

Elsewhere in the interview, Morello shared some of his own memories of Staley during the run.

“He and I had a lot of laughs on that tour, man,” he enthused. “We would have a daily argument of who was more metal: him or me. It would be part metal trivia and part posturing, but I remember that very very fondly.”

Staley and Morello would eventually join forces in supergroup Class of ’99 to record a cover of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) for 1998 sci-fi horror flick The Faculty. It became one of Staley’s final studio appearances prior to his death in April 2002.

To hear Cantrell and Morello’s conversation in full, check out Tom Morello’s Maximum Firepower podcast.

Jerry Cantrell likes to keep nostalgia at arm’s length. “I never look back too much,” he says. “I think if you spend too much time on the past, you’re not moving forward. I was never the kind of guy to just kick back and cruise. I’m always thinking about getting over the mountain. I try to keep my eye on what’s in front of me.”

Even so, the guitarist is happy to spend part of our interview strolling down memory lane, reflecting on those years – now three decades ago – when his band Alice in Chains, along with fellow Seattleites Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and others, fused punk, hard rock and metal for a sound that revolutionized music. 

“It was a cool time,” he says. “It was very personal, and that’s what made it cool. It was exclusive to you and your buddies and your extended friends who would show up to gigs. The musical community in Seattle was going on for a couple of years, and you could feel something percolating. It was just a good energy. Everybody was in a fucking band.”

As for how he now feels looking back at that era in the rear-view mirror, Cantrell lets out a thoughtful sigh. “Sometimes that whole period feels like yesterday; other times it feels like it’s an eternity ago,” he says. “I think we all know that the clock moves a little bit faster than you’d like. Most of the time, it’s a good distance away, but I have those other moments, too.”

For most people, time stood still throughout much of 2020 during the initial wave of the COVID pandemic, and Cantrell was no exception – in virtual lockdown, he was forced to stay close to his home base in Seattle. 

Before COVID hit, he had just recorded most of the basics for his new solo album (a three-way production he shares with Tyler Bates and Paul Figueroa) in Los Angeles, and once he returned to Seattle he resumed work on the record at home studios in one-on-one sessions, or by sending files back and forth between musicians. 

In a strange way, Cantrell almost welcomed the isolation. “I was glad to have something to work on through the whole thing,” he says. “To be honest, it didn’t feel very different from other recordings – being in a studio feels like you’re in a submarine or a cave for months anyway. The only difference was the stress of worrying that nobody got sick, or more important, getting anybody sick. We were all trying to figure it out together, as was the entire globe, with the little information we had, learning a little more as time went on.”

Depending on how you keep score, Brighten is either Cantrell’s third or fourth solo album (in 1998 he issued Boggy Depot, and 2002 saw the release of Degradation Trips, Volumes 1 and 2), and as the record’s optimistic and walloping title track suggests, the guitarist is in a pretty good place these days. 

Perhaps owing to the prevailing notion that he’s a grim and gloomy dude, he lets out a warm laugh and says, “I feel like I’ve been in a pretty good place most of my life. I’ve been a lucky fellow to be able to make something that I care about and use my creativity as an artist, and also as a way to support myself. It’s my job.”

Cantrell kicks Brighten off with Atone, a dusty and bluesy roar that seems to encapsulate everything about his signature sound – the gnashing stacked guitars, sweet-and-sour vocal harmonies and a king-sized riff that sticks to your ribs – in one neat package. 

There are few shades of darkness and solemnity; Siren Song is a heavy-duty mood piece, and the album closes with a chilling cover of Elton John’s Goodbye that pairs doom-drenched guitars with swelling orchestral strings. 

But for the most part, Cantrell imbues his songs with a feeling that’s startlingly sunny. Thanks to the pedal steel licks of Michael Rozon, a breezy Americana charm blows through country rockers Prism of Doubt and Black Hearts and Evil Done. And the gutbucket swagger of Dismembered echoes the freewheeling, down-home vibe of early '70s Stones.

Among the tight-knit group of players Cantrell enlisted for Brighten (Gil Sharone and Abe Laboriel Jr. share drumming duties) is his longtime friend and fellow Seattleite Duff McKagan.

“Like me, Duff’s also got another band that’s pretty good,” Cantrell quips. On some tracks, McKagan came up with his own bass ideas, while on other cuts he deferred to Cantrell, preferring the guitarist’s bass performances on demos. And on a couple of other songs, the two would “Frankenstein” parts, passing a bass back and forth between them. 

“Duff was very cool and would say, ‘You should keep that part you played. I don’t know if I can do it justice,’” Cantrell recalls. “I have such respect for him. He’s a dear friend and a fellow Washingtonian. It really meant a lot to me to have him on the record.”

If his own listening tastes are any kind of gauge, the guitarist thinks Brighten will have some legs once it’s released. “Whenever somebody else hears a record, the artist is well fucking tired of it,” Cantrell says. “I’ve been living with this one a lot longer than I normally would, and it still sounds good to me. It’s got some light and some space and some things that are unique. 

“You want to be familiar enough that you don’t lose people, but at the same time, you want to get into some territory that maybe you haven’t covered yet. And I think that this record is full of that. It’s just a real rock ‘n’ roll record.”

Staying with Seattle for a bit, I’m curious: In the late '80s, before Alice in Chains got signed, and before the town became the epicenter for grunge, did you guys think that maybe you should relocate to New York or L.A.?

“Actually, I think the reason we were able to develop into what we were was because we weren’t in L.A. or New York, where the record companies were. We were outside the view a little bit until somebody started to notice. Soundgarden kind of started it off when they signed with A&M. Sub Pop was definitely a thing, but what took it worldwide was Soundgarden going to a major and [Mother] Love Bone getting a deal. Then we got signed by Columbia, and it just kept rolling.”

In the early days of the band, was it hard for Alice to get gigs? Was the band embraced on the scene pretty quickly?

“There weren’t a whole lot of places to play at first. There were a couple of bars – the Central Tavern, the Vogue. We would play anywhere. We played VFW halls and roller rinks. There was an old converted garage; I remember going to see Mudhoney there. 

“We would just make do. It was really cool to be a part of it, especially at that age because you have dreams and feelings about what you’d like to do, and you’re all the same age. At that age it’s magical; you’re kind of discovering stuff for the first time and going through it together.”

So even while you’re searching for places to play, did real success feel attainable? What did success mean to you at the time? 

“Things were happening enough. We were cool and it was really pure. Our first big goal was to sell out the Central Tavern – that’s the local legendary bar down in Pioneer Square. What mattered to us was being recognized as being a good band that could stand alongside a whole bunch of really good fucking bands from Seattle.”

Present company excluded, who was the best guitar player in Seattle back then? Who was just killing it?

“It’s tough to say; everybody’s so unique. Kim Thayil is crazy. He’s got a crazy style that is unique unto itself. It’s a blend of different styles – super-big and out of control, but right on the fucking edge of coming off the tracks and going right back on. I always admired his playing. 

“I always liked Stone Gossard’s style, too. Super-punk, but also really melodic and based in some kind of regular rock, hard rock, blues-based riffs and stuff. Kurt Cobain was like a cross between punk and pop. His style had a lot of ferocity, and he wrote super-memorable, simple stuff. I don’t know… If I had to pick one, it would be Kim.”

Even though grunge owed a lot to metal, at a certain point in the '90s it seemed as if alternative bands wanted to distance themselves from various aspects of the genre – it wasn’t cool. Did you feel that?

“I’m not sure about that. There might have been some changes about that attitude, maybe outwardly, verbally, but if you listen to the music, it’s in there. It’s in all of the bands. And if you listen to the rock radio up here, that’s the thing. 

“Rock radio was a super-strong staple. KZOK and KSW – and there was a cool college station that played all sorts of shit. This is a very rock-friendly environment; the Northwest has always been that way. Listening to the radio every night, I was awash in that stuff.”

What about anti-major-label sentiments in the Seattle community? Were you hearing things from your friends in town like, “Major labels are the enemy”?

“With Sub Pop, it kind of went hand in hand with how we all started and operated and viewed ourselves. It was all do-it-yourself and not having some A&R guy telling you what to do. You did what you wanted. By the time the majors started coming around, we were all well-versed and well on our way. Collectively as a community, all of the bands had a real foundation and established what their identities were. 

So we were kind of let loose on the world, and that kicked off pretty early. I guess that helped cement the idea that we didn’t fucking need anybody telling us what to do. It was like, 'We can write songs. We know how to rock. We know what our band sounds like.' It was cool. I always loved that we – and most of us – had that experience. I think that’s why the records that were created had such impact.”

So much of the Seattle sound was built on raging guitars, but early on you started introducing acoustics into the mix. What was the initial reaction? Was everybody in the band on board?

“The acoustic guitar has a thing all its own, and pretty early on we started messing around with some acoustic ideas. I think where it all came from was we were doing a demo for Cameron Crowe and his [1992] movie Singles. He asked me to write a song for it, so I wrote Would? I kind of had Andy Wood in mind – he had passed away. 

“We were always demoing stuff and trying things out. I was messing around on some songs with an acoustic, so we took the money from Cameron to demo Would? and then demoed six or seven other tunes. Five of them were what turned out to be Sap.”

“So we just had it around. We were aware at that point that our first record had some impact, and it was a rock record, but see, all the music I grew up listening to and the artists I was influenced by… there are times to get quiet and use different feels and different sounds. It’s not just about full force all the time. We messed around with every element we could. Our attitude was to do what we felt and never try to repeat what we already did, because that’s done. So it was just about moving forward.

“I’ve got to give credit to [Alice in Chains drummer] Sean [Kinney]. We were having a meeting one day and we had these tunes, and he was like, 'Man, we should make an EP of those. I had a dream last night that we put those out on an EP and it was called Sap.' So we did it. 

“We were already writing some of the stuff that would become Dirt, and we knew it would be a while, so we said, 'Why don’t we put that out between the records? It’s like a cool little thing for the fans. We won’t advertise it or have the record company take out any ads or anything. We’ll just make it, and then we’ll put it in the stores.' 

“Columbia was down with that idea from a promotional angle. I’m glad we did that, because it opened us up. We didn’t get pegged or be expected to follow a narrower kind of approach.”

