Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [81]
MARK PICKEREL There were labels that thought we were just too physically unattractive to sign. A friend who worked at A&M told me that was one of the reasons A&M passed on us. Back then, the music that was driving record sales was Warrant and Poison and White Lion and Guns N’ Roses, bands with a lot of sex appeal.
BOB PFEIFER I recall getting an argument from a superior saying, “Look at the two fat guys in the group. How could that be successful?” So I actually turned that around into an argument: why they’re unique. It was that ludicrous at points.
I probably spent more time with Mark than any member of the band. We would go on a lot of walks and talk. About his songs, about life, a lot of stuff. He’d send me his lyrics, we’d go through them, talk about them. Having said that, I would always let the Trees pretty much do what they wanted. They’re brilliant. You just let brilliance go, you know what I mean? There’s certain artists that you work with where you push them in certain ways. There’s others—I remember when Ornette Coleman called me up and played a line over the phone to me, and I go, “Why are you doing this? You’re a genius. I have nothing I could possibly contribute other than to say it’s great.” The Trees were kind of in that league.
JOHNNY BACOLAS (Alice N’ Chains/Second Coming bassist) I grew up in Shoreline, Washington—Richmond Beach was what it was called then. It’s a North Seattle suburb. I got my first guitar at 12, and James Bergstrom and I started a group around 1982. We practiced at his mom’s house, and then at my mom’s house. Back and forth during those early years. We ended up getting some guys together, and by 13, 14, we had a group called Sleze. We were into heavy rock: Slayer, Venom, Mercyful Fate. We were also into some of the glam rock. When Mötley Crüe came out with Shout at the Devil, we thought that was the coolest record and started wearing more makeup.
There was a guy Ken Elmer, who went with us to Shoreline High School. Ken told us that he had a stepbrother who went to Meadowvale High School. He said, “You know, my stepbrother is a drummer, but he really wants to be a singer. He’s got peroxide-blond hair.” We thought that was really cool, right out of the gate. So we called him up, and his mom drove him out to James’s house—I still remember that day, vividly. We met him for the first time, started playing Armored Saint songs and Slayer songs and Mötley Crüe songs. He was into the exact same stuff we were into. It was literally a match made in heaven. Layne was the new singer.
Ultimately, when we switched the band name to Alice N’ Chains, it was me, Nick Pollock, James Bergstrom, and Layne Staley. The name? What I recall was we were at a party in North Seattle, probably about 16 years old. I was outside having a cigarette with a guy named Russ Klatt, who was a vocalist. Sleze had made these backstage passes months prior. Again, we’re kids—there was no real backstage. We just thought it was cool to have our own backstage passes. We’d go to Kinko’s and get ’em laminated, so they looked really legit. One of the passes said WELCOME TO WONDERLAND. Somehow we started talking about that being an Alice in Wonderland–type thing. Russ started saying, “What about Alice in Chains? Put her in bondage and stuff like that.” I remember thinking, Wow, that has a cool ring to it.
We’d outgrown the name Sleze, and we didn’t like it anymore. I brought up that name, Alice in Chains, and everyone liked it. But we changed the name to Alice N’ Chains, because three members of the group had really Christian mothers. Alice N’ Chains made it not sound like a bondage name—we would lose our jamming room, we’d lose all of our rights if we did that.
NICK POLLOCK (Alice N’ Chains guitarist; My Sister’s Machine singer/guitarist) Layne was totally cocky and ended up being my best friend