ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist Jerry Cantrell recently talked to Grammy.com about the band’s follow-up to 2009’s “Black Gives Way to Blue”, their first after a 14 year absence and their first recording with frontman William DuVall as the replacement of Layne Staley, who died of a drug overdose in 2002.
Your last album, “Black Gives Way to Blue”, spawned two Grammy nominations. What did that mean to you?
Well, we were very happy to be nominated and lose two Grammys again. I think that put us at zero and eight. Hey, look, dude, it’s the old cliché, but it’s totally true, it’s an honor to be thought of. To be considered one of the [best hard rock performances] of the year, we achieved something. But we were very happy with that, we were very happy with the success that we had. It just felt good, it was hard work and it was worth every bit of it. And we’re looking forward to doing it again.
Do you think the new Alice in Chains album will be out this year?
It’ll depend on when it’s done. We started writing stuff last year. I think we’re all good with that now, so now it’s time to cut it. So we’re gonna try to, but if not, it’ll probably be out early next year. It’ll be out about three or four minutes after we’re finished [laughs]. Give the record company time to set it up and plan the attack and tour for hopefully a year, year and a half.
So the writing is pretty much done though?
The thing that set me back is I had some bone spurs [and] cartilage issues in my shoulders. I had the same issue in the other shoulder about six years ago so I’ve had them both done now. It’s a repetitive motion injury from playing. But the repair takes a year [laughs]. So that kind of set us back a little bit, but it takes time anyway — my body started a vacation.
The rest of the interview can be read here.
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