In hindsight, it was good that you released Sap so early in your career. As you say, it prevented you from being pigeonholed.

“As long as you keep writing good songs. Fans are discerning. You throw them a turd and they’re not going to dig that. I’ve always been a firm believer in this. I don’t care if it’s rap, country, disco, rock ‘n’ roll, metal, punk, whatever you want to call it – a good song is a good song, you know what I mean? As long as it’s good, people will follow you.”

Before Alice released Dirt, the band went on tour as openers for Van Halen. What do you remember about that tour and Eddie?

“In our band, Van Halen was always well-loved and embedded in our psyches; and, of course, as a guitar player, Eddie is the top of the mountain in terms of uniqueness and a commitment to excellence. There was nobody like him, and there never will be. That’s just the way it’s supposed to be. That tour was really impactful from a career standpoint and also just an achievement level of, like, 'Wow. OK, I guess we can play with these guys.'

“I remember showing up for the first gig and walking up on the deck and getting ready to play the show. Eddie was sitting there with his guitar on, running scales and he’s smiling and shit. He came over and introduced himself; he was hanging right on the side of the stage in my little pit with my guitars and my guitar tech.

“Valerie was with him; Wolfie was newly born and in her arms. So that’s how the tour started for me, like, 'Holy shit. OK, I’m standing here and fucking Eddie Van Halen is smiling and playing guitar and fucking meeting me. And I’m going to go on stage in about five minutes.' [Laughs]

“I go on to play, and he stayed there and watched me. I think it was the worst fucking gig in my life – at least in my mind because I was so nervous that the dude was sitting watching me. Finally, he went back to his dressing room to get ready for his show, and I think I started to relax a little bit more.

“We stayed with Van Halen for a couple of legs and made really good friends with Eddie. There were a lot of late-night hangs, a lot of pool halls and bars. We’d always end up in each other’s rooms with a couple of guitars. When he came to town, he’d give me a call and vice versa. We also became friends with Sammy. He and I have been buds for a long time.”

Let’s get into your new album. Beyond the sound of your voice, which is always so pleasing to hear, your stacked guitars have a sound all their own. Lots of guitarists layer guitars, but you manage to create a signature sound. What’s your secret? 

“I’ll go back to Eddie Van Halen. I remember reading one time about how Ted Nugent was perplexed by Ed’s sound. The story goes that he went over and plugged into Eddie’s shit to see what kind of secret stuff he had in his rig, and when he started playing he just sounded like Ted Nugent. I had the exact same experience. 

“Once in a while at a soundcheck, I would plug into his amp and I sounded like Jerry Cantrell. In turn, Eddie would play through my shit and sound like Eddie Van Halen. It’s in the fucking hands. It’s in your flesh. You can mess with gear and it will give you a little bit of color, but it’s really in the flesh.”

Atone has such a dirty blues vibe. What are your blues influences?

“Yeah, I call that one a 'psycho hillbilly stomp'. Blues – it’s hard to say. All rock ’n’ roll is based on the blues, a mix of blues and country. That’s an interesting tune. I was chewing on it for a while. The main guitar riff and the chorus progression were in my head since probably the late '90s.

“I demoed it with Sean on some shitty little tape, and then I lost it, so I had to go by memory. I had the chorus, but that beautiful middle section was something else – it takes you years to get to the point where you go, 'OK, now it’s a fucking song.' The weird thing about it is, it’s in an open major tuning, but it sounds minor because of how I play it. Tyler Bates was mystified by that.” 

Black Hearts and Evil Done and Prism of Doubt have a country-rock feel that’s reminiscent of Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection, which was basically his love letter to country music. 

“You’re in the right zone. You can really hear a lot of the roots of what I grew up listening to, the music of the '60s, '70s and '80s and '90s, too. Listening to this record takes me back to being a kid and discovering rock ’n’ roll for the first time. Prism of Doubt reminds me of Steve Miller mixed with a little Frank Black Pixies. Black Hearts is cool; it’s got a country-folk thing going on.”

You’ve got the pedal steel there.

“Great pedal steel player – Michael Rozon. He did four or five tracks.”

Your harmonized guitar solo on Black Hearts works as a nice contrast.

“Yeah, I get to do that every once in a while. Like on [Alice in Chains’] Whale & Wasp and a couple of solos, there’s almost an Allman Brothers Band feel. 

Dismembered sounds like it’s coming from the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. period. Fair enough? 

“Yeah, there’s a little Stones, a little Creedence. It’s got all that. The record has some light and some space. It’s like a summer record, almost. It’s a very good driving record.”

You do end on a somber note, though, with your version of Goodbye.

“Yeah, that’s the last song on [Elton John’s] Madman Across the Water. I didn’t intend for it to end this record; it was just one of those serendipitous things. One of the most amazing things for me has been developing a friendship with Elton. We got to record with him on the Black Gives Way to Blue record, which was incredible, and we’ve been to each other’s shows – it’s wonderful. 

“I sent him a demo of my version of the song and I sent it to David, his partner; I just wanted Elton’s permission and to make sure he was OK with me doing it. Four o’clock in the morning I get a call from David: 'Elton is sitting at the breakfast table right now sobbing at how beautifully you did his song.' Right after that, Elton called and said, 'It’s beautiful. It’s fucking amazing. Of course, you have my permission.'”

What were your main guitars on the record?

“It’s always a healthy mix of Les Paul and G&L Rampages. That’s my main mix, but I’ll use anything to get the tone. We used a bunch of Gibson and Martin acoustics, some Guild. Mostly it was G&L Rampages, Pauls and and SGs. I also used a couple of Explorers and a Firebird. There’s a ton of Gibson on the record.”

You have some of your own Gibson signature models coming out.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of stuff planned for the next year or two. Everybody at the company has been really cool, and we’ve been trying to design kind of Cantrell versions of some Gibson classics. We’re coming out with the Les Paul first. It’s based off a translucent wine-colored Les Paul that I’ve had for years.

“I got four Les Pauls in the early '90s – white, which turned into the cigarette-burned one. That’s kind of got an iconic look to it. There’s also a translucent blue one, the translucent wine and a black one. I use them consistently, but the first one out is the wine. We’ve done a few versions of the Cantrell signature model G&L, but these will be my first signature models for Gibson. We’ve got some acoustics coming, some electrics coming. It’s going to be cool.”

What’s the status of Alice in Chains right now?

“When we do a campaign, it’s a good long commitment from writing, recording, getting a record out and then going out and touring it. Generally, we take a little time off after that. Unfortunately and fortunately, our time off was during the pandemic. I was planning on having this record out last year, touring on it last September, and then I’d see what’s up with Alice. 

“Everything got pushed back. Right now, I’m just concentrating on gearing up for a cool campaign and looking forward to doing some shows to support my record. With Alice, and also for myself, we wanted to be cautious and just wait. 

“It looks like we’re going in the right direction, but we’re still seeing some countries fall back, and that’s pretty tough for touring. I think I’m just going to wait. We’re going to book some sort of announcement, some dates for next year. And then Alice will probably do some shows – probably next year – as well.” 

• Brighten is out now via Double J.

Back in 2016, Nancy Wilson and Jerry Cantrell dusted off their acoustic guitars and rendezvoused with Sammy Hagar for an episode of The Red Rocker's Rock & Roll Road Trip series, which included an intimate jam session.

The stripped-back event was hosted by AXS TV, which has now released a 10-minute, pro-shot snippet that sees the newly formed three-piece reel off renditions of Alice In Chains’ Brother, as well as an at-the-time unheard track written by Wilson.

On the meaning of Brother – which was originally released as part of Alice In Chains’ 1992 acoustic EP Sap – Cantrell tells Hagar, who asked what the song’s about, “Well, it’s in the title. I wrote it about my brother.

“My parents split [when] we were pretty young, and there was a time when me and my brother weren’t getting along too well,” he explained. “And my mom was having a hard time raising us, too. My brother moved in with my dad in Oklahoma, so I didn’t see him for quite a long time. We were separated for a while.”

Wielding his Guild D-55E, Cantrell assumes lead vocal and solo duties, while the guitar pick-less, Takamine-toting Wilson and Guild F-55E-playing Hagar are on hand to lend some serene supporting strums.

Following the performance, Nancy Wilson is now the second Heart member and Wilson sibling to have featured on Brother, after her older sister Ann Wilson sung backing vocals on the original ‘92 recording.

Brother was promptly followed by a previously unreleased track composed by Nancy Wilson – which, by her own admission, was “never finished” at the time of the jam – who had written it about the late Alice In Chains vocalist, Layne Staley.

The cut – now titled The Dragon – has since been reworked and can be found on Wilson’s most recent album, You And Me, though at the time of AXS TV’s jam it was still very much a work in progress.

Wilson once again relies on her pick-less strumming style – which sees her right hand hover unusually high around the 12th fret area – with the quasi-improvised track receiving some subtle, percussive-esque backing from Cantrell.

The lack of a lyrical structure proves to be no problem for Hagar, however, who throws caution to the wind and subjects the emotive track to an abundance of off-the-cuff, classic-rock vocal hooks.

Fancy watching the entire 20-minute episode? You can find the jam session in its entirety at AXSTV.

Jerry Cantrell has a way with chords. The Alice In Chains guitarist can take even the simplest of ideas and supercharge them with an emotional pull that sucks the listener right into the deep end of whatever mood he’s trying to convey. 

From the Seattle group’s original run in the '90s, through his own solo endeavours and since the band’s rebirth in 2005, Cantrell’s mastery has made him one of rock’s true visionaries – a writer and player who makes you hear, feel and believe every word and note.

On his new solo album, Brighten, he’s embracing country music, yet still using the same electric guitar he’s used since Alice In Chains’ debut Facelift – an album that did so much to shape the sound of alternative rock in 1990. His motto: “Do what’s right for you.”

Which artists have influenced you most in terms of songwriting?

“It’s hard to narrow down because I’m just a fan of songwriting in general. I probably got turned onto the idea of it by listening to Elton John. That stuff felt really cool and I knew deep down I’d like to do something like that. I was also raised on country music, which is simplistic songwriting 101. They know how to get something across in a succinct manner. 

