Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [83]
JOHNNY BACOLAS The mirror? I’d totally forgotten about that. There was a movie that Prince came out with, Purple Rain. And the guy, Jerome, would hold up a mirror so Morris Day could fix his hair. When we did it, I think it was one of our roadies that would come out on cue and hold up a mirror for us. Between each song, we had little skits. Layne would come out on a tricycle or we’d do “Queen of the Rodeo” and he’d put his cowboy hat on and tuck his jeans into his cowboy boots and play the part of the cowboy. We really planned this stuff, almost like a Las Vegas production.
NICK POLLOCK Layne’s mom kicked him out of the house. Let’s just say that he and his mother did not see eye to eye. I was trying to get Layne to come live at my house, but my folks wouldn’t do it, so he ended up living down at the Music Bank.
TIM BRANOM (Gypsy Rose singer) I had nowhere to go, too, so that’s how Layne and I ended up sharing a room at the Music Bank, which was a warehouse with 60 band rooms. He was so quiet, he wouldn’t really tell you what was going on in his mind at all. He would sleep on the couch, and I would sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. Right above the couch, he had a picture of his family, but apparently he wasn’t able to make the family photo session so they had superimposed Layne into the photo—they’d taken a picture of Layne, put it on top, and took a picture of that. It was hilarious, because he was too big and he looks like this giant in the photo, like this super-Layne.
MIKE STARR (Alice in Chains bassist) I moved to Seattle, from Florida, when I was in the fourth grade. I got a job at IHOP as a dishwasher when I was 11, 12, and I saved up my money and I bought a bass off of the brother of this drummer named Dave Jensen for 50 bucks. Yeah, I was 12 years old and working at IHOP. When I was 12 or 13, I was going into bars in Atlantic City, because I had a start of a mustache and my dad was the bartender. I spent the summers in Atlantic City with my dad. I swear to God, I looked 18, and you only had to be 18 to drink in Atlantic City.
By the time I was 13, I had that drummer Dave Jensen in my band. It was called Cyprus; I found the name in the Bible. All I wanted to do 24 hours a day was play music. Eventually we needed a new drummer, so we found this guy Sean Kinney, who’d put an ad in the paper. He was cool as hell, and he was a smart-ass. Then me and Sean got kicked out of the band because we were too young. I didn’t see Sean again until I was 18.
Six months or a year later, I had rejoined that band, and when I was like 16, we won the Battle of the Bands at the Crossroads Skate Center in Bellevue. We were called Sato then, after an Ozzy song. Because we won, we got to record one of our songs called “Leather Warrior” for this album called Northwest Metalfest. “Leather Warrior,” man, gayest freakin’ song in the world, but it’s a song. And then I got kicked out of that band for some reason. I don’t know why.
I saw Sean again at the Southcenter mall. He said, “Man, I’ve been keeping up on you. You’re Mike Starr. Remember me? Sean? We were jamming when we were young?” He had just gotten kicked out of his house. I don’t know why. He came over to my house, and he started living there with my mom and my sister Melinda. He started going out with my sister and became part of the family.
TIM BRANOM I played in a band called Gypsy Rose. For about six months, Mike Starr played in the band. Jerry Cantrell played in the band for about three weeks. Jerry had a little bit different style; we were kind of going for the metal speed-demon, Yngwie Malmsteen–type players, and he was more song-oriented, so it didn’t work out. Mike Starr got kicked out of the band because he and the drummer were fighting over a girl. Then Jerry called up Mike Starr and started a new band.
JERRY CANTRELL (Alice in Chains