Alice In Chains Self Titled Album | 10 Fun Facts

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Did you know that Alice In Chains used 9 legs worth of dogs in the making of their self titled 1995 album? Or that it would be the final album with vocalist Layne Staley? Which one of the band's hit songs was written as a message to guitarist Jerry Cantrell's girlfriend? Find the answer to these questions and more on...

10 Fun Facts about Alice In Chains' Self Titled Album

1. Nine Legs Worth of Dogs

The idea of using a three-legged dog for the cover of Alice In Chains' self titled album was inspired by a real-life three-legged dog named Tripod who used to terrorize drummer Sean Kinney during his childhood job as a paperboy. Unfortunately, Tripod was either unavailable or unwilling to pose for a photo-shoot, so Kinney hired photographer Rocky Schenck to do a three-legged dog photo-shoot near a playground in Downtown Los Angeles. However, none of Schenck's photos would be used on the album cover because the band decided to use an image of a three-legged dog received by fax because they felt it added an element of "grit" to the design.

This angered Kinney who was upset about wasting time and money on a photo-shoot. Fortunately, Kinney's intended image would finally get a chance to make an appearance in the 1999 box set Music Bank.

An entirely separate dog named Sunshine would appear in the music video for "Grind." So it essentially took 9 legs worth of dogs to create enough material for the band to work with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaygCfe-_3k

2. A Few Months of Humanity

Alice In Chains decided to approach songwriting with an element of spontaneity on their 1995 Self Titled album. Deciding to leave the brooding behind, as singer Layne Staley felt that writing emotional music was taking a toll on his mental health.

Guitarist Jerry Cantrell told Rolling Stone:

"Our music's kind of about taking something ugly and making it beautiful." - Cantrell

Vocalist Layne Staley would add:

"I do that every day when I'm dressing... I take an ugly face and make it beautiful... For a long time I let problems and sour relationships rule over me instead of letting the water roll off my back... I thought it was cool that I could write such dark, depressing music. But then instead of being therapeutic, it was starting to drag on and keep hurting.

This time I just felt, 'F*** it. I can write good music, and if I feel easy and I feel like laughing, I can laugh.' There's no huge, deep message in any of the songs. It was just what was going on in my head right then. We had good times, and we had bad times. We recorded a few months of being human." - Staley, To Hell and Back, Jon Wiederhorn, Rolling Stone (Feb 8, 1996)

3. Mockumentary

Alice In Chains released a mockumentary in 1995 to help promote their self-titled album. The false documentary titled The Nona Tapes stars guitarist Jerry Cantrell posing as journalist Nona Weisbrum as she hunts the Seattle streets in search of members of Alice In Chains to interview.

Studio executives at Columbia were initially upset with the band for taking their money intended for an Electronic Press Kit and using it to create The Nona Tapes but later warmed up to the idea when the VHS developed a cult following. A DVD would later be included with the 2006 compilation album The Essential Alice In Chains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nona_Tapes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Ohyj8FmLo

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nona_Tapes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Ohyj8FmLo

Degradation Trip, Michael Christopher, Pop Matters (Dec 26, 2002) - https://web.archive.org/web/20141024122126/http://www.popmatters.com/feature/cantrell-jerry-021226/

Jerry Cantrell on the Three Legged Dog..., accessed through YouTube (Sep 6, 2017) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaygCfe-_3k

Liner notes, Music Bank box set. 1999. (Quoted through Wikipedia) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grind_(song)

Sean Kinney: From The Ashes, Drum Magazine (Jul 19, 2011) - https://drummagazine.com/sean-kinney-of-alice-in-chains-from-the-ashes/

The Dimmer Twins, Marc Weingartner, Request Magazine (Feb 1996) - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nemi72/8619613520/in/album-72157627632476310/

To Hell and Back, Jon Wiederhorn, Rolling Stone (Feb 8, 1996) - https://web.archive.org/web/20071214080250/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/aliceinchains/articles/story/5934699/to_hell_and_back