“Pink Floyd were a big influence on me, the same goes for Led Zeppelin, Sabbath, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and many more. I think greatest acoustic writer of all-time has got to be Bob Dylan. Or Willie Nelson. Those two guys have been pretty epic and prolific. 

“There are different components to it all, but I’m a guitar player who loves kickass riffs. I grew up on them, so I knew to write something you’d need the riff, the melody, and then something to say. Those are the main things. Then you need a great band to execute it, which is something I’ve been really fortunate with over the years...”

So which of your guitars have you ended up writing most of your songs on?

“For electrics, it’s definitely my 1985 G&L ‘Blue Dress’ Rampage. Funnily enough, I’ve semi-retired that guitar. It’s up at a museum in Seattle right now. When we started making this record, and maybe even the last AIC album, I had to request them to send it back to me for the studio sessions. 

“That guitar has been on every record I’ve ever made, in one form or another. I don’t know if there’s one single acoustic that I’ve written extensively on, that’s a bit more varied and changes depending on the era. 

“For the few years preceding the Unplugged record [Alice In Chains’ MTV Unplugged, released in 1996], it was that Guild. There were other periods where I was really connected to a Martin. And over the last six or seven years, it’s mainly been Gibson Songwriters.”

Speaking of Songwriters, the acoustic you’re playing in the video for the new song Atone has certainly sparked a lot of speculation...

“Yeah, there might be something coming! I have to say, working with JC [James Curleigh, CEO] and Cesar [Gueikian, Brand President] from Gibson has been really good so far. Of course I have a long partnership with G&L, and I’m always going to play them.

“They’re a part of me, a part of my sound. On this album maybe I used more Gibsons and changed the equation a little bit, but I was excited about what they’re doing. It’s Gibson, for God’s sake! They’re so rock ’n’ roll.”

Atone feels more deeply rooted in country rock than anything you’ve recorded before – there’s that minor to major 3rd bend in the riff, for example.

“Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of that country feel in Atone. It’s a very rock and roll record, and you have to remember rock and roll spawned out of country and blues. It’s a mixture of the two. Even if you go back to the AIC EPs and early stuff, country was somewhere in there. It’s always been an ingredient in the mixing bowl.”

And it sounds like you’re using an open C# tuning (C#, G#, C#, F, G#, C#), which we’ve heard before on tracks like Over Now.

“That is absolutely correct. It’s the fourth track I’ve recorded with that particular tuning – there’s Over Now, Nothin’ Song, Hurt A Long Time and now Atone. There’s a hypnotic drone to it – I’ve always been a big fan of that. The tuning almost puts you in a trance, which is what I was going for with Atone, which ended up having an almost Western flavour to it.”

Was it the Alice In Chains rig with you for the sessions, or did you end up trying something different?

“Some of it was the same. Friedman amps are the main rock sound. As always, there was a healthy dose of both Gibsons and G&Ls, and I was peppering in different guitars. Gibson sent over some really cool stuff, four guitars for the record to get some flavours I didn’t have. 

“There was a Firebird, a cool old SG, a Goldtop Les Paul and this Trini Lopez guitar. The way I record is very experimental. It’s like, ‘Okay, let’s try a Laney Klipp and a Flying V with a chorus pedal and a 25-watt Celestion cab!’ And we’ll just see what happens. 

“We’d bring every guitar, amp and pedal I own to the studio and also borrow what we didn’t have. Amp-wise, I know we used some AC30s, Soldanos, Marshalls, there was an Orange in there somewhere, and this really old Fender cab. And it was the same with acoustics – Gibsons, Martins, Guilds, a whole mix of stuff. We go by feel, and I really like that part of it.”

Do you carve out time for writing or does it usually happen on the fly?

“Yeah, it does just come sometimes, though it’s important to put in the necessary work, too. When I lock into a writing phase, I’m in! I know it will be a process of months, maybe a year, but once I’m locked in, I stay there until I’m done. 

“Before that, though, I’m collecting. So whenever you are strumming through ideas and something catches your ear, you need to pick up the phone or use a tape recorder or whatever, record the riff and move on. 

“By the time you get to the point where you are motivated to climb the mountain – because it is a big effort that won’t end until you are truly done – you want plenty of ideas to go into the process with.”

Going back to 1992 and the classic Alice In Chains song Down In A Hole – what do you remember about writing it?

“I couldn’t tell you exactly where or how I came up with it. But that particular tune felt pretty magical early on. Some songs just seem to rise above for some reason and that’s one of them. 

“Songwriting is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. The execution came out really well – Layne [Staley]’s vocals were sick, Sean [Kinney]’s drums were plodding and thunderous and Mike Starr’s bass playing is epic on that, too. You have to give a ton of credit to the group of fellas who elevated it and put themselves into it. 

“I may have written it but it needed all of us to push into the place where it lives. In terms of songwriting, it’s certainly among my best and one of the ones I’m most proud of.”

On that song there’s no guitar solo as such, just some big harmonised bends at the beginning and a laid-back outro lead. You were clearly playing for the song, first and foremost.

“Sometimes you don’t need a ‘solo’ solo. There were a few songs on this new album that didn’t need one, either. Sometimes it’s better to make your guitar part of the fabric and sometimes you need to unzip the fly and whip it out. It just depends on what the song needs.”

On those first two Alice In Chains albums – Facelift and Dirt – you played a big part in popularising drop D-style riffing with songs such as We Die Young and Dam That River. When did you first start tuning down?

“I have to give Eddie Van Halen all the credit. I learned drop D because of Unchained. I just loved the sound of him on that, it was so heavy. As we were forming the band, I was already messing with tuning a half step down anyway. So when you drop that lower string further, it’s a note and a half from standard. 

“And that adds a ton of thickness and sludge – it can make you way more brutal sounding for the heavier shit, like Dam That River, but even on the lighter stuff, too. It just adds this weight to everything. I don’t think we’ve ever recorded in regular pitch, to be honest.”

How much do scales and chord theory play a part in your songwriting process? 

“I’ve got a little knowledge. I had a few lessons when I was starting out. I was able to read music well even before I started playing guitar, because I was in the choir. I couldn’t do it now. 

“I left that behind and kinda wish I hadn’t, because it would make things a lot easier! I don’t know why – I guess sometimes it’s fun to turn the lights out. No guides, no grids, no vision. See what the fuck happens and dig your way out of that. 

“I think about diving back into that stuff, but the other half of me says, ‘You’ve been doing pretty good so far, why fuck with it?!’ That’s all that matters... Do what’s right for you.”

And what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned along the way?

“My biggest advice would be don’t listen to what anyone else says... Ever. If it’s a producer or another songwriter or someone you respect, you can learn some shit from them, so don’t completely disregard stuff – information is a good thing – but personal experience is where music should come from.

“It’s gotta come from you. If it makes you feel, it will make somebody else feel. Believe in yourself and you can write your own Dirt or Brighten or whatever it is!”

• Brighten is out now.

Jerry Cantrell has announced An Evening with Jerry Cantrell, an intimate stream recorded from Los Angeles that will feature a six-song set, as well as a storytelling and Q&A session.

The sold-out performance will be recorded at LA’s Grammy Museum this evening (November 18), and will subsequently be repurposed as a ticketed stream event by Moment House that will be available to US fans on December 1 at 6pm PST.

An Evening with Jerry Cantrell will also be available to UK and EU fans on December 2 at 6pm GMT, and to Asia, Australia and New Zealand on the same date at 6pm JST.

After purchasing tickets – which are currently available for $12 – holders will be able to stream the event for 24 hours.

Highlights will include a streamlined set comprising tracks from the Alice In Chains’ guitarist’s recently released solo album, Brighten, that will be performed alongside musicians who feature on the record, including Tyler Bates, Greg Puciato, Gil Sharone, George Adrian, Vincent Jones, Michael Rozon.

The event will also include a storytelling session – which will no doubt include some tasty anecdotes from Cantrell's Alice In Chains and solo career – as well as a Q&A hosted by comedian Jeff Garlin.

And, judging by both the size of the session and the promo picture provided, those in attendance may get a closer look at Cantrell’s unique Gibson Songwriter acoustic guitar, which has been touted as a forthcoming signature six-string.

Tickets are available now for $12 as preorders, but will also be available on the day of the show for $15.

To find out more, head over to Moment House.

This evening’s performance and the following streams will cap off a busy year for Cantrell, who released his first project without Alice In Chains for 19 years. The guitarist also teamed up with Gibson for a high-end “Wino” Les Paul Custom electric guitar.

It’s been a fairly busy year so far for Jerry Cantrell. As well as teaming up with Gibson for a high-end “Wino” Les Paul Custom electric guitar and teasing an upcoming signature Gibson Songwriter acoustic guitar, the Alice In Chains guitarist has also been promoting his new solo album, Brighten.

If his recent conversation with Life In The Stocks podcast is anything to go by, however, Cantrell has no plans to take his foot off the gas, and has instead voiced his enthusiasm for a potential collaboration with Faith No More.

While speaking to the podcast, Cantrell spoke of Faith No More’s Mike Patton’s evergreen creativity and profound influence.

When quizzed by radio presenter-turned-podcast host Matt Stocks if he’s ever jammed with Patton, Cantrell replied, “[I] never have, but I would love to. That guy is sick," before reflecting on the time he saw the Patton-fronted Mr. Bungle in LA in February 2020.

Cantrell continued, “Patton is sick. I love how versatile he is, the energy that he has. He’s got so many different voices, I don’t think that he’s ever satisfied, and that’s why he keeps swimming so fast.

“It’s just amazing to see all the notes and the different art he puts out,” he added, before revealing he originally decided to start making indie records as a result of Patton’s influence – a decision that lead to Brighten; his first-ever independently-released solo album.

“I also took a little bit of a lesson out of his book by going it alone and making indie records," he continued. “[Former Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist and Cantrell collaborator] Greg Puciato is good buddies with Patton as well, and he’s also had experience doing independent records and running everything out of a little mom-and-pop store instead of a major record label.

“So that’s another really interesting feature about this record. It’s my first completely independent record. And I definitely took some notes and guidance from Greg, and Mike Patton through Greg, in that department.”

