Guitarists From The United States

"When asked what part did Alice in Chains played in his life during his solo career. **"

"{{cite web"

"On continuining Alice in Chains after Layne Staley's death. **"

"On Nirvana being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. **"

"When asked if he gets advice from other musicians, quoted in **"

"On Dirt, drugs and depression, quoted in **"

"On his longtime friendship with Alice In Chains' co-founder and drummer, Sean Kinney, quoted in *"

"On the religious themes of The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here.**"

"On the possibility of Alice In Chains getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. **"

"On Kurt Cobain. **"

"quoted in the book *"

"Jerry Cantrell speaking with the crowd during Alice in Chains' concert at the InMusic Festival in Zagreb, Croatia on June 27, 2018, quoted in *"

"On "Check My Brain". **"

"quoted in the book *{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eTg4whS9ClUC&pg=PT167&lpg=PT167"

"When asked what was he like as a child, quoted in *"

"On writing "Check My Brain" about his experience moving from Seattle to Los Angeles. **"

"On Nirvana's 1991 album Nevermind, quoted in the book *"

"The more I got educated about cruelty and inhumane treatment, then it was really a no-brainer [to become a vegetarian]. No one would barbecue their family dog. Why is a cow or a pig different or a chicken different? They're just as much of a gentle animal as a dog or a cat. I just feel stronger, faster, cleaner, healthier."

"A lot of women play guitar very respectfully, and they play with the guitar; they don't play it—they play with it."

"I don't think that Anne or I had any concept that we were unusual to have this idea to go straight for The Beatles-type thing. So, completely without a sexual reference involved, just strode in the door and made a band, or two, or three."

"I tend to overplay—I play too hard because I've felt competitive in a room a lot of times with guys as a player, so I'd just play really dynamically."

"Animals don’t have the ability to say how much pain they’re in or tell you not to rip their skin off for your ability to wear something. … Really get into the process of seeing what you’re putting not only inside your body, but outside, too."

"I've been vegan for about a year now … It’s more than just food, it’s a lifestyle, and so my whole life has changed, I get up earlier, I wanna exercise, I feel better, my skin feels better. And these are things I didn’t even know coming from the South, coming from New Orleans — a girl who needs crawfish and gumbo, you know, you never would think that you would need avocados instead, and now I'm kind of an avocado junkie. … People are forgetting that it starts with the animals and we have misused them as if they are not like us."

"Over the last 24 hrs I have gone through lots of emotions. Scared, Anger, Heartache, Compassion and many others. I truely dont understand why a person would want to take the life of another. Something has changed in this country and in this world lately that is scary to see. This world is becoming the kind of place i am afraid to raise my children in. At the end of the day we arent Democrats or Republicans, Whites or Blacks, Men or Women. We are all humans and we are all Americans and its time to start acting like it and stand together as ONE! That is the only way we will ever get this Country to be better than it has ever been, but we have a long way to go and we have to start now. My heart aches for the Victims and their families of this Senseless act. I am so sorry for the hurt and pain everyone is feeling right now and there are no words i can say."

"Tonight has been beyond horrific. I still dont know what to say but wanted to let everyone know that Me and my Crew are safe. My Thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night."

"“I think it’s necessary. The world creates things up out of prayers that people pray and have. Things begin to move accordingly to how we all collectively think. When you see collectives moving on something you know that there’s going to be some kind of mass migration to a higher place, and I see that in the world as a whole, not just in America. I see it all over the globe. People are organizing and fusing together to make change, and it’s inspiring. I think it’s part of the natural order of things. We’re evolving, and what helps us evolve is social media. Social media is social evolution. It’s sparking a great change.”"

"Art is my religion."

"I've been vegan for two years and vegetarian for 20 years. I used to be a dancer, and so health and vitality have always been important to me. I wouldn't say it took any one big event, vegetarianism just always made sense to me. [What farmed animals] endure is just terrible. It's horrible … Vegan food is soul food in its truest form. Soul food means to feed the soul. And, to me, your soul is your intent. If your intent is pure, you are pure."

"“I consider myself a performance artist more than a recording artist. The stage is where I feel the most comfortable in expressing who I am, where I am, discovering things about myself. It's more therapy than it is a job. Recording is like perfecting a moment, where performing live is just creating a moment. And I love the feeling of creating that thing that just disappears and evaporates into time. You have it on your phone or video but for me, it's over after the moment. And there's something really beautiful about being able to just let go of something after you create it.”"

