April 5th was the anniversary of the death of Layne Stanley, the leader of the band Alice In Chains, one of the most famous of the grunge era of the early 90's. Together with guitarist Jerry Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Starr form a very promising group since their debut with the 1990 album Facelift, with a strong metal imprint with heavy riffs like Man In the Box to melodies with Love, Hate , Love.
Layne's problem and heroin addiction troubled the band's entire journey over the course of the new albums, undisputed masterpieces of the world rock scene, but the singer was increasingly tested by the wear and tear caused by drugs. During his 1996 Unplugged live performance in which he was visibly in poor health, but he put a lot of effort into reworking the band's hardest pieces for the acoustic nature of the performance and sang a surprising version of Down in a Hole.
The use of heroin catapulted him into a state of depression, which precipitated when his girlfriend died in 1996 following bacterial endocarditis caused by drug use. From this moment Layne is completely isolated from the group and from social life, lives locked up in his case in Seattle and in vain are the attempts made by the band to get him out of the tunnel and bring him back to the big stands.
The epilogue came on April 05, 2002, 8 years after the death of another grunge icon, Kurt Cobain, when his body was found dead in his home due to an overdose of cocaine and heroin.
It is the end of a singer with great singing skills, with poignant melodies and it is the end of the grunge era. It's been 19 years and I still miss Layne Stanley.
Bye Layne