Elsewhere in the podcast, Cantrell reflected on his second solo album, 2002’s Degradation Trip, saying that he and the album’s personnel – Metallica’s Robert Trujillo and Faith No More’s Mike Bordin, who both played together with Osbourne – have discussed the possibility of a reunion tour in the future.

“Everybody who’s involved in making a record, especially the players, they’re going to influence how the thing is going to turn out,” Cantrell mused. “I deeply appreciate and respect those guys, and I love them to death.

“Every once in a while we’ll be in the same place, the three of us, and we talk about doing a D-Trip reunion. Just a handful of shows. I would love to do that.”

The Seattle scene of the late-’80s and early-’90s gave birth to a cultural and musical revolution, driven by some truly great guitar players who reimagined punk, metal and hard rock in their own image. Now, Jerry Cantrell, leader of quintessential Seattle rockers Alice in Chains, has named who he considers the greatest guitarist to emerge from the boom.

During a new Guitar World interview promoting recently released solo effort Brighten, Cantrell was asked who he’d dub the best guitar player in Seattle during grunge’s glory days.

“It’s tough to say; everybody’s so unique,” he responds. “Kim Thayil is crazy. He’s got a crazy style that is unique unto itself. It’s a blend of different styles – super-big and out of control, but right on the fucking edge of coming off the tracks and going right back on. I always admired his playing.

“I always liked Stone Gossard’s style, too. Super-punk, but also really melodic and based in some kind of regular rock, hard rock, blues-based riffs and stuff. Kurt Cobain was like a cross between punk and pop. His style had a lot of ferocity, and he wrote super-memorable, simple stuff.

“I don’t know... If I had to pick one, it would be Kim.”

It makes sense that Thayil would be the frontrunner – the Soundgarden guitarist was integral to the development of Alice in Chains’ sound, having introduced Cantrell to drop D tuning at the tail end of the ’80s.

“I remember that the Alice in Chains guys at the time were more like a glam-metal boogie band,” Thayil told Guitar World back in 2012. “One day I ran into Jerry [Cantrell] at a D.O.A. concert, and he says to me, ‘Man, I love that song Nothing to Say. What are you doing there?’ And I told him, ‘Well, it’s in drop D tuning.’ And Alice in Chains became a different band almost overnight!”

Alice in Chains would cover Soundgarden classic Hunted Down during their early years, and reprised their rendition, along with a cover of Down on the Upside’s Boot Camp, for 2018’s Rock on the Range performance, in tribute to late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell.

Thayil later returned the favor, tackling It Ain’t Like That, Drone and Angry Chair for Alice in Chains’ Museum of Pop Culture Founders Award ceremony last year.

Cantrell and Thayil are set to join forces for a Sounds of Seattle rock camp in February 2022, which also features original Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen – and, we’d wager, a masterclass in drop D tuning.

To read the full interview with Cantrell, pick up a copy of the latest issue of Guitar World, which also features an exclusive look back at U2’s Achtung Baby with the Edge, as well as conversations with Tom Morello, Iron Maiden and Carlos Santana.

Jerry Cantrell remembers exactly where he was when he first heard Metallica’s fifth record – sat in a car with drummer Lars Ulrich. The Danish-born drummer was naturally excited about the music his band were about to unleash onto the world and keen to share the anticipation with friends. 

The Alice In Chains guitarist, whose band had released their Facelift debut the year prior, even remembers which of The Black Album’s 12 genre-defining tracks got queued up first. As it would for countless others following its release, the music that blasted out of the car stereo that day left a long-lasting impression…

“I was sitting in a car with Lars when he first played that shit to me – because you’d always show your friends and rock out to new riffs in the car,” Cantrell tells Guitar World, in between promoting his new solo record Brighten and his new signature guitar with Gibson. “The first thing I heard was Sad But True and I was like, ‘Fuck, man… this is unbelievable!’ 

“They are a band that have the fury and the control and they are able to release the power at key moments. That’s what made them one of the bands I’ve always admired. I’m lucky to be able to call all of those guys my dear friends.”

But it was more than just a record that turned Metallica into one of the biggest-selling bands of all-time, reasons Cantrell. It was the sheer ferocity they brought to the stage and the brutal conviction they were playing with, taking heavy metal to its limits in just about every conceivable way. Seeing the four horsemen live in the flesh during this golden age was the stuff of legend, like witnessing history in the making…

“On top of the music part of it, their live shows were insane,” continues Cantrell. “Just being that band is enough but when you see them thrown on stage, plugged into a PA and letting it rip, they definitely left everyone satisfied. And then there was the whole theatrical aspect of the shows they were putting on… fuck, man!

“Every tour had its own special thing, like when they did …And Justice For All with the stage falling apart. And then they started doing the whole in-the-round thing. Even if you forget about the genre and the band for a second, they’ve been at the very forefront of putting on epic shows. That’s what you shoot for, I guess. That’s what makes them the highest flag on the mountain of rock.”

If you were forced to pick, what would be your one defining guitar moment on The Black Album?

“That’s really tough. I’m never good at picking the best of anything, I never really know what to say… but I guess it would be the riff to Sad But True, which is pretty fuckin’ sick. That whole record is like a perfect record, though. You’re lucky enough if you make one of those in your career and they made about five, you know?”

The Black Album’s success did a lot for heavy metal – to the point where it’s hard to imagine what the genre would be like without it…

“I think that’s because the record was bigger than heavy metal. It put them into the stratosphere of the most successful bands in the world, out of any genre, and broke the ceiling for how far a metal group could go. It’s admirable. I feel like the artistic risk and sense of growth is what makes it a perfect record…

“Which is why I can’t say Sad But True is any more meaningful to me than Enter Sandman or Holier Than Thou or Nothing Else Matters or Wherever I May Roam. I could go on… every one of those songs is just perfect. 

“The Unforgiven is an amazing piece, too. It’s like what would happen if Ennio Morricone wrote a metal tune. That’s what it is, fuckin’ badass! But if you’re asking for pure dick-in-your-face Metallica riffs, it’s gotta be Sad But True.”

Looking at the run they had going into this album, they were simply unstoppable. When did you first become aware of them? 

“Before I really started out as a musician, I was listening to Kill ‘Em All and Ride The Lightning a lot, which were the albums that indoctrinated me into them. I have to say Hetfield’s right hand is really something else. There’s nobody else that has that… he has the best picking hand in rock. The precision and power of his playing is otherworldly!

“Those first five records were made a couple of years apart from each other. What a run! And it culminated on The Black Album. You can hear the upward trajectory. All of those records are transcendent, in the same way as [Guns N' Roses'] Appetite For Destruction or [Nirvana's] Nevermind. 

“They are the kind of records that were bigger than the band or genre they came from, taking on another form of life. Being a band is a long journey. The odds of success are stacked mightily against you…”

And in Metallica’s case they rose to the challenges and overcame the odds, even after losing Cliff. Similar things can be said about Alice In Chains…

“I look to those guys as a musical inspiration just for being on their own journey. And yeah, we’ve done a similar thing in our own way. Through challenges and losses, it’s been amazing to see them move forward. They’re always seeking a new level, seeing where they could do or looking for ways to top what they’ve done before or try things they’ve never done. 

“They’re unafraid to adapt and grow, that’s what it comes down to. The Black Album is the summary of that – moving into the future without caring for anyone else’s opinion. That’s what makes it fuckin’ amazing. To me, they’re the best of the best, the top of the heap… and also top-shelf geezers!”

• The remastered 30th Anniversary Black Album is out now via Blackened Recordings.

Jerry Cantrell once gave Axl Rose a demo tape when Alice in Chains were in their nascent years – and the Guns N' Roses frontman threw it away.

As he explained in a speech honoring Slash at the Sunset Strip Music Festival in 2010, he went to see GNR in concert, and “brought a demo tape down to give the band”.

"I met Axl after the show actually," Cantrell continues. "I gave it to him, and as he was walking away I saw him throw it away."

Now, in a new conversation on the Appetite for Distortion podcast, Cantrell remembers the experience, adding that although his demo tape was binned, Guns N' Roses remained a major influence on the early sound of Alice in Chains.

“I did speak to him about it at a club in New York,” the AIC guitarist says. “We had never really met before, other than just kind of meeting backstage at the show in Seattle at the arena where I gave him the demo tape.

“I can't remember what was on it. They were an important band to us, and Appetite [for Destruction] is one of a handful of records that's one of those epic things that transcends space and time and the band. It's a worldwide massive record and it's perfect.”

He also remembers being in a club with The Cult's Billy Duffy, when Axl Rose entered the room.

“He comes over and is like, ‘I heard you telling that story about you giving me that demo tape – are you still with that girl that you met there?’

“It's kind of just one of those fun things, when you're proud of your band when you're kind of unknown, and they were pretty damn huge. People still give me their demo tapes all the time.”

Jerry Cantrell's been a busy man in 2021, releasing two tracks from his newly announced fourth solo album, Brighten, and unveiling his brand-new Murphy Lab-aged “Wino” Les Paul Custom signature model with Gibson.

Jerry Cantrell has unveiled the title track of his new solo album, Brighten, which is due to land October 29.

The Alice In Chains guitarist’s new song is a swinging, distortion-heavy slab of stoner-y grunge. It opens with a sleazy hard-rock riff and tops it with thick layers of fuzz, feedback and guitar harmonies.

The album was co-produced with film composer Tyler Bates and (300, John Wick) and Paul Fig, including contributions from pedal steel Michael Rozon, alongside Duff McKagan, who appears on bass on a few tracks, and Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato, who handles backing vocals.

Brighten follows the debut single, Atone, released at the end of July. The video for that track gave us a teasing glimpse of what we strongly suspect is a new Gibson Jerry Cantrell Signature Songwriter acoustic.

It’s not the only new gear we’ve seen from the guitarist, lately. He recently unveiled a new ultra-high-end Murpy Lab-aged Gibson Jerry Cantrell “Wino” Les Paul Custom, which is limited to 100 instruments and set to retail for $8,999.00.

Meanwhile, Guitar World caught up with the guitarist and songwriter recently and related a sweet story about Eddie Van Halen gifting Jerry Cantrell some EVH guitar and hijacking his soundchecks, which might have to hold us over until he releases the new album and finally confirms that Gibbo acoustic is happening...