"Twenty years ago I thought: "What's the difference between eating a bloody steak and killing my dog, slitting him open and roasting him?" I've always loved animals but it was around the late 80s that I realised I had to go vegetarian. A lot of things converged in my life then – musically, emotionally – but mainly it was my love of animals and spending so much time touring that made me decide I had to change my diet. In the Runaways we used to eat a ton of junk food. So something had to give."

"Discipline is important, we need to be more focused on what we put into our bodies."

"“I can see the evidence of that when I listen to music or hear young artists talk and they’re not shy at all about telling me thank you for the things I’ve contributed to them.”"

"“I’ve learned so many things since then. I’ve changed in a way that involves elimination for the sake of evolution. There’s less emphasis on trying to figure things out. It’s about letting things be. I’m focusing on listening to the silence underneath everything. That’s what I try to connect with. I can listen to the silence right here, right now while we’re talking, and it feels so good. I’m in love with the silence.”"

"“I don’t regret anything. I don’t like to make people feel uncomfortable or bad. But people are very sensitive in this climate. It’s very understandable. I totally understand. I get mad with them. I get it…But no. I would never take back a message of love…I’m sorry that it was misunderstood. But not sorry for saying it because it was from a place of love. And sometimes that happens.”"

"“People can be bad for certain things. They could be bad around children. They could be bad with power. Are those people all ‘bad’? Could be. Maybe they need to get kicked off the planet. I don’t know. Each thing is individual. There aren’t rules for how we can or should think about something. We don’t have to believe everything we’re hearing. At least I don’t think we do. I’m glad I don’t watch this stuff.”"

"God bless Layne. He was my favorite vocalist. I've never heard of a vocalist that had that much soul."

"It was insulting the way people talked about him. People think he chose that fate, those drugs, but it’s not a chosen thing. Layne was the sweetest guy, the nicest guy, and the most talented guy you would ever want to meet. He was funny. He was one of the most least-judgmental people I ever met."

"“Man in the Box” hit in the middle of the “Clash of the Titans” tour — you talk about a tough fucking tour, opening up for Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax. They had a revolving headlining set, but still, Slayer’s fans would out-chant any of the other fans in the arena. “Slayer, Slayer, Slayer!” I remember playing Red Rocks, and the place is built ‘up’ — you could hit the stage with pretty much anything you throw from a certain distance. That was one of those landmark moments for the band. We got fucking massacred, dude. They started throwing stuff from the moment we came onstage. It was un-f*cking-believable. We were playing just looking up — watching shit come down, trying to avoid it, without running off the stage. After a while of getting pelted with all this shit — I don’t know how someone did this, but they snuck a gallon jug of some liquid, and they hocked this thing. It came down and crashed on Sean [Kinney]’s set. Layne got fucking pissed. He started grabbing shit and throwing it back at the audience. He jumped the barricades and started spitting back — throwing shit and flipping people off, just like they had been doing to us. So, we all did the same thing — we all followed Layne’s lead. We got right in their face, started kicking the shit they were throwing at us right back in their faces. And we finished our set. We’re like, “Fuck man, we better get out of here — we’re going to get killed.” After that show, there were a bunch of Slayer fans out by the bus. We’re like, “Oh shit, here we go.” We walk up to the bus — they were blocking us from getting to the bus — and they’re like, “You guys are alright. You guys didn’t puss out.”"

"Layne Staley was a lovely guy. It’s such a shame that he couldn’t overcome his demons."

"The whole thing with the heart... there wasn't a real intention or a reason, it's just a collection of ideas that we put together. To me, we had our hearts broken by losing Layne and losing ourselves. And also it took a lot of that to get through this process and to even take the chance, and to stand-up and risk. It celebrates his life. He didn't get treated too well by the press when he was alive, and when he passed away, he pretty much got swept under the carpet, and the news basically been a punchline or a headline. It's kind of cool, he's kinda like Obi-Wan and death, he became bigger than life and people are starting to take a look at his contribution. It was an unfortunate fact that he had an addiction that ended up killing him, but there was so much more to the man and stuff doesn't go away."

"I wrote about drugs, and I didn't think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them. Here's how my thinking pattern went: When I tried drugs, they were fucking great, and they worked for me for years, and now they're turning against me - and now I'm walking through hell, and this sucks. I didn't want my fans to think heroin was cool. But then I've had fans come up to me and give me the thumbs up, telling me they're high. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen."

