ALICE IN CHAINS - "We Took A Step Up, Maybe Even Two"
May 23, 2013, 11 years ago
Steve Baltin of Grammy.com recently spoke with ALICE IN CHAINS songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell about the band's new album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, which is due on May 28th. An excerpt follows:
Did the delay resulting from your shoulder surgery affect the album at all in terms of writing?
"We don't start until we're ready, you can't really start unless you've got ideas to work on (laughs)."Was there a moment in the writing process where you felt like the album was taking a step up?
"Yeah, before I had the surgery I think I demoed 'Voices' really quick, that was a kind of quick song and came together within a couple of days of just me messing around here at the house. It was right after tour and it was a good, strong song and so I sent it around to everybody and everybody liked it and I thought, F***, that's good. That was the first thing that came together on the record, so I knew there was a good song there. And then during the process of rehab, the riff for 'Stone' [developed] — I still have the voice recording, it's hilarious. I didn't write that on guitar, I just started hearing something in my head. [I was] watching TV, and my arm's all f***ed up, so I grabbed the phone and started humming the riff into the phone and that's where that song came from. So once I was able to demo that and fill that one out, I knew that one was pretty strong too. We got into a couple of different studios and we just sat up and recorded jams, worked through the s*** we had, and Nick (Raskulinecz, producer) was involved in that process as well, even though he was working on the RUSH record [Clockwork Angels] and a bunch of other stuff."To read the inteview in its entirety, click here.
The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here contains the following 11 songs:
‘Voices’
‘Low Ceiling’
‘Stone’
‘The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here’
‘Hollow’
‘Lab Monkey’
‘Hung On A Hook’
‘Pretty Done’
‘Breath On A Window’
‘Choke’
‘Phantom Limb’