Pre-order Jerry Cantrell’s new album Brighten.

Alice in Chains electric guitar hero Jerry Cantrell and Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil are set to co-lead a rock camp titled, appropriately enough, the Sounds of Seattle.

Set to take place over Presidents' Day weekend, February 17-20, 2022, in Los Angeles, the camp will also feature original Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen. The event is presented by Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp.

“The past few years have been unusually difficult and at times truly bizarre for the nation and world in general, and for the music industry and rock bands in particular," Thayil said of the camp in a press release. "I am super excited about the opportunity to connect and re-engage with fellow musicians and fans at the Rock ‘n Roll Fantasy Camp.”

In addition to learning from and jamming with the grunge legends, the camp will provide attendees with the opportunity to perform publicly at legendary Hollywood venues The Viper Room and The Whisky-A-Go-Go.

Other instructors at the camp include Jane's Addiction/Porno for Pyros drummer Stephen Perkins, Nickelback bass guitar man Mike Kroeger, Whitesnake guitarist Joel Hoekstra, Vixen guitarist Britt Lightning and other hard rock luminaries.

For more info and to book your own spot, stop by Rock Camp.

Just last week, Gibson announced the first of the Jerry Cantrell models that have been rumored over the last year or so. What they’ve confirmed so far is that only 100 of the ‘Wino’ Les Paul Customs will be made, each hand-signed by Cantrell on the back of the headstock. 

The Murphy Lab-aged Wine Red finish pays tribute to the Alice In Chains guitarist’s original, and the guitars will feature Gibson 490R and 498T humbuckers, as well as a Fishman Powerbridge piezo to cover the acoustic tones the Seattle legends are famous for.

“We have some really exciting things planned over the next four or five years,” the Alice In Chains singer/guitarist tells GW. “The Wino is coming out first and then there will be a few other models after. Expect some really cool guitars either designed by the both of us or replicas of what I’ve played over the years with my own modifications.”

That’s not all the alternative rock legend has been up to over lockdown. There’s the 30th anniversary reissues of AIC’s Facelift debut which came out at the end of last year and, of course, his upcoming third solo album, Brighten – which arrives this October, some 19 years after its predecessor. 

We also couldn’t help but notice the video for its lead single, Atone, could very well have been teasing his next signature model – a custom acoustic with a square white scratchplate around the soundhole and the guitarist’s name on the truss rod cover. 

As the man himself tells us, there are some very exciting things on the way. In this catch-up with Guitar World, the Seattle hero talks through his signature Friedman amps and pedalboard, and explains how it felt to be reunited with a guitar gifted to him by Eddie Van Halen two decades after it was stolen…

Last year, your music was celebrated at the MoPOP benefit show in Seattle with some incredible cover versions. Ann Wilson doing Rooster was one of many highlights.

“Yeah, she’s amazing and she’s been a real deal friend to us for many years. Around the time William [DuVall] joined, we did a show with Ann singing and she passed the mic over to Will and they finished it together. It’s really cool she picked that to do. She actually recorded it and sent me a vinyl single for her new record, it was the B-side. I was pretty honored by that, too. Fishbone was amazing. And Dallas Green. 

“And fuckin’ Tad… man, I love Tad, with the Soundgarden guys. Lily Cornell Silver doing Black Gives Way To Blue with Chris DeGarmo. Everybody killed it. The song choices were great, there were some real deep cuts that people picked and Liz was amazing. It was really cool. 

“I had moments where I was quite overwhelmed, actually. The part that got me the most was the kids. I started tearing up when they started playing our tunes. There was a real sense of community. 

“Everybody in that show decided to pull together and do a cool thing for charity, and also honor the life and music of this band, but they’re also people that we admired and friends. 

“It showed a sense of community that’s tough to put into words but it was an amazing experience, especially considering what we’re all living through and all the difficulties of pulling that together with Covid. Everyone banded together. It really meant a lot.”

We have to say, Nona Weisbaum [as seen on 1995 AIC mockumentary The Nona Tapes] also did an excellent job...

“It was hard getting hold of her, you know?! Her agent was asking for a little too much but we finally settled on a price and got her to come in and give us a little shoutout [laughs].”

Amp-wise, are you still running two of your signature Friedman JJ-100s, one clean into Greenbacks and the other driven into Vintage 30s?

“Yep, I love my Double J! Dave Friedman is a great dude, man. I’ve known him a long time and he makes great gear. I’m really happy with the collaboration we came up with. It’s such a versatile amp, but at the end of the day, it’s just a basic plug-in-and-go rock amp. You can hammer nails with that thing all day and it’s going to frickin’ hold up for you.”

And pedal-wise, you’ve generally stuck to a few key pedals over the years, like a Boss chorus for Rooster and your signature Cry Baby for various leads…

“Yeah, there’s a few things I tend to have on the 'board. I always have a chorus in the mix. The Rotovibe is one I’ve gone to a bit as well. And of course, the main effect I’ve used consistently over the years, probably the one I’m most associated with, is the Cry Baby.

“When we were designing my signature one, I was after something a little thicker, with a darker edge to it. Other than that, I guess we use a flanger once in a while…”

Ah yes, we’d seen the EVH flanger on the ‘board at points too. We loved that story about you supporting Van Halen on tour and coming back to find he’d sent you a couple of guitars and an entire rig as a gift...

“Yeah, that was pretty amazing. He had a really big heart. It meant a lot then and it means even more to me now that he’s gone, that he took a shine to me. We had a little bond, you know. It was a really cool thing. 

“Any time we got the chance to hang, going to a pool hall or just meeting at his hotel and whipping out a couple of guitars or just sitting around backstage. Sometimes I’d be late for soundcheck and I’d show up and he’d be up there with the band, fuckin’ rockin’ out with them [laughs].”

That’s hilarious!

“Yeah! And honestly, those two EVH guitars mean the world to me. One of them was the Goldtop that went missing when I was making [2002 solo album] Degradation Trip. Somebody lifted it out of the A&M studio. 

“I just got it back a few years ago – a couple of AIC fans and collectors tracked it down and tried to do a sting on this kid who had it and was trying to sell it. He went dark on the first guy, who was from Florida. The second guy was a separate collector from San Diego. Between the two of them, it took about two weeks for me to get that guitar back… after 19 years!”

You must have been over the moon! Did you ever tell Eddie?

“Yeah, I remember giving Eddie a call saying, ‘Dude, do you remember that fuckin’ guitar that got stolen, the Goldtop you gave me? I got that thing back!’ And he was like, ‘No way… how long had it been?’ I told him and he said, ‘Man, I’m really happy for you, I never get any of my stolen shit back!’ 

“And then I told him, ‘Man, you’re Eddie Van Halen… if I had some of your gear, I might not give it back either!’ And we laughed and he was like, ‘Yeah, okay man, well I’m happy for you and really glad you got it back!’ I’m looking at it right now… it’s sat on my couch.” 

Despite the pandemic, it’s looking like you’ve been keeping busy with the Facelift reissues and new solo material…

“We all have to make do with this situation, and with AIC, we’ve never really taken the time to do a 20 or 25-year celebration. We figured it would be a good idea to do it at 30! It’s nice to look back, revitalize the music and put it back out there for the world, plus give fans the chance to own some cool vinyl and enjoy the history of the band and our music. 

“And that’s the thing about music… it’s alive out there. Through trying times is when you reach for it the most, I find. It’s always carried me through. Now that I’ve finished the new solo material, I’m excited to get that out there and see how many ear holes it gets into. Hopefully people will enjoy it.” 

You’re the master of creating some of the most emotionally powerful music using just a few simple, almost cowboy-like chords on songs like Nutshell, Your Decision and Scalpel. Other tracks like The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here are much more harmonically complex, but it seems whatever you do, there’s always this inexplicable depth...

“That’s very kind of you to say. And yeah, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here is a trippy tune. I just did a re-listen on that one not long ago, it’s a fuckin’ good tune, man. I feel it’s well orchestrated. 

“I’ve been fortunate to learn to become a writer and progress over the years. Where I come from and who I’ve been influenced by has always bled through my music. All those things you described are the things that touched me the most about my favorite artists. 

“That thing you can’t put your finger on… I don’t know what the fuck it is, but it’s the power that other things don’t seem to have. That’s always the goal for any artist.”

You’ve been a lot better at finding it – whatever it is – than most…

“It’s the quest that never ends. You’re trying to find your own fingerprint, I guess. You need to find what’s uniquely yours and that can only come from you. I’ve been in a great band, with some individuals who are completely unique. 

“A blend of all of us together is what makes us what we are. I’m really grateful to have that, not everybody gets that on a wider scale – some people might have it individually – but for a group, it really comes down to the right ingredients in the bowl. I’ve been lucky to find that with my brothers and continue on this journey… it’s not over yet [laughs]!”

After teasing a new signature guitar for Jerry Cantrell back in January – and revealing further details at Summer NAMM – Gibson has finally lifted the lid on the Alice in Chains guitarist's new model.

Having undergone the company's Murphy Lab treatment to carefully recreate the aesthetic of Cantrell's original Wine Red “Wino” Les Paul Custom, this fresh six-string – of which there are only 100 in the world – doesn't come cheap, with a hefty price tag of $8,999.

Build-wise, the Murphy Lab Jerry Cantrell “Wino” Les Paul Custom features a weight-relieved mahogany body with a maple top, Custom Cantrell mahogany neck with a hide-glued neck tenon, 12"-radius ebony fingerboard with MOP block inlays, and aged gold hardware. 

Electronics include not only a pair of 490R/498T humbuckers in the bridge and neck positions, respectively, but also a Fishman Powerbridge piezo pickup for on-the-fly acoustic guitar tones. As per Cantrell's original, the neck pickup features a gold cover, while the bridge pickup's coils remain exposed.

As a result of the pickup configuration, the axe boasts an unusual control layout, with a pair of volume pots controlling the neck and bridge humbuckers, respectively, a master tone knob and a third volume pot – in place of where an LP's bridge tone knob usually sits – which controls the output of the piezo pickup.

Other electronic appointments include 500K CTS Audio-Taper pots and ceramic capacitors, as well as a compartment on the rear for a 9V battery to power the Fishman Powerbridge piezo.

