When Guitar World reaches the alternative metal icon – and founding guitarist of Alice in Chains – he’s been running the press gauntlet on a rare day off from his summer tour supporting U.K. rockers Bush.
This is Cantrell’s fourth call in as many hours, and while he’s more than willing to dig into the meat of I Want Blood – the guitarist’s sensationally snarling new solo album – he also notes that talking about himself for so long has worked up an appetite. In an admission befitting the record’s insatiable title, he says he’s ripping into a steak the second he wraps the interview.
Sure enough, there’s a ton of bite to I Want Blood, too. That much was clear once Cantrell unveiled first single Vilified, a brooding-but-teeth-bearing attack on social media pile-on culture and the rise of AI. Sonically, the bruiser is fueled by wah-and-talk-box-brawny riffage, a 7/4 metal-funk pre-chorus that conjures both Alice in Chains’ Dirt classic Them Bones, and the murky bang behind Cantrell’s earliest solo releases, 1998’s Boggy Depot and 2002’s Degradation Trip.
That patented gloom wasn’t entirely absent on his last record, 2021’s Brighten, but that eclectic outing also found Cantrell parting the clouds with moments of pedal-steel-blaring Southern pop-timism. In a sense, I Want Blood taps back into Cantrell’s primordially heavy essence, and it quickly turns into an all-out bloodletting.
“On this one I was pretty pure,” Cantrell says of an inherently viscous and vicious drive that pushed I Want Blood into “a much more aggressive lane,” following the relatively sunny days of Brighten.
“I love heavy music, and I love boiled down, minimal music… While I’m not intentionally trying to guide it that way, maybe psychically that’s an itch that needs to be scratched every once in a while.”
After concluding Brighten’s tour cycle in 2023, a scabrous writing period yielded Vilified, as well as the moody ’80s metal grandeur of Off the Rails, the grunge-groovy quarter-note bending Held Your Tongue and more. Though the songs were more sinister-sounding than anything on Brighten, Cantrell notes that his pre-production ritual at “Casa de Cantrell” remained unchanged.
“For any record I’ve been involved with – whether I’m with Alice or on my own – there’s three or four months of demoing shit in my house, with a friend of mine running all the gear so I can just play guitar,” he says.
“I’ve kept myself intentionally ignorant with recording gear, computers and Pro Tools so that I can have somebody fly that half of the plane while I’m doing all the other stuff. I like working in that way – in a tandem. I’m a team player. I’ve always been more comfortable working in that regard.”
Though Cantrell’s name is once again taking top billing, the guitarist graciously praises the crack team of musicians that helped him put together this latest release. This included the towering rhythm section of Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin, who’d previously backed Cantrell on Degradation Trip.
Longtime friend Duff McKagan likewise added low-end. Brighten co-producer Tyler Bates returned to co-write Southern gothic stompout Echoes of Laughter. Joe Barresi, who’d previously worked on Alice in Chains’ Rainier Fog, manned the boards and lent out some crucial gear.
Better Lovers vocalist Greg Puciato, who has been singing with Cantrell off and on since 2019, and Lola Colette, who likewise handles keyboard and guitar duties in Cantrell’s live band, added backups on a handful of songs.
Flanked by his friends, Cantrell came into I Want Blood with a prizefighter’s confidence.
The title track, he says, is about “stepping into the middle of the ring” for an existential boxing match with the personification of Time. While he knows it’s a losing battle – for no one, Cantrell says, beats the “all-time champion” – the musician is still determined to fight tooth and nail, every step of the way.
Judging by Cantrell’s words on the just-as-uppercutting chorus to Vilified, no matter the outcome, he’s bound to put on “a hell of a show.”
Vilified has got some classic Jerry-sounding riffs to it – scary as hell; heavy, yet oddly funky. How did you go about building that one out?
“It’s a gasser, is what it is. (Laughs) And I mean that physically – trying to sing and play that at the same time is pretty rough. A lot of the material on this album is me trying to hit a mark above where I normally think I can operate, and Vilified is a prime example of that.
“It felt scary. I felt like my face was smashed against the ceiling of my ability. That’s a great place to operate from, though, because you’re like, ‘I don’t know if I can pull this off, but I’m going to try.’ And then when you come up with something like Vilified, it’s like, ‘Fuck yeah!’
