ALICE IN CHAINS Guitarist: 'It's Important Not To Have Some LAYNE Clone'

Scott Cronick of the Press of Atlantic City recently conducted an interview with ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist Jerry Cantrell and bassist Mike Inez. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On whether the band is reunited:

Cantrell: "Are we reunited? We're having some fun. That's what we're doing. We're spending time playing together and having some fun for ourselves. We did a a (tsunami benefit) last February [2005] that Sean [Kinney] put together, and that's where the seed got sown."

Inez: "It felt really good to get together and perform because we were helping people. Alll of the money raised from that show went to vaccinations. We saved a lot of lives. What's better than that? It was great, so we said, 'Maybe we should do this a litlle more often.'"

On their future plans:

Cantrell: "It's all very up in the air. Where we're coming from with all of this is that we have to make sure that enough time has passed and that we all feel it's something we should do and that it would be fun to try out. We were lucky enough to set a mark and have the experience of living and playing with the greatest singer in rock history. Of course, I'm a little biased there. But it's a tricky thing to deal with that. We don't want to sully the memory of what we did. But there is a lot of music that we wrote together that we still love to play, and we feel there's more inside of us that we would like to get out."

Inez: "When we get together, it really feels like a celebration. To get up there with two of my brothers in life, you can hear the love when we play together."

On the loss of singer Layne Staley:

Cantrell: "It's pretty f--ing heavy. The grieving process is taking years and years. It's tough to lose someone that close to you. But in a different way, it's nice to see these guys again. We're just on surfboards floating, waiting to see what the ocean waves up. It's nice to be floating together again. We're taking this on a step-by-step basis What we're bringing to this is an open mind and an open heart."

On who will be handling lead vocals at upcoming shows:

Cantrell: "It's important not to have some Layne clone. We want someone to be able to do their own thing but fit in with what we do."

Inez: "We haven't decided on on one guy. Maybe it won't be just one guy, but maybe friends and people we respect to get different takes on what we do. Maybe we'll want to get as many people involved as possible without making it too much of a circus."

Cantrell: "Yes it's not cut and dry. We have to do this carefully and with the right reasons. We never did anything that was from a bad place or not coming from the heart. We can't start working like that now; we're too old."