JERRY CANTRELL Doesn't Rule Out Recording New Music With ALICE IN CHAINS Bandmates

ALICE IN CHAINS members Sean Kinney (drums),Jerry Cantrell (guitar) and Mike Inez (bass),along with DAMAGEPLAN singer Pat Lachman, will take the stage of Seattle's Premier club on February 18 as part of a benefit concert to aid the victims of the Southeast Asia tsunami distaster.

"When something like this happens, you want to help," Kinney told RollingStone.com. "I called people up here in the Northwest to see who was available, and Jerry and Mike were the first guys I called."

The show will be Kinney, Cantrell and Inez's first together in nine years — as well as their first without lead singer Layne Stanley, who died from a drug overdose in 2002. "Obviously we all needed to take some time and all deal with the situation of the band and Layne's death," said Cantrell.

The three thought Lachman, who lost a bandmate himself in December when guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott was fatally shot in an Ohio nightclub, was a natural choice to join them. "I've known Pat through the PANTERA and DAMAGEPLAN guys for years," Cantrell explained. "We were all down in Dallas to support the family, and we actually played a couple of ALICE songs at Dime's memorial, so it made sense."

For the benefit, the reunited group will perform material from the ALICE IN CHAINS catalog, and recording new music remains a possibility. "We're just starting with the gig, and we'll see what happens," Cantrell said. "But we can't wait to get into the room together. I've done plenty of [projects] without Sean and Mike, and, as far as having that silent chemistry, nobody really compares.

"If the last couple of months have shown me anything," he continued, "it's that it's still a really dangerous world we live in. You have to put one foot in front of the other . . . and if you look too far down the trail, you'll fall on your face."