“There’s a couple of songs off this record that are tough to pull off live. You talk about patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. (Laughs) It’s like thinking in a completely different rhythm to what’s going on musically. That’s always interesting. Thankfully – both in Alice and also in the band I reside in for this tour – there’s a lot of really talented people to lean on. It takes a team.”
Thematically, Vilified is taking stock of AI, simulacra, digital assimilation, data mining and this downward slide toward technocracy. Seems like you’ve got a skeptical view on things. What are your general thoughts on AI, as it seems to be getting more and more integrated into our lives?
At times there’s a bloodlust, where it feels like people are willing to round people up, put ’em up on a hill and start throwing rocks at them. That’s what that song speaks to
“I put it in the song because there’s been a hysteria about AI lately. It’s interesting that everybody has jumped on that particular aspect of the song, though, because that’s not the meat of it. It’s the seasoning. AI is the pepper on the steak, but it’s not the steak. The song is very human, actually.
“Maybe it’s a call to be better to each other. I think at times there’s a rush for us to throw people under the bus, or to want to point the finger and say, ‘That’s a horrible person; you don’t get to play on the playground anymore.’ We all make mistakes. That’s how you evolve as a human being, by making mistakes and learning from them.
“I think at times there’s a bloodlust, where it feels like people are willing to round people up, put ’em up on a hill and start throwing rocks at them. That’s what that song speaks to. The AI element is that the time that we’re living in (exists around) the iPhone and social media; (it’s about) how connected we are because of that.”
Sticking with tech for a moment, there are AI engines that have studied the songwriting style of Jerry Cantrell, or the nuances of the vocal harmonies in Alice in Chains’ music. People can feed their own songs into an engine and then make it sound like you or Layne Staley are singing it back to them. There are Alice in Chains lyric generators. What do you think of all that?
“It’s a facsimile. I’ve had a couple of buddies show that to me, though. I think Greg (Puciato) did it to me once when we were at Rainbow Bar & Grill (in Los Angeles), having some pizza. My buddy (stylist/designer) Kelly Cole was also like, ‘Check this out – you can make an Alice in Chains song!’
“I was like, ‘I don’t think so.’ (Laughs) They would create a version of something through the engine, but then I’d listen to it, or I’d read the lyrics, and I would never fuckin’ write something like that. It kind of sounds like me… but not really.
“The thing about it is, AI’s a tool. You can use a hammer to bash somebody’s head in, or you can use it to build a house. It’s really up to the user. Although it requires a lot of machines to make music sometimes – like mixing boards, guitars, amplifiers, cables, effects, batteries, Pro Tools and AI – it takes a human to put the emotion and the feeling into a song. I just don’t think that can be replicated by a machine.”
What can you say, then, about the human drive behind something like this record’s Off the Rails, which has this minor key, classic ’80s metal feel to it. There’s a lot of gravitas to that pull-off intro.
“I hear my influences come out every time I make a record. On that song in particular, that opening riff takes me back to listening to Maiden and Priest when I was in junior high – I love both of those bands.
“And then when the power chords come in behind it, I hear AC/DC and Metallica. But throughout it all, I also hear me. It’s cool to be able to hear those (influences) poke their heads through there, while your (own musical) identity is still just as strong as those, if not stronger.”
There’s a line on Off the Rails where you’re singing about “heat distortion.” We’re taking this out of context, but this seems like a good spot to get into some of the gear on this record. What were you literally bringing the heat with in the studio, rig-wise?
“I’ll give you something that you didn’t ask for first. I was stuck with that particular section of lyrics for a while. You know, you’ll go through periods where you’re writing music and then you hit a wall. Like, you’ve got a good bunch of words (to start with), and then everything you come up with sounds stupid.
“Sometimes you need a palate cleanser, and a well-made film does that for me. On (Brighten’s) Siren Song, for instance, (2019 psychological horror film) The Lighthouse was that palate cleanser. The song is not about a lighthouse… but there is a mermaid character in it.
“And with Off the Rails, I was stuck – didn’t quite know where to finish it – so I went and saw Killers of the Flower Moon. There’s this scene where all of the workers are burning the fields, and they become distorted figures on the screen. That’s where I got ‘heat distortion’ from. Even though it has nothing to do with the film, specifically, Martin Scorsese broke me out of my writer’s block and I was able to get a second verse started.”
