HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Dirt – Alice In Chains

Much like NIRVANA, ALICE IN CHAINS are one of those bands grunge fans like to bicker about, with some gatekeeping them into alternative rock. This would be ignoring quite what the scene was about; breaking away from the 80s hair metal and new romantic. Doing this, however, ignores the impact ALICE IN CHAINS had on other bands, especially with their sophomore release Dirt. This would be their heaviest output to date and the one that opened their popularity to those more metal inclined. Few albums are of such generational quality that they spawn a direct cover album by artists 28 years on. Yet the fact this has not only done so, but also includes such heavyweights as THOU and KHEMMIS amongst the collaborators, serves to confirm this point.

There can be no arguing there is a pervasive darkness in the lyrics, with three members descending into their own personal hell. Fuelled by drugs in vocalist Layne Staley and guitarist Jerry Cantrell‘s case and alcohol for both drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Starr, to the point that a growing animosity brewed between producer Dave Jerden, who had produced their debut effort, 1990’s Facelift. This was further exacerbated for Staley over Jerden‘s repeated demands for Staley to get clean. It was a sign of the times in troubled Los Angeles, though, as the day the band were due to start recording, the LA Riots commenced, forcing them to flee the city. They headed out to the Joshua Tree desert with SLAYER‘s Tom Araya, who would go on to record some vocals for album track Iron Gland until it was safe to return a few days later to start recording. This was also the last album that all four founding members would work on together, with Mike Inez assuming bass duties afterwards.

There is a dual central theme to Dirt which is semi-conceptual, looking at the closest personal relationships that co-writers Staley and Cantell had. This included their partners and poignantly Cantrell‘s relationship with his father in track Rooster, his father’s nickname during the Vietnam War, which was only just starting to properly heal. Meanwhile we have the maladaptive coping mechanisms, namely heroin, that Staley had recently succumbed to once more, and how it seemed in his distorted view under the influence of how it was the right way to deal with the pain he felt.

It’s hard to overstate the influence of Dirt, despite it being their breakthrough into the more public eye. It has been listed as Rolling Stone‘s 26th greatest metal album ever, Kerrang critics’ choice album of the year for 1992, and included in the 2005 book, ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die’. Add in hitting 5x platinum in the USA, platinum in Canada and gold in both the UK and Australia and it’s clear that Dirt‘s an album that, despite it being fundamentally less approachable than their other material, has captured both the hearts and the imagination of so many listeners through the years, both critically and in terms of their audience. Despite the nihilistic viewpoint, even on the more softly approached tracks such as ‘Down In A Hole‘, which – even with its heavily melodic approach – features such dark juxtaposed thoughts as, “Down in a hole and I don’t know if I can be saved…” and “…I’d like to fly, but my wings have been so denied”. This lurking in amongst a love song dedicated to Courtney Clarke, Cantrell‘s long term partner, shows just how relatable the lyrics are to so many people.

When it comes to the thorny subject of drugs, the band never shied away from this subject, in a similar way to BLACK SABBATH, with their tracks Sweet Leaf and Snowblind amongst others. Though it’s argued BLACK SABBATH did not approach it in quite the manner ALICE IN CHAINS did during the Dirt recording process. Cantrell even stating during a 1993 interview with RIP Magazine that he; “…thought most of the hassle would come from Junkhead and Godsmack. Those songs are put in sequence on the second side those five songs from Junkhead to Angry Chair for a reason: Because it tells a story. It starts out with a really young naive attitude with Junkhead, like drugs are great, sex is great, rock’n’ roll, yeah! Then, as it progresses, there’s a little bit of growing up and a little bit of a realization of what it’s about, and that ain’t what it’s about.“

Even album closer, perennial fan favourite Would?, talks openly on the subject. Cantrell wrote it in dedication to his friend, Andrew Wood of MOTHER LOVE BONE fame, who had died of a drug overdose only two years earlier. Death, or at least mortality, being the issue raised in album opener Them Bones, with Cantrell‘s sarcastic, dark sense of humour being openly displayed in his approach to the lyrics in this track, particularly in the line, “gonna end up a big ol’ pile of them bones“. This perhaps gives more of an insight into more of the writing process than a more shallow scan of the lyrics may otherwise indicate.

While the overwhelming feelings taken from this release could be ones of despair, of dread and hopelessness, there is definitely a cathartic nature too, one that can be shared amongst the band and listeners alike, as the almost two years the album spent in America’s Billboard Top 200 will attest to. While there is a chaos to the nature of Dirt, it echoes the undercurrent of feeling that was behind the writing of it, showing a true depth of writing that explains quite why it remains so untouched even 30 years from its inception. Influencing bands that came to wider attention later such as KORN, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, IN FLAMES, GODSMACK and more shows that, even in the face of the pain they clearly felt at such a tender part of their career through the various issues that they battled, this was a generational level of creation.

Dirt was originally released on September 29th 1992 via Columbia Records.

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