Duff McKagan Compares Alice In Chains' Comeback to 'Rocky'

Duff McKagan Compares Alice In Chains' Comeback to Rocky

Everyone loves a great comeback story. And in rock and roll, Alice In Chains' story is surely one of the best yet.

Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan says the Seattle grunge pioneers' comeback in 2008 with frontman William DuVall in place of the late-Layne Staley is akin to the first Rocky movie. 

"To watch Jerry Cantrell, Sean Kinney and Mike Inez gather themselves along with the brilliant William Duvall, was to me like watching Rocky in 1976 as a 12-year-old," McKagan wrote in a bio for the band to promote its upcoming Rainier Fog album, due August 24.

Many bands have replaced a frontman after achieving success, but such changes usually mark the beginning of the transition to "legacy" status, where new music isn't taken as seriously.

Alice In Chains not only endured the death of a hard rock icon in Staley in 2002, but came back seven years later with the seminal Black Gives Way to Blue

2013's The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here was another smash and, by the sound of the first two singles from Rainier Fog, "The One You Know" and "So Far Under," the band has another bomb about to drop.

McKagan isn't sure how his fellow Seattleites have done it.

"I'm convinced the band doesn't give a damn about Grammys or any sort of award-driven accolade," he writes. "They make music for and about their ardent fans. Attending an AIC show is akin to going to church and coming out cleansed and feeling generally better about the chaos that is this life. Their pure artistry and songwriting takes us all to another place." 

Alice In Chains is on tour through October. Get their tour dates here


Photo: Getty Images


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