Staind Vox Aaron Lewis Delivers Layne Staley In A Nutshell

Aaron Lewis has been touring the country as a solo acoustic artist, and one of the songs in his repertoire is the poignant "Nutshell" by Alice In Chains. Lewis grew up an Alice In Chains fan, and he said that the world doesn't respect what singer Layne Staley brought to the table.

Layne Staley died on April 20, 2002, and Lewis talked about his talent.

Video clip :

Watch video: Staind On Layne Staley Talent

"What Layne had to say in his music really kind of helped me through some really rough times in my life, and he was always a huge vocal inspiration because he was such an amazing singer. He was so talented. He would walk into a studio and all those harmonies would be in his head already, and he just had to put 'em down."

It'll be five years since the Alice In Chains singer died of a heroin overdose, and Lewis said that the drug might have been a way for Staley to escape the pressures of the biz.

Watch video: Aaron Lewis On Death Of Layne

"He was a genius at what he did, and when he passed away and there was nothing done to...in memory of him or in tribute to him at all... It was kind of like everybody expected it because he had been a heroin user for so long -- which for him was just an escape."

Lewis also performs Staind songs as well as another Alice In Chains cover, "Angry Chair." He also plays Tool's "Sober," Pearl Jam's "Black," and The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Lewis is on tour through April 4 in Buffalo, New York.

Comments

the article has been updated

[unknownalone]

layne staley was awesome, ive just recently got into alice in chains, ive been listening to SAP all of last week and this week, very very good album. aaron lewis is wrong though, several bands have written songs about him, and jerry dedicated his whole solo album to layne, but i do agree that a lot of people have forgotten about AIC

[Hexagram]

i can see what he means by his statement. AIC is one of my favorite bands and is a real inspiration yet they do not get the props they truly deserve. It always seems that Nirvana's Nevermind is always on the top record list yet Dirt is never there. I think Dirt is one if not the best album put out in the 90's and still holds up with such emotion.

[0bsessions]

unknownalone wrote:

layne staley was awesome, ive just recently got into alice in chains, ive been listening to SAP all of last week and this week, very very good album. aaron lewis is wrong though, several bands have written songs about him, and jerry dedicated his whole solo album to layne, but i do agree that a lot of people have forgotten about AIC

I think he means in the bigger picture. A handful of musicians did tribute songs (Cold, Staind and Pearl Jam off the top of my head), but there was very little attention to it in general. A big part of it, in my belief, is that his body was found the same week that Left Eye of TLC got drunk and fell out of a moving car. She got most of the mainstream and music press and Layne was rendered a footnote due to his well documented addictions. I myself was personally outraged, as well, as a big AiC fan. There wasn't much note of it anywhere. Jerry dedicated Degradation Trip as an afterthought (The album was done before Cantrell's death), the Pearl Jam song wasn't even released on an album, then there's just BLS, Staind and Cold (And Staind's, ironically, was pretty bad and turned more into yet another "I love my daughter" ballad like the rest of the album it was on).

The media used Layne's death more as a further platform to talk about Kurt Cobain relentlessly (Considering his death was calculated as approximately the anniversay of Cobain's), instead of focusing on Layne himself.

In my opinion, the only respectable tributes to Layne were The Day Seattle Died (Cold would typically cover Junkhead immediately ever playing it live) and the tribute that AiC have been playing at their shows since they got back together.

[mookie_baylock]

'before Cantrell's death'?
im presuming you mean layne's...

[tuluks]

is he only doing alice in chains songs on his tour?

Checked.

[MonsterOfRock]

Holy Wack! That guy had me worried there for a sec [about Jerry Cantrell]. Haha, jks.

[hendrixbo]

layne staley waz the shiz nit r.i.p!