Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [207]
SEAN KINNEY I thought a lot of people were gonna be freaked out by the change. But then a lot of people really didn’t notice, because they’re both Mikes and about the same height. People just thought Mike Starr got tanner and grew his hair more. They didn’t even notice. It’s like, Goddamn, I don’t even have to be here! I was sort of looking around for guys that look like me. (Laughs.)
MIKE INEZ We did Lollapalooza ’93, with Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Primus, Dinosaur Jr. Babes in Toyland were great. It was just so nice hearing the Fishbone guys reciting poetry on the tour bus or Jerry jamming with Fishbone or those guys jumping up onstage with us. Arrested Development would come up and jam, and Layne loved this German industrial band called Front 242; you’d be backstage getting some catering and kinda waking up and then you’d hear Layne singing with Front 242. That’s another one of those tours where lifelong friendships were made.
MAUREEN HERMAN Lollapalooza was very tough, because my picture was on the cover of Entertainment Weekly for the Lollapalooza issue, along with pictures of Layne and the guy from Arrested Development. People said, “Oh! You must be doing so well.” But I had to borrow money from my mom for the rent that month. Our record company was really pushing us to take a tour bus, but we preferred to drive ourselves. We were told that no other band on the tour would be traveling in a van and we had to “grow up.”
Finally we relented, and because all tour costs are paid by the band or charged against future record sales, and our primary source of tour income, merch, was jacked by Lollapalooza, we walked off with only a couple hundred bucks each.
LORI BARBERO Lollapalooza was really, really fun. All my friends, all together, day after day. I already knew the Fishbone guys, and that was really fun to hang out with them again. Alice in Chains were so great. Layne really liked us, and so he was always hanging out in our backstage room.
MAUREEN HERMAN Layne was so meek and mild-mannered and quiet in person that it was really hard to believe that he was a rock singer. He seemed like a child, and everybody else in the band kind of seemed like a man. He seemed like he didn’t fit in. He really didn’t hang with his band socially.
NICK POLLOCK Layne got me passes to a Lollapalooza show. I hung out with him all day. There was a guy on the bus who made sure he didn’t get any drugs. There was a marked change in Layne’s personality then. He was kinda melancholy and really disappearing. We still had a lot of the same conversations and reflections and things like that, but he wasn’t there. He was lost.
DAVID DUET When I was living in Texas, Layne called and said he’s comin’ to play Lollapalooza. He says, “Here’s what I need: a bottle of Jägermeister, a bag of pot, mushrooms, bottle of Jack Daniel’s …” Gives me this long list. When I get on his bus, I’m excited to see him and not really paying attention, so I bring him the bag of stuff and I say, “Okay, here’s everything.” He’s trying to give me the eye the whole time. And then I learn I’m on Layne’s personal “clean and sober” bus. (Laughs.) His stepdad, his manager, everybody’s standing there.
I packed the bag up and left the bus before it was confiscated, and Layne met me like 15 minutes later.
LORI BARBERO Eventually Kat and Layne got in trouble, of course.
MAUREEN HERMAN Layne and Kat started seeing each other on tour, and then when we were in San Francisco, either his girlfriend was in town or he had changed his mind about the situation. Something happened, and he couldn’t be hanging with her. I don’t know what it was. But they had a falling-out that day, so Kat decides to react to the situation with Layne by doing excessive heroin.
KAT BJELLAND Layne and I hung around the whole time. We weren’t going out, just to make that clear. He was like a kindred spirit. We probably had crushes on each other, because I punched him in the