Rounding out the instrument's spec sheet is multi-ply body binding, a black pickguard, 24.75" scale length and Grover kidney bean-style tuners. Each guitar also comes with a certificate of authenticity and will be hand-signed on the back of the headstock by Cantrell himself.

For more information on the new Murphy Lab Jerry Cantrell “Wino” Les Paul Custom, head to Gibson.

Wino might not be the only Gibson/Cantrell collaboration to launch this year: in the video for new solo single Atone, the AIC man was spotted with a distinctly custom take on the company's Songwriter acoustic – complete with truss rod cover signature. Watch this space…

Alice In Chains man Jerry Cantrell has debuted Atone, the first single from his forthcoming solo album Brighten, due October 29.

The Atone video was reportedly shot in Joshua Tree - an appropriate landscape for its twanging, darkly psychedelic sound - but we’re most interested in the guitar he's wielding. 

Cantrell signed on as a Gibson brand ambassador back in January 2020 and we already know he has a new signature Les Paul on the way. 

The instrument he’s using in the Atone video is certainly a custom Gibson acoustic, likely a Songwriter, with what appears to be a square white scratchplate around the soundhole.

The fret markers on the neck and overall body shape tally with the Songwriter build, but – if you watch the video in 4K and get a bit ‘zoom-y’ – you can see what looks suspiciously like a Jerry Cantell signature on the truss rod cover.

We’ll have to wait and see for now, but in the meantime we can look forward to Brighten, which drops in October. 

Jerry says of Atone, “As a fan of Ennio Morricone scores and Sergio Leone movies, it’s got a bit of that outlaw vibe, with a cool psycho hillbilly stomp,” he explains. “It’s been kicking around in my head for like 20-plus years, haunting me. Sometimes it takes a while for a good idea to find its best form. Such was the case with Atone.”

The cinematic feel is perhaps informed by the album’s chief collaborator Tyler Bates, the film composer behind the music for 300 and John Wick, who co-produced the record. Duff McKagan also appears on bass across several tracks, while Greg Puciato (Dillinger Escape Plan) handles all the background vocals. 

Reportedly the album includes eight originals and a cover of Elton John’s Goodbye (approved by John himself), as the closer. 

Brighten tracklist

1. Atone
2. Brighten
3. Prism of Doubt
4. Black Hearts and Evil Done
5. Siren Song
6. Had To Know
7. Nobody Breaks You
8. Dismembered
9. Goodbye

Brighten is released on October 29, 2021.

Duff McKagan is rumored to be playing bass on Jerry Cantrell's new solo album after the Guns N’ Roses bassist was spotted at a music video shoot with the Alice in Chains guitar hero.

Photos from the shoot on Sunday June 27 were uncovered on Instagram, believed to be posted by a woman who appears in the video. The video shoot reportedly took place at FD Photo Studio on Olympic Boulevard in LA, leading fans to believe McKagan could take a starring role on the record.

Former Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato also looks set to make an appearance after he was spotted in the studio with Cantrell.

Back in March, Cantrell took to his own Instagram account to announce he had completed work on his new, as-yet-untitled solo outing, which will be his first in almost 20 years, following 2002’s Degradation Trip, which featured Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin.

“Finished my record tonight one year to the day from when we started recording it,” the caption reads. “What a crazy journey... always is. Look forward to setting it free upon your earholes sometime soon.”

It looks set to be a busy year for the AIC leader, who joined the Gibson family in early 2020, leading the company to tease a signature Les Paul at NAMM 2021. Their first collaboration is listed as the “Wino” custom, hinting at a recreation of Cantrell’s ‘90s Wine Red Custom Shop Les Paul.

There is no official release date, title or label for the new solo effort as of yet, although Cantrell’s brother David has said on social media that it is expected in October this year.

Though he’s arguably best known for co-fronting Alice In Chains alongside Jerry Cantrell from 2006 onwards, recording three studio albums thus far with the Seattle alt-rock heroes, William DuVall has been an incredibly active musician for the vast majority of his life. 

More recently, he’s collaborated with Mastodon’s Brent Hinds and The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman in Giraffe Tongue Orchestra and also finished the material for his solo debut, which was released in 2019. 

Stretching back further, however, he also played in Atlanta hardcore scene founders Neon Christ, Californian punk rockers BL'AST!, whose 2015 line-up included Dave Grohl, as well as bands like No Walls, Madfly and Comes With The Fall.

This year he’s revisiting his roots in one of those early groups, Neon Christ, having recently announced what will be their first show in 13 years and a Record Store Day reissue of their 1984 recordings, including the original self-titled 7” EP and four tracks recorded during their Labor Day session with Foghat’s Nick Jameson that same year. The tapes were remastered using an all-analog process at Nashville studio Welcome To 1979...

“It’s one of the things I’m most proud of with this release,” DuVall tells Guitar World. “Using an all-analog signal chain to cut vinyl is becoming harder and harder to do these days. I felt that doing it any other way wouldn’t have been as true to where we came from. I think it sounds all the better for it, too. I hadn’t listened to the music in a studio atmosphere since back when it was originally recorded...”

37 years is, indeed, a lifetime ago. Chances are, if you were acquainted with DuVall back then, you probably would have known him as ‘Kip’. It was a childhood nickname given to him by his grandfather, he goes on to explain, and one closely associated with his years playing frenetic punk-rock...

“I put an end to that name as soon as possible,” he grins. “I think I was 19 when I decided I’d had enough. Though I never personally liked it, out of love and respect for my grandfather, and the fact it caught on within my family, I just sorta put up with it. And, to this day, my mother still calls me Kip at home, as will my sisters. But no one else beyond that, not even the guys in Neon Christ. Thankfully, most people know me as William [laughs].”

You were in your mid-teens when you formed Neon Christ and helped start a new music scene in Atlanta. What was life like back then? 

“Honestly, I couldn’t have imagined a better way to come of age! Hardcore was a new kind of music – it was a new iteration of rock and roll. To be on the cutting edge of that, at that age, and have the sound of it reflect so closely what was going on inside of me was a dream come true. 

“But at the time, it felt like what was necessary of my survival. I wasn’t sat there thinking I was living the dream, I was just really into music. I started playing guitar at eight years old and came up on what I still feel is the best of the best – working my way up from Hendrix. 

“By the time I was 11 or 12, I was discovering '70s punk-rock like the Sex Pistols and the New York scene with the Ramones and Richard Hell. Even though there wasn’t easy access to music back then, you could see a shot of the Pistols and you’d be able to kinda tell what they sounded like. 

“When I started hearing their music, they were actually on the news. When they toured the US in ‘78, they had all this controversy and the coverage was extremely negative. That’s what I knew of punk-rock… it was intriguing. But what really got me was this new American form of it called hardcore...”

Which, all things considered, must have felt wildly thrilling to teenage punks at the time...

“The name wasn’t as widely circulated back then, but you’d hear about this music that was faster, harder and more extreme, and of course I was instantly into that! I liked what I heard of the '70s punk stuff but wanted more. 

“In my mind, though I loved my MC5 and Stooges, I could imagine and hear things that were more intense, taking it further. And then I heard about Black Flag.

“In those days you’d get little tidbits of information, you might hear the name or maybe see a picture. It was hard to come by anything. I was living in Washington DC, where I’m originally from, and heard a song on a really obscure college radio station from their Damaged album. 

“I was like, ‘Okay, this is sounding more like why I’m here!’ Then I heard about this movie called The Decline of Western Civilization which was playing at a movie theater. I persuaded my grandfather to take me and the very first band you see is Black Flag...”

It’s easy to forget with hindsight, but their assault must have felt pretty damn dangerous in its day...

“The second they started White Minority and I saw Greg Ginns slashing up that Dan Armstrong guitar with his bright yellow shirt on, plus the way the band were behaving on stage, I knew this was it. That moment felt like an epiphany. Just like hearing Hendrix a few years before but the difference was these guys were alive now… Hendrix was already gone by the time I discovered him. 

“I love how aggressive Ginns’ playing was, but it had these qualities of free jazz about it, which is another kind of music I was getting into, watching groups like The Art Ensemble Of Chicago and listening to Ornette Coleman, James Blood Ulmer and Albert Ayler, plus John Coltrane’s later stuff. 

“Ginn seemed to be echoing some of that, the whole adventurous of it. And I could tell it was deliberate. He wasn’t just making noise – it was what he meant to do. Seeing that movie was life-changing, so I decided to form a band like that making my own version of it.”

What was it like then moving from DC to Atlanta?

“It was incredibly frustrating because I was discovering these bands from the DC area, Ian MacKaye and the whole Discord scene – including Henry Rollins, who was just about to join Black Flag. I had to leave all my friends and everything I knew to move to this place I knew so little about. 

“And the little I did know was disturbing. Atlanta was the site of the Atlanta Child Murders… I think by then they’d caught the guy they thought was the perpetrator, but even to this day, there’s a lot of mystery around that case and it was very dark. 

“I also knew Atlanta from what I’d seen in the Civil Rights films, grainy black and white footage of people being abused. I was like, ‘We’re moving there?!’ I figured the only way I could survive was to form a band like the one I resolved to form in Washington. I didn’t care how it happened – it was a pure survival drive. I was even thinking about running away or moving back to DC where my grandparents were.”

But you chose to stay and form Awareness Void of Chaos, and soon after Neon Christ?

“Yeah, we moved in the summer of ‘82 and that fall I started 10th grade at the local suburb school. It was a mostly black school, one where the academics weren’t so emphasized but, boy, the football team was killing it. Therefore the jocks ran the school. 

“They got away with murder and that was it. I walked in as this scrawny misfit kid who was immediately a target – it was written all over me. So in order to survive I had to build the world I wanted to live in.

“AVOC was my first foray into creating that. We recorded a one-mic-into-a-boombox demo and I took that tape to the manager of 688 one day, which was the only club that catered to counter-culture. I remember getting the bus downtown by myself. And, to his credit, he gave us – three black kids – a gig. 

“That happened, it was cool and everybody survived. So he gave us another gig, opening for The Circle Jerks who were idols of ours and a legendary band from LA. That led to the formation of Neon Christ, because I wanted get even more extreme. AVOC was really cool for what it was. I never would have survived moving to Atlanta without it. 