“But heat-wise on the record? I experiment with a lot of stuff. I’ve worked with a lot of great producers: Dave Jerden, Toby Wright, Nick Raskulinecz, Joe Barresi. They all have one thing in common: they’re fuckin’ weirdo, gearhead rock ’n’ roll fans.
“They know things like, ‘Keith Richards used this effect and that cab and this amp.’ I’m not as knowledgeable, so I hang out with guys like that so that when I mention a song they go, ‘I know what he used on that!’
“Actually, there’s a Stones song in another Scorsese movie, The Departed (Gimme Shelter), and Keith Richards uses an amazing tremolo effect on his guitar. I copped that. We found a 1958 DeArmond tremolo pedal, and I put it on Echoes of Laughter and maybe another song.”
“But in general, my gear remains the same. Guitar-wise you’re always going to hear ‘Blue Dress’ and ‘No War,’ my two O.G. G&L Rampages, and you’re going to hear ‘D-Trip,’ the Les Paul I’ve had forever. Those three guitars are pretty much on every record. And you know… whatever other paintbrush we wanted to use: Flying Vs, SGs, Les Paul Juniors, Teles, Strats.
“Amp-wise, I used the Friedman JJ (Junior), but we also really leaned on Bogners. The Bogner Fish is the main amp on this record. We also used some Snorklers. We also brought in some elements from my early recordings, from the (producer Dave) Jerden years.
“Joe was really taken by Jerden’s way of layering, and recording different guitar frequencies on different amps. Like, the high stuff would run through a Rockman module, and the mids would run through a Marshall modified by Bogner, and then (there would be) another layer with another Bogner.”
At the top of the spring there was a bit of a snafu with your ‘Blue Dress’ Rampage. It got lost somewhere around San Bernardino – presumed to have been stolen at one point. You put the call out to social media to help you find it, but quickly retracted that when you’d figured out it was just misplaced. What all happened there? Was that during the recording sessions?
So many of my brethren and sisters have had really important guitars stolen or disappear. We rarely get them back
“We weren’t in session, but I was doing some photo shoots for album artwork. As the guitar was being moved around, it got put in the wrong place for a few days.
“The reason I acted the way I did was because a guitar that Eddie Van Halen gave me (went missing) for 18 years. I had a very personal guitar (a 1992 goldtop Ernie Ball EVH) stolen from me during the making of Degradation Trip that somehow walked out the front door of Henson Studios. I was lucky enough to get that back.
“So, I guess that’s why I was so quick to throw the call out there, just in case ‘Blue Dress’ was missing. Very happy to say I cried wolf, and that I was mistaken. More importantly, I was appreciative that so many people rallied around me.
“So many of my brethren and sisters have had really important guitars stolen or disappear. We rarely get them back. Luckily this one was just misplaced for a couple of days. I get to make another record on it. It’s on tour with me right now, and I’m rockin’ it as we speak.”
There’s obviously a panic that sets in when you think a guitar is gone for good. Did you play anything in particular once you had it back in your arms, to settle your nerves?
“I was done recording at that point, so I was probably running rehearsals for this tour. But yeah… I bought that guitar in Dallas in 1985, when I was 19 and working at a music store called Arnold & Morgan Music Company; I bought ‘No War’ a few months after that. I had both of those guitars while I was living out there and jammin’ with bands, right after high school. I’ve had those guitars for 39 years. They’re like a part of me, you know?”
I enjoy playing bass. I come from the kind of Mark Evans and Cliff Williams, AC/DC straight simple bass
You’re also playing bass guitar on a few songs from this record. What are the nuances of your rhythm style, compared to Robert Trujillo or Duff McKagan?
“I am a guitar player playing bass, and those guys are bass players. (Laughs) I can come up with cool bass riffs, and for certain songs I have a unique feel that maybe they wouldn’t come up with.
“Like on Brighten, for instance, there were a couple of times where Duff and I would Frankenstein a bass part together, because he liked a couple of things I did, but was like, ‘I can’t replicate that.’ It was kind of cool being produced by him, to become a better bass player through Duff McKagan – and Robert, too! Duff and I Frankenstein-ed a couple songs on this one, too, like Afterglow.
“I enjoy playing bass. I come from the kind of Mark Evans and Cliff Williams, AC/DC-fuckin’ straight simple bass. That’s my style – nice, solid and basic. I might throw a riff at you once in a while, but it’s all in service to the song.”
