ALICE IN CHAINS AND THE CURSE OF LAYNE STALEY

WASHINGTON (AP) – Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains tried so hard to write a song about late singer Layne Staley it made his brain hurt. Cantrell wrote the title track to the “Black Turns Into Blue” album about Staley. Cantrell says while he was writing that song, he’d shake his head and it felt like his brain was moving. It hurt so badly he couldn’t hold up his head. Cantrell says he was “physically, deathly ill” for three weeks after writing that song. He and the rest of the band decided it was Cantrell’s repressed grief over Staley’s death. He says even though he grieved for Staley before, he was putting it into words, and he doesn’t know how he recorded the song because he was crying when he did it.