Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [231]
A poignant moment for me was after that meeting: It was raining outside, and I was walking down the alley one way and Layne was walking the other way. I turned around and looked at Layne, and that’s when I had a really big flash, like, Wow, we are not healthy here.
KEVIN MARTIN We opened for Metallica in ’94. The end-of-tour party was the most decadent thing I had ever experienced in my life. It was like, mounds of cocaine, strippers, high-class hookers—you got a golden ticket so you can go fuck them if you want. That was not my thing. I’ve never been with a prostitute. And I quit doing drugs when I was 18, so for me I was a wasted ticket—I ended up giving it to one of our guitar techs or something. I remember going into this back room and seeing this mound of cocaine, a basketball rim around and six to eight inches high.
PETER KLETT Layne wouldn’t answer the phone. The story I heard is that they’d call him to leave a message on his answering machine, then they’d call back and it’s a different outgoing message, so obviously he was fucking with them. Because of that, we also got their slot on Woodstock.
KEVIN MARTIN We play Woodstock ’94, and we’re the only band all weekend that’s got a record in the Billboard Top 10 or Top 20. We go to do a press conference and they introduce us: “This is Candlebox from Seattle. They’ve got a number-seven record on Billboard, they’re moving 125,000 units a week, they’re really pleased to be here. We’d just like to open the floor to any kind of questions.”
Not one person asked a question. We stood there for like two minutes. I finally joked, “Mr. Brokaw?” Everybody turned like Tom Brokaw was there. I was like, Why am I standing here? Nobody gives a shit. The only people that ever cared about Candlebox were the people that bought our records. It hurt, man. It was like, We’re never gonna fuckin’ win. We’re never going to be a reputable band regardless of what we do.
JOHNNY BACOLAS The weekend Alice in Chains was supposed to be playing Woodstock, I went on a camping trip with Layne and a friend of his, and a friend of mine named Alex Hart.
Alice in Chains were having some internal issues. I remember that the guys in the band were calling him and leaving voice messages for him, and he would just disregard them. Layne had other things going on. He was trying to kick heroin that weekend, as well. That was really the reason he went on that camping trip, to try and clean up. We went to Eastern Washington. And that’s where we ended up setting up camp, in a town called Twisp. It wasn’t much fun for Layne at all. He slept a lot on that trip. We were tending to him to an extent.
Later, we ended up in Lake Chelan, which was a big touristy spot. One night, Layne drank quite a bit, and him and I are on this beach. We ended up sitting at this little bridge over the lake. He was very, very depressed—it was basically the withdrawals—and he was really freaking out. He just grabbed me and started crying. And he told me that he wanted to kill himself. He, in my mind, was considering doing it right there and then at that bridge. We were just sitting there on the concrete, and I’m holding him for dear life.
Alex drives up, and the next thing I remember, all of us are going to the Safeway in Lake Chelan to get beer. Now it’s probably 2 o’clock in the morning, and some guy started giving Layne shit. Of all nights to start fucking with him. I can’t remember what they were saying, but they were badgering him. Layne clocked one guy in the jaw, just laid him out right in the Safeway aisle where the beer is. We bailed, got in the car, and left.
We ended up going to this parking lot, hiding, and there’s probably 30 cars there, all blaring music. People smoking weed and drinking beer. All teenagers.