Thinking of some unique feels within I Want Blood, one of the wilder swings on the record is Throw Me a Line, which has this heavy, almost rocksteady hypnotism to it. It’s a different groove, compared to the rest of the album.
“The best part of that song is when that main riff comes back. The chorus is good, the B part is good, and the solo section is cool, but the highlight is when it comes back to that intro riff. It’s just relentless.
“I hear some Billy Gibbons in there. I hear some Tony Iommi in there. And I hear me, too. It’s a really fun song to play, but even though that groove sounds very simple, it’s tricky to sing that vocal line across that rhythm. I’m still working on that one.”
Texturally, there’s a lot of talk box going on in this song – and, actually, maybe through most of Vilified, too?
“There is a lot of Cry Baby and talk box on this record. We went heavy with those. We used two different kinds of talk boxes on Vilified and Throw Me a Line. One is the Dunlop that I’ve been using forever, which is just the box on the floor and the tube coming up to the mic. But while we were messing around with talk boxes one day, Joe showed me a clip of Jeff Beck with a Kustom ‘The Bag’ on.
“It’s much smaller – like a bag that hangs over your shoulder, with a much smaller straw and a wood bead for you to hold onto with your teeth. It was a different feel, but it was so fucking expressive! I had never seen that clip of Jeff Beck before, and then Joe was like, ‘I’ve got one of these, man. We should try this!’ So he whipped that thing out. I believe the Bag is what you’re hearing on Vilified and Throw Me a Line.”
When it comes to solos on this record, you’re really leaning into that dark, bluesy vibrato on Echoes of Laughter. What do you recall about putting that song together?
“That’s a song that Tyler (Bates) and I wrote together; it’s actually the one co-write on the album. Tyler’s always a strong sounding board for me. I trust his opinion. Even if we’re not actively writing a song together, I like to run things by him.
“He’ll give me ideas on where to go with arrangements. We operate in a similar space – we like dark, atmospheric, cinematic rock ’n’ roll. But we had also done Brighten together, and we of course toured together, too.
“I’d heard him play that main guitar figure a number of times. You sit down and jam, and sometimes you drift back to a favorite riff that you haven’t developed into anything yet. He was playing guitar with me one day and I was like, ‘That thing wants to be a song! Why don’t we make something out of this, because you’ve been playing it for two years now.’ (Laughs)
Alice in Chains is a really versatile band. It was important to us to have as much diversity as we could early on to see what people would accept from us
“So, it was me, him, and Maxwell Urasky, the engineer on the demo sessions for this record. I just kind of blurted out one of the lines off the top of my head, just as a placeholder, but it ended up being a great chorus, word-for-word. (Bates) kept trying to pass the guitar off, like, ‘Here, you put something in there,” but I was like, ‘Fuck it, dude, you’re doing great. Keep going!’
“I added a few elements, musically, but basically Tyler wrote the music for that song, and I wrote the vocal. It was a great collaboration with my friend. He also helped me through the process of bringing Brighten into the world. Even though he wasn’t as available, because he had other projects and commitments, he was definitely a guiding force on this record, too.”
Is there any push and pull in your mind between what could make a good Jerry Cantrell solo riff and what might end up as an Alice in Chains song?
“I think the only difference that really exists is the obvious one: if I’m with Alice and we’re recording it, then it’s an Alice tune. If I’m not with them, then it’s not. Alice in Chains is a really versatile band. It was important to us to have as much diversity as we could early on (to see) what people would accept from us.
“We took a few gambles between Facelift and Sap, and then between Dirt and Jar of Flies. You couldn’t get more different – going from heavy, to acoustic, to even heavier, and then another fuckin’ weird, ethereal kind of acoustic EP.
“We opened the playing field for ourselves so that we could go anywhere… we earned that for ourselves. But you know… it’s really just that: if we’re together recording songs, it becomes an Alice song. Doing songs with some other folks that maybe has elements of what I do with Alice? I carry that with me, but it’s not an Alice thing.”
It’s been a few years since Alice in Chains put out Rainier Fog. We’re here to talk about I Want Blood, but, respectfully, have you been working on any music with the band behind the scenes?
“I’m just at the very beginning of the campaign for this record, so right now I’m committed to doing this. I began writing for this record last year, and I recorded the album this year. I’m already on tour for it. I’ll probably wrap this thing up sometime next fall. That’ll be the end of the campaign, but that’s a long way to go. So, right now this is where I’m at – I want blood, man!”
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