“Once I started meeting more people and crystallizing my vision, I wanted to work with people who practiced every day and were as obsessed as I was about playing faster and more extreme.”

Can you remember what gear you would have used for those early Neon Christ recordings?

“I had a Hamer Phantom guitar with the triple humbucker. It looked like a Stratocaster that had been melted, with a really elongated upper wing and this slightly distorted double cutaway Strat-esque shape to it. They had the triple humbucker trademarked, with TM at the end, and it also had a single coil in the neck position. I was like, ‘Man, three humbuckers, that mean it’s even louder!’ 

“Then I got an old '60s non-master-volume Marshall head. You could get those for pennies back then… you couldn’t give them away! I just used to crank it through a 4x12 cabinet. I didn’t have pedals. I didn’t have a tuner. I was lucky to have a cable! I’d just tune to myself and let it rip. 

“That’s what I took into the studio for that first EP. We’d never been in a studio before, we didn’t know how anything worked. We just set up like it was band practice and ran through everything we knew.”

It’s interesting how ahead of their time they feel – moments of We Mean Business could have been on a lost Nirvana track and other songs sound like proto-grindcore...

“Well, thank you. It was just about survival for me. I had to create the sound I was hearing in my heart and mind. And you have to remember this kind of music was absolutely hated back then. Even in big towns like LA, the punk-rockers and hardcore kids caught a lot of hell. 

“Black Flag were always dealing with skirmishes with the police and their gigs were always getting broken up. They were always getting run out of whatever office space they were trying to occupy for their record label SST. 

“It was always a hassle for them – and they were a major band from a major city, so you can imagine how it was for us, a bunch of kids in this comparatively backwater scene in a backwater town. We were either hated or ignored or completely disdained for what felt like a long time. I was writing these songs for an audience that didn’t exist.

“You mentioned We Mean Business – that song was written in the AVOC days so late ‘82, before I’d even played my first gig. I was trying to write songs for the audience I wanted to see. I was also trying to address all the people who looked down on this kind of music.”

It’s quite defiant in that regard...

“That’s what the lyrics are about. It even has a line that I think is pretty funny now – ‘You try to give me the shaft, use your cunning to kill my craft!’ But that’s how it felt. People who were judging this music didn’t know how cool it was and actually it wasn’t easy to play at all – there was a lot that went into it. 

“I think the variety of sounds in the early Neon Christ music was down to the fact I was already a musician when it formed. I didn’t learn how to play through punk-rock, though I learned how to be in a band through punk-rock, plus a tremendous amount of extremely valuable life lessons that have stuck with me to this day. 

“But that conception of basic musical competence as punk… I wasn’t one of those people. I was already jamming along to my Hendrix, Nile Rodgers, Velvet Underground and even John Coltrane records, which didn’t even have guitar. 

“Anything I could imagine hearing a guitar in, I’d play along to. That’s how I learned to play. It didn’t matter if it was AC/DC or Albert Ayler. I was on a quest for the truth and jamming to everything.” 

After, on the other hand, felt more like a pre-Kyuss or Monster Magnet stoner kind of thing...

“Yeah, that atmospheric guitar with some spoken word over the top. It kinda came out of the dark beatnik thing – Warhol, The Velvet Underground and things that. I loved that stuff, but I also loved thrash, which was a new form of music back then, and faster speed rock. 

“There’s a song on there called It’s Mine, and that came from old rock and roll like Chuck Berry or Johnny Thunders. As a writer, I was just updating my influences, which is what we all do, or at least hope to do. I just wanted to represent my influences and put my own spin on it.” 

And from there you went on to play in a number of bands – BL'AST!, Final Offering, No Walls, Madfly, then Comes With The Fall and, eventually, Jerry Cantrell’s solo band. That’s a lot of sonic ground right there...

“Some people might have felt that was a handicap for me when I was younger. Because it may have seemed like I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do [laughs]. 

“Some people find their scene and ride it as far as it will take them and I couldn’t do that… and there were times where I wished I could! I felt like musicians who were more streamlined and focused in their desires had a straighter path. 

“With me, it was more challenging. There wasn’t ever anything that held my interest long enough for me to say, ‘I just do this!’ By the time I was in BL'AST!, I was already really burning out on the punk and hardcore-inspired rock music. 

“When you’re younger, things move faster, especially in terms of your attention span. AVOC, Neon Christ and BL'AST! took me from 15 years old to 20. Those years are monumental in your development, whatever you’re doing.”

Congrats on the MoPOP Founders Award with Alice In Chains, by the way. What were your favorite performances on the night?

“That’s hard, because like you said, they were all so good and it was really moving to see. Fishbone was very special, that one really warmed my heart. I love what they did with Them Bones because they really did it their way, with horns and everything. 

“I really loved [City And Colour] Dallas Green’s Rain When I Die. It was one of the very few we saw before the show aired because we made a concerted effort to not supervise and micro-manage this event. We looked after our segment, but the rest we left to the director and artists. 

“We wanted to sit back for once, because we never do that, and just be fans – experiencing it the same way everyone else does. So that’s why we wanted it to be first-time viewing for us, for the most part. 

“The only exception was Dallas Green. Our management got hold of it and it was early on in the recruitment process for this thing. It gave us confidence that we’d pull this whole thing off – I was really moved by it. I also loved the flamenco version of Black Gives Way to Blue, which came during the end credits. 

“There was so much talent. We were very moved that these artists got involved, especially given the fact that there’s a pandemic on. Nobody was traveling or touring. 

“It was harder to get everyone together, some people lived in different parts of the country, and yet they managed to assemble an all-star gathering of friends from like-minded bands. It was such an undertaking but it came out great!”

• Neon Christ release a deluxe edition of the 1984 sessions on June 12 via Southern Lord and DVL Recordings.

William DuVall might be best known these days as the frontman charged with first filling Layne Staley’s prodigious shoes, then building his own legacy with Alice in Chains. But many years ago – 37, to be exact – he was playing electric guitar with Neon Christ, the cult hardcore band that also featured drummer Jimmy Demer, bassist Danny Lankford and singer Randy DuTeau.

Now, DuVall has helped compile a deluxe edition of the band’s 1984 recording for a special Record Store Day release. Side one of the album features the original Neon Christ 7" EP, and side two contains the four songs from the 1984 Labor Day session, all on heavyweight vinyl at 45 RPM for maximum fidelity.

The package includes a full-color gatefold sleeve and a 12-page oral history booklet featuring dozens of never-before-seen photographs.

Said DuVall, “Remastering the 1984 Neon Christ recordings has been very enlightening and fulfilling. I hadn’t listened to that music in a studio atmosphere since back when it was originally recorded. It was nice hanging out with those kids again. I was 16 writing those songs. 

"Neon Christ is quintessential youth music from a tumultuous time, both in our own lives and in the world at large. It documents the birth of a new music and culture that would influence everything that came afterward. We loved being a part of that emerging scene. We’re even more proud now of the contributions we and so many of our friends made. The energy and emotions we captured remain timeless.”

Regarding the remastering process, he continued, “The studio I went to in Nashville to remaster the audio is called Welcome to 1979, aptly named because it’s like entering a time warp in the best possible way. It’s becoming increasingly rare and miraculous to find a facility anywhere in the world that can do all-analog audio mastering for vinyl LPs. 

"What’s additionally amazing (for all my fellow audio nerds out there) is that Welcome to 1979 also does lacquer plating right there on-site. I know of no other place in America that does recording, mixing, mastering, lacquer cutting, and lacquer plating all under one roof. As if that’s not enough, they also manufacture and refurbish tape machines. Pretty incredible.” 

1984 is being issued through DuVall’s label, DVL Recordings, in a co-release with Southern Lord.

The vinyl will be available on Record Store Day (June 12), while a digital format will be offered via Bandcamp only. Non-Record Store formats will follow at a later date via Southern Lord Europe.

Flannel shirts. Ripped jeans. Long (non-sprayed) hair. Second-hand guitars. And loads of classic riffs. Grunge went global towards the end of 1991, when three now-landmark albums were all released within a span of a few weeks – Nirvana’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten, and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger (plus, the year-old Alice in Chains debut, Facelift, hitting just a short while before).

And, for a spell, grunge was undoubtedly rock’s leading style – as evidenced by seemingly non-stop coverage of the “Seattle sound” in print and on MTV, with its influence even spreading to fashion, advertising, and politics. 

While some of the genre’s top contributors may be gone, their music lives on – which was more often than not propelled by simply awesome riffs. 

So, on the 30-year anniversary of its mainstream breakthrough, we count down the 30 greatest grunge riffs, from its ’80s inception to early-’90s heyday.

Betcha can’t guess no. 1…

30 - 21

30. The U-Men – Gila

There are several Washington-area bands that helped clear the path for grunge, and certainly, the U-Men would be towards the top of the list.

While most standout grunge riffs were of the fuzzed-out variety – and sometimes detuned – the chug-chugging riff on Gila (supplied by guitarist Tom Price) sounds much cleaner than what would come later on from grunge’s “Big 4.” But it still rocks. Ferociously.

29. 7 Year Bitch – The Scratch

One of the things that made grunge so darn appealing was that, like the punk movement of the ‘70s, it put the emphasis back on songwriting, rather than instrumental gymnastics that required hours of training. 

All you needed was a sturdy chord progression and attitude… and the Gits – and their guitarist, Roisin Dunne – certainly had lots of both on The Scratch. 

28. The Gits – Seaweed

The Gits’ story is one of a promising talent being cut short due to tragedy – their singer, Mia Zapata, was murdered in 1993, while the band was working on their second album,  the posthumously released Enter: The Conquering Chicken. 

And a tune like Seaweed shows that guitar-wise (via a chap dubbed “Joe Spleen”), they leaned more towards the “melodic punk” side of things.

27. Skin Yard – 1000 Smiling Knuckles

Jack Endino will forever be best known as a producer. And for good reason – he was behind the board for such landmark grunge releases as Soundgarden’s Screaming Life, Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff, and Nirvana’s Bleach. 

But he was also the guitarist for Skin Yard – and his capable noise-riffing is on display throughout 1000 Smiling Knuckles, including a surprisingly near-shred solo! 

