Jerry Cantrell Interview: Grinding it Out

By: HP Newquist (National Guitar Museum) – February 1996

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Jerry Cantrell has spent more time in the studio working on the new Alice in Chains record than he ever has on any of the group’s other albums. Part of it had to do with finding the right groove. “It was just a matter of finding the day that was right to jam on stuff. You could never plan it. It was like, ‘Let’s try again today.’ To keep tabs on all this stuff, we documented everything, every setup and every song. Even the sniglet shit.”

He also wanted it to sound as raw as possible. “I’m not into clean. I’m into lounge. I am into clean and crisp tones. But I don’t want it to sound like a machine laid it down. I use pedals. I’m using a transistor and a battery in a pedal. I’m not sending it all through a Compaq computer. I like it to live and breathe on its own.”

Three songs were the result of a new tuning, which Jerry discovered by accident. “A friend of mine had retuned one of my guitars and left it like that. I’m not even sure what it is, man. I’m totally retarded when it comes to musical tunings and stuff. We played ‘Nothin’ Song,’ ‘Over Now,’ and ‘Shame in You’ in that tuning.” Grabbing a guitar, he refigures out the tuning, which is D A D F# D G (low to high).

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Here is Jerry’s track-by-track breakdown of the new album

Grind: It’s what it says. They’re all pretty literal statements on this album, by the way. I cut that track at my house, and did it on my ADAT. Toby was helping me out. The solo was lifted off the ADAT and transferred right over to the main track. The main riff was something that Sean, Mike, and I came up with.

Brush Away: The almost acoustic-sounding intro is a Strat with the neck-position pickup on. It’s also got a backward solo. You can just punch in a backward record control on Studer consoles and it flips the head without flipping the tape. I was there the day Howard Leese came in with his effects pedals, and I told him the solo had a vibe, like the “Magic Man” solo. It took about three takes. I wasn’t quite sure where to come in, so you hear the feedback and popping at the end, which is where I was beginning. But it came out perfect. Layne also did some playing on this cut.

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Sludge Factory: Another riff that came out of the demo sessions I had done earlier in the year. It’s actually an old riff, maybe seven years old, from the first year we were a band. It’s from the same period as “Love Hate Love.” But the rest of the song, not that main riff, always rubbed Layne the wrong way. So it took me about seven years to get it right. It probably sounds so brutal because it had been waiting seven years to get out of its cage and onto a record [Laughs].

Heaven Beside You: Mike and I came up with that while we were jamming with our buddy Todd from Green Apple Quick Step. We were drunk at a bar and then went to his little rehearsal place in this urine-soaked alley with bums everywhere. And I started playing this riff and Mike came up with a perfect bass line, and all of a sudden both of us stop and said, “Uh, okay, Todd, see you later, we’re going home now.” It was just one of those inspirational songs that I had to take home and work on. Plus I didn’t want to beat it to death, and I wasn’t sure if I needed to let everyone in on it [Laughs]. Maybe a little selfish, I guess, but if you don’t watch out for your own ideas, no one else will.

Head Creeps: Layne came up with that, and it’s a good fucking riff that turned out more brutal than I expected. I added that real stupid metal guitar to it to make it heavier. Layne’s been playing more and more guitar lately, which will help me out when we play live again.

Again: I had the riff for that one and an idea for the vocal, and then Layne came in with something so much better that I decided to throw mine right into the fucking trash.

Shame In You: Mike, Sean, and I came up with that riff in our early playing around between January and March. Sean will probably kill me for saying this, but he thought it was too ballady. It’s in that open tuning, and has that big mondo ending and some cool chord changes, but the lyrics hold it together and make it tough.

God Am: The best part of this song is how disjointed it is, but it still flows. I think it’s a great song. I used a Sustainiac on the backing chorus, so that whole part was all done with the left hand.

So Close: The last track we cut. It was something we hadn’t gotten to, and we got to the end we were burned out, finished. But we listened to it for about a week and said we should add it. It was a song waiting for lyrics. I cut it with that vintage Strat that I bought.

Nothin’ Song: One of the open-tuning songs that has that real Pagey riff. One of the great things about this record for me is that a shitload of my influences came out on this record, more so than on any other record we put out in the past. You can pick stuff and say this sounds like Iommi, or this sounds like Gilmour. For me, it’s cool to listen to my influences coming unconsciously and clearly. Brian May, Robin Trower, Jimi Hendrix. The guitar solo on “Shame in You” is to me a lot like Brian May. Toby and Darrell and Tom were listening to me cut the solo, and it had this certain tone. When I finished they all yelled “Brian May” [Laughs].

Frogs: This is the masterpiece of the record. It is a big epic mondo, but the rhythm was done, like, on the first take and it was one of the first keepers we did. We didn’t even realize how long it was until we were done mixing it. We thought, “Eight minutes? No way!” It just didn’t feel long, which is good. There’s a lot of personal stuff that lets you in our on our personal jokes. Layne’s got his deal at the end of “God Am.” I’m talking to Sean at the end of “Nothin’ Song” through my guitar pickups, and scraping my strings at the same time. I always liked the stuff like that on records. It’s the human factor.

Over Now: One of the other ones that Mike, Sean, and I did together before we started recording. It’s also in that open tuning. That was the only was done at London Bridge Studio when I was doing stuff on my own. We took it to Bad Animals in Seattle and taped over everything except the drum track. It was a great drum, track, although Sean hated it and trashed his drum after this take.

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About HP Newquist: HP Newquist is the founder of The National Guitar Museum, the first museum dedicated to the evolution and cultural impact of the guitar. He has authored books that have explored a wide range of subjects and include: Legends of Rock Guitar (with Peter Prown); The Way They Play series (including Blues Masters, Hard Rock Masters, Metal Masters, Acoustic Masters), with Rich Maloof and the award winning The Great Brain Book: An Inside Look At The Inside Of Your Head. Newquist is the past Editor-in-Chief of Guitar Magazine. He wrote Going Home, a Disney Channel documentary featuring Robbie Robertson, as well as directed the film documentary, John Denver – A Portrait.

Note: This interview is reprinted from an article by HP Newquist, originally published in GUITAR Magazine (February 1996). It appears here courtesy of Newquist and The National GUITAR Museum.