"People have a right to ask questions and dig deep when you're hurting people and things around you. But when I haven't talked to anybody in years, and every article I see is dope this, junkie that, whiskey this - that ain't my title. Like 'Hi, I'm Layne, nail biter,' you know? My bad habits aren't my title. My strengths and my talent are my title."

"I’m gonna be here for a long fuckin’ time. I’m scared of death, especially death by my own hand. I’m scared of where I would go. Not that I ever consider that, because I don’t. I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of where I was going to go if I did follow through with it. That makes me sad for my friends who have taken their lives, because I know that if your time is not finished here, and you end it yourself, then you gotta finish it somewhere else. There was a time when things seemed desperate, and I thought taking my life might be a way out. I made a couple of really weak attempts, mostly to see if I could do it, and I couldn’t."

"I was sitting with a friend one time, and I blanked out for about a minute. I had no control over my muscles, and it scared the shit out of me because I experienced what I guess could have been hell or, you know, purgatory or whatever. It was freezing cold, and I was spinning like I was drunk and trying desperately to take a breath. There was chest pain like I was gonna explode. If you gotta feel pain here, you gotta feel it somewhere else. I believe that there’s a wonderful place to go to after this life, and I don’t believe there’s eternal damnation for anyone. I’m not into religion, but I have a good grasp on my spirituality. I just believe that I’m not the greatest power on this earth. I didn’t create myself, because I would have done a hell of a better job."

"I don't think any drug that can cause brain damage, failing kidneys, hardening arteries, pain, and suffering should be made available. Drugs are not the way to the light. They won't lead to a fairy-tale life, they lead to suffering."

"At first, we were just going to call it "Kurt", but then I was like, "Why am I doing this? Staley dies and he doesn't even get on the front page of Rolling Stone. I have to do something" – not that I matter at all, but it matters to me."

"Yeah, it was crazy that it's called "The Day Seattle Died" because I didn't mean it to be that. I meant it to be as far as those two losses in Seattle [Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley's deaths] - to me that's the day Seattle died. I wasn't putting that together and thinking about the exact dates. I had met Layne Staley before when he was really sick. We were on tour with Jerry Cantrell, and Jerry knew I was a giant fan of Alice in Chains. It was Halloween night, we were in Seattle, and all of a sudden, a little dude comes up and he's got an old fishing hat on and he's kind of dressed up like an old dude - he is dressed for Halloween. I guess he didn't want people to see him because he's Layne Staley walking into a club in Seattle, and that would draw a lot of attention, so he got a little costume. He came backstage with me, and it impacted me so deeply to see him in that condition, because he was one of my biggest idols of all time. We opened a bottle of Jack Daniel's and drank it, and I just talked to him about everything for a long time. But the condition that he was in at the time affected me deeply - to see him look years older than what I thought he was. I knew when he left that night, that was the end - that he was going to go. I'm so thankful I got to spend that time with him. So that affected me, and I was like, "That's my hero, I'm going to write a song for him." And then the Kurt thing came in too. He was just as influential, but Layne I just felt more of a connection to - he was way darker, and I've always gravitated towards that stuff. Layne Staley's mom actually reached out to us to thank us for the song, and it was really beautiful. So, it had some impact. People really feel that song."

"At the end of the day or at the end of the party, when everyone goes home, you’re stuck with yourself. There was a time when I couldn’t deal with that, and I couldn’t go places by myself. I needed to call up a friend to go to a 7-Eleven. I just couldn’t approach people when I was alone. Getting a place on my own was a step toward learning how to do that."

"Kurt [Cobain] and I weren't the closest of friends, but we ran into each other at shows and hung out a lot. I knew him well enough to be devastated by his death. I just don't understand it at all. The last time I saw him, he gave me a ride from QFC on Broadway to a friend's house, the whole way there, which was about a fifteen minute drive, he talked about his daughter. For such a quiet person, he was so excited about having a child, he really loved that little girl. About a month later I saw on the news, that he was dead."

"I met Jerry [Cantrell] at a party, just out of the blue. I didn't think he was the coolest guy in the world or anything. He had no family in the area, so he's kind of struggling, didn't have any money or a place to stay or anything. And me being completely drunk, just offered this total stranger a place to stay and clothes, and food and musical instruments. I think two days later he moved his stuff up into the rehearsal room that I was working [out of]. And he's got himself a little 4-track, and kinda started out there, writing and jamming with some people. He was playing with some guys that I thought... you know, weren't up too pair with the music that he was writing. And I remember meeting Mike [Starr] and Sean [Kinney] prior to that."