26. Truly – Blue Flame Ford

Grunge’s best-kept secret just might have been Truly, which saw ex-members of Soundgarden (bassist Hiro Yamamoto) and Screaming Trees (drummer Mark Pickerel) join forces with singer/guitarist Robert Roth. 

Their 1995 album, Fast Stories… from Kid Coma was full of coulda/shoulda-been rock classics, especially the psychedelic-grunge guitar stylings of Blue Flame Ford. 

25. Brad – Sweet Al George

Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard seemingly had oodles of riffs oozing out of his amp throughout the ‘90s – as evidenced by the abundance of first-rate leftover material that often found a home in his side band, Brad. And on Sweet Al George, he offers up one of his very best stadium-sized riffs. 

24. Green River – This Town

Were they punk? Were they metal? The members of Green River themselves probably don’t even know for sure.

Featuring contributors that would go on to form Pearl Jam and Mudhoney, guitarists Stone Gossard and Bruce Fairweather slashed n’ thrashed their way through much of GR’s repertoire, especially the frantic riff featured on This Town. 

23. Screaming Trees – Shadow of the Season

Along with the likes of Soundgarden and the Melvins, the Screaming Trees were there for grunge’s first wave in the mid-‘80s. And on Shadow of the Season (the opening track from their second major label offering, 1992’s Sweet Oblivion), guitarist Gary Lee Conner shows off his fondness for utilizing vintage tones as a major part of his style. 

22. Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl

Although not necessarily “grunge”, Bikini Kill were one of the trailblazers of the riot grrrl movement – which combined feminism, razor-sharp lyrics, and raging punk rock. 

Hailing from Olympia, Washington and led by singer Kathleen Hanna, Rebel Girl (and its Cherry Bomb-esque riff, provided by Billy Karren) is Bikini Kill at their best – and provided the movement with a bona fide battle cry. 

21. Hole – Violet

One of the standout tracks from Hole’s commercial breakthrough LP, Live Through This, stakes the unique claim of being one of the few (only?) grunge tunes to feature a “bolero-style” riff.

Of course, we’re talking about Violet – whose memorable guitar line was co-strummed by Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson. 

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20. L7 – Pretend We’re Dead

One of the prerequisites to be a true “grunge band” was that you had to hail from some location within the state of Washington (preferably Seattle). But LA natives, L7, was one of the few outside of WA exceptions.

On their best-known tune, Pretend We’re Dead, guitarists Donita Sparks and Suzi Gardner offered up an undeniable gem of a fuzzy/grungy riff. 

19. Nirvana – Scentless Apprentice

The number of memorable guitar riffs that the late, great Kurt Cobain devised for Nirvana was plentiful. But interestingly, one of the heaviest riffs Nirvana ever offered up, Scentless Apprentice, was not penned by Cobain, but rather Dave Grohl. 

However, Grohl would have to wait for the launch of the Foo Fighters to show off his multi-instrumental skills – it’s Cobain who performed the riff on record.

18. Pearl Jam – Rearviewmirror

When you’re in a band with three gents who are expertly adept at creating classic riffs (Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Jeff Ament), there couldn’t be much room left for another contributor, right? Wrong. 

Singer (and sometime third guitarist) Eddie Vedder composed one of Pearl Jam’s best-ever guitar lines – the repetitive eight-noter that drives Rearviewmirror.

17. Soundgarden – Hunted Down

Want to pinpoint the birth of grunge to a specific riff? Possibly impossible. But we’d be fairly confident putting our money on the A-side of Soundgarden’s first-ever single, Hunted Down. 

The group’s guitarist, Kim Thayil, penned and played the riff on his own (this was before Chris Cornell would regularly provide six-string assistance) – which would also be re-used as the opener for their Screaming Life EP.

16. Tad – Grease Box

A great grunge riff that starts out on… bass? Surely some mistake! But no, this is most certainly one of the few confirmed cases when it comes to Tad’s Grease Box, as bassist Kurt Danielson kicks things off, before handing the ball off to larger-than-life guitarist, Tad Doyle. 

15. Mudhoney – Suck You Dry

Mudhoney single-handedly helped popularize the Big Muff/fuzzed-out guitar sound that would eventually become synonymous with grunge. And Suck You Dry is a perfect example. 

Guitarists Mark Arm and Steve Turner (who were previously bandmates for a spell in Green River) snarl n’ gnarl their way through the song’s furious two-and-a-half-minute duration.

14. Melvins – Set Me Straight

Along with Soundgarden, the Melvins are largely considered “the grandaddies of grunge”.

Detuned guitars and plodding tempos served as the band’s main sonic components, and on one of their most melodic tunes, Set Me Straight – a tune that was also produced by none other than Kurt Cobain – guitarist Buzz Osborne doesn’t disappoint.

13. Mad Season – Lifeless Dead

12-string guitar is not usually associated with grunge. But in the short-lived supergroup, Mad Season (featuring Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley and Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready), McCready does indeed go for the chime-ier of the two necks on his Gibson EDS-1275 for the main riff of Lifeless Dead – and judging from this live cut, he even played the solo on the thing!

12. Alice in Chains – It Ain’t Like That

One of Alice in Chains’ heaviest – and decidedly meatiest – riffs resides deep within Facelift, via It Ain't Like That. Its recipe, you ask? Simply backwards-strum an open E chord, bend the G on yer low E string up a whole step and back down, repeat, and… voila, you have been “chained”! 

11. Pearl Jam – Breath

The Singles Motion Picture Soundtrack was chockful of goodies – Alice in Chains’ Would?, Chris Cornell’s Seasons, and especially, Pearl Jam fan favorite, Breath. 

And it just so happens to feature one of PJ’s best guitar riffs – created via Stone Gossard’s use of sliding octaves up on the neck, and Eddie Vedder's vocal doubling of the melody.

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10. Nirvana – Negative Creep

Certainly, grunge guitarists were “anti-shredders” – as it was much more important to be able to write memorable songs – and, indeed, riffs – than it was to offer up never-ending complex suites and warp speed shredding. 

One of Kurt Cobain’s best guitar bits turned out be one that any old beginner could master, Negative Creep – whose main riff mostly requires simply rapidly dragging your finger up and back down the low E string. 

9. Mother Love Bone – Stardog Champion

Grunge was the antithesis of glam, right? Not so fast. While that assumption is largely correct, there were exceptions – such as the short-lived Mother Love Bone. 

Somehow finding a way to merge both styles together and make it all work, two former Green River guitarists, Bruce Fairweather and Stone Gossard, offer up a lazily paced yet mighty Zep groove on the anthemic Stardog Champion.

8. Soundgarden – Spoonman

Another gent who penned his share of grade-A grunge riffs was Chris Cornell, who was the author of the drop-D classic, Spoonman – and perhaps the closest Soundgarden ever came to approaching boogie territory. 

Spoonman first came to life as a throwaway for the Singles film (a solo version not included on the soundtrack), but was reworked full-band style for Soundgarden’s tour de force, Superunknown. 

7. Alice in Chains – Them Bones

No other grunge band offers up as many mammoth riffs per square album as Alice in Chains – even now, Jerry Cantrell continues to astound with an infinite well of killer hooks.

But the band arguably hit their peak with their dark classic, Dirt, which kicks off with one of Cantrell’s hardest-hitting riffs ever – the seemingly relentlessly ascending Them Bones.  

6. Temple of the Dog – Hunger Strike

Not all grunge riffs were mega-ton behemoths. Case in point, the almost country-ish, chicken-pickin’ twang of Hunger Strike.

Another short-lived all-star grunge side band, Temple of the Dog featured both of Pearl Jam’s guitarists (Mike McCready and Stone Gossard), but it was actually Chris Cornell who composed its memorable opening riff. 

5. Soundgarden – Outshined

Soundgarden needed an industrial-sized riff to help break through to the mainstream in the fall of ’91 (just as “grunge mania” was getting underway), and wouldn’t ya know it, Outshined just happened to feature their all-time best.

Although the “Lookin’ California/feelin’ Minnesota” lyric is certainly memorable, the Chris Cornell composed 7/4-time riff that drives the song simply cannot be denied. 

4. Pearl Jam – Alive

The song that first introduced many to the wonders of Pearl Jam also happened to feature their best-ever riff, Alive – penned by Stone Gossard, and whose origin can be traced back to the Mother Love Bone days. 

Situated in the key of A and utilizing slides, open strings, hammer-ons, and pull-offs, props also have to be given to Mike McCready’s Hendrix-y solo, which pays tribute in its opening to two similar-sounding predecessors – She (Kiss’s Ace Frehley) and Five to One (the Doors’ Robby Krieger). 

3. Alice in Chains – Man in the Box

It took a specific song to demonstrate that, in the summer of ‘91, the riff was regaining its composure within the realm of rock: Man in the Box.

And once more, the track proved that a riff didn’t have to be complex to be killer – Jerry Cantrell plays only a handful of notes on his battered and stickered G&L Rampage, and processes it through a talk box, for added dramatic effect.

2. Mudhoney – Touch Me I’m Sick

By the late-‘80s, most rock bands utilized distorted guitar sounds so processed it had gotten miles away from the more purely overdriven/fuzz reverberations of late-‘60s bands like the Stooges.

Lucky for us, it sounded as if Mark Arm and Steve Turner successfully travelled back in time to provide us with the wondrous retro/garage riff rocker, Touch Me I’m Sick, one of grunge's definitive anthems.

1. Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit

Smells Like Teen Spirit claiming the top spot can’t be much of a surprise. Few times in rock history did a single song usher in a global rock music movement, and the song’s riff has joined the lofty likes of Smoke on the Water and Iron Man as one of the most instantly recognizable. 

The fact that the riff is composed of just four simple powerchords means it not only gave birth to a whole generation of new guitarists, but it remains a rite of passage for any aspiring new players.

And we mustn’t forget the solo, which replicated the melody of the verse – an obvious “flipping of the bird” to the day’s high-tech six-string shredders. Goodbye glam. Hello grunge.

Greg Prato takes his grunge seriously. So seriously, that he has penned several books pertaining to the subject – Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music, Dark Black and Blue: The Soundgarden Story, and 100 Things Pearl Jam Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.