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Interview
by SashaS
6-12-2002
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| J. Cantrell's 'Degradation Trip 1&2' art |
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Re-chording hallmark
Jerry Cantrell on ‘Degradation Trip’ in two parts
Jerry Cantrell, guitarist/founder of Alice In Chains, recently visited Europe to perform/promote his second solo album, ‘Degradation Trip’ that follows ‘Boggy Depot’ disc after a four-year gap. Now, the new edition of the album, originally conceived as a double-disc, is being released in its entirety, as ‘Degradation Trip Volumes 1 & 2’.
Expanded director’s cuts have been a home video staple for a while, and now Jerry Cantrell is applying the same ‘my-vision’ principle to albums. Unlike some ‘expanded reissues’, the retooled disc isn’t simply the original with some bonus material tacked onto the end. The new tracks featured on ‘Vol. 1 & 2’ were recorded late last year during the same sessions as songs that made the first cut, and the revised track list incorporates the new tunes, rather than treating them as an amendment. Together, the 25 tracks take listeners on a more intimate journey into Cantrell's twisted psyche.
“It’s been a long way,” he recalled several hours before the London show, “and at times it looked like it was leading nowhere. I had a lot of difficulty finding a label that wanted to deal with my album in any way. So, I had to compromise with Roadrunner, to issue part of the album and then the entire work. There are 11 new songs and I don’t know what the difference is… It is a complete body of work, I suppose it digs deeper but the vibe of the record is the same, dark, it is pretty brutal, very brutal record.”
A temporal quake
Cantrell’s album release date was almost overshadowed by sudden death of the reclusive AiC singer Layne Staley, at the beginning of April this year (although the body lain undiscovered for two weeks) but, luckily no-one jumped on the opportunity to exploit the situation, which was a trice of dignity in the business where ‘dying is a career move’.
‘Boggy Depot’ came out in 1998; have you been working on this album all these time?
“Pretty much so, since 1999. We toured until the end of 1998 and I started writing immediately and I worked on this record. Of course, people I was working with were also busy and I had to do a lot of waiting around. Mike Bordin (drummer, ex-Faith No More, Ozzy Osbourne) and Robert Trujillo (bass, Suicidal Tendencies, Ozzy) had to do other things and we had to stop and start recording several times due to their Ozzy commitments.”
“I then had a problem with Columbia (Alice In Chains’ label that issued his first solo album), and I had to figure out how to find another company. I worked really hard on this record and I wasn’t going to give up, it wasn’t financially viable at times, I was footing the bill, but it was something I had to do. I have no regrets of having to go through such an experience.”
How frustrating did it get when you even had to play with some of the bands that owe AiC their careers, such as Creed, Nickelback…?
“Yeah, you bet, very… It is strange, it blew my mind, it’s crazy, the state the music business is in today is just… crazy. It’s really, really changed, with the Internet, music itself has changed… Music is always ever-evolving and one constant about it is that it’s gonna change but I’ve never been the one to keep up with trends, of what’s going and it might not be such a good thing sometimes. For what I do, the way I do it, I strongly care not to be polluted with it… No matter if you don’t like something, if you are not into it, I think that I’m a bit superstitious about it, I’m afraid it would get in (points to his brain) somehow and suddenly manifest itself. So, musically, I keep myself isolated, closed off and listen to the old classics I grew up on, like the 1970s rock, the 1960s…”
“Touring with Creed was strange because it wasn’t my cup of tea but it was a good opportunity and they appealed to my ego, I was the first person they thought of to open their shows. I took it as a compliment and wasn’t gonna pass it… It was unusual because it was a different crowd to what I’m used to but it was good opportunity and we generally had good reception. We also did some headlining shows to balance it all with crowds who were into our kind of music. I started touring about a month before Layne died.”
Tainted limelight
Later that evening, some six months from AiC singer Layne Staley’s death, Cantrell had no qualms airing Alice’s songs live that added to the deeply reverential tone to the evening: ‘No Excuses’, ‘Would?’, ‘Down In A Hole’, ‘Angry Chair’ and ‘Man In The Box’. (Alice In Chains last played together in 1996, opening four dates for the re-masked Kiss and taping an ‘MTV Unplugged’ performance that ended CD-bound within few months.)
“I was touring at the time and really thought to stop and deal with it… But no, we continued on and only had a little break several months later, which I needed badly. It wasn’t enough and I really feel I hadn’t had the time to soak that up, that experience, deal with it… I had to do it on the road, which I ended up appreciating; I’m thankful because I wasn’t sitting around and stewing on it… “
The news was obviously devastating; were you keeping in touch?
“No, not regularly and I regret it… But then, we always regret things when it is too late, I suppose it’s like when your parent dies and you feel you hadn’t spent enough time with them while they were alive. You know, with people like Layne, it was… you always had an impression of intruding. It wasn’t like he wasn’t glad to hear from you but there was a feeling you were disturbing him, he had something else more important to do. We kept in touch as much as possible…”
“I feel pretty decent about things, pretty good today… I have incredible memories, some great albums and songs behind me, an incredible experience that Alice In Chains was. But, this is now, I’m at a new beginning, I’m excited, we are still building it, solidifying what I did with ‘Boggy’ record and we’ll see where we go from here.”
SashaS
6-12-2002
Jerry Cantrell’s ‘Degradation Trip Volumes 1 & 2’ is released 09 December 2002 on Roadrunner
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