Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell admits he’s scared as he begins to think about their next album – but it’s nothing new to him.
He says he’s felt the same way about their five records to date, including last year’s The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here – and he’s taking confidence from the fact that they’ve all seemed to work out.
Cantrell tells the Lansing State Journal: “We approach all our albums the same way. I like to think that’s why you get what you get with this band. We take our time; we’re lucky enough to work at our own pace and make music we care about and how we want to make it. That’s why you get quality music from this band.”
But he continues: “It’s always scary – you don’t know if people are going to go along with you. All you can do is make the best record you can for yourself, and hopefully other people like it. We’re fortunate that we’ve been doing that for a long time and had quite a lot of people dig our tunes.”
AIC career challenges have included the death of original frontman Layne Staley in 2002 and the difficult journey towards hiring William DuVall for comeback record Black Gives Way To Blue in 2009. Cantrell believes there’s a reason they’ve managed to weather the storms.
“The cool thing about our band is knowing that you’re a band,” he says. “Not just in a musical sense – you’re a band of people. We all lived for each other and helped each other out. Our primary purpose was always to make music and take care of each other.”
The guitarist says of their future plans: “We’re beginning the last part of the tour for this record. We’ll tour Canada in the summer and do a month in Europe. We’re doing some festivals in Europe and opening for Metallica mainly, and also Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. Then, we’ll do one little special thing in the fall, then wrap it up and take a break before we start working on the next record.”
AIC play Sonisphere – the scene of their first-ever UK appearance with DuVall – on July 6.
