1993 was a pretty exciting year for me as a budding photographer and one of the major highlights was shooting Alice In Chains. Layne Staley was a badass, which is evident in this photo. It was the only chance I got to photograph him.
I’ll never forget the feeling right before the band came on that they’d be standing just a few feet away. Close enough to hear Layne singing overtop of the PA. Lollapalooza ‘93 was only the second concert I’d ever shot and Alice In Chains is one of my favourite bands.
AIC's first two releases, Facelift (1990) and Dirt (1992) are still two of my favourite rock records.
There are a few interesting things about this photo. Most notably it was my first Rock & Roll portrait, which was incredible to me at the time because Faith No More was my favourite band.
I had just finished interviewing Billy in an old timey elevator in this historic theatre, and that in combination with his clothes and the crappy scratched film that I got from school, make this portrait feel like it was torn out of a history book.
Why did we do the interview in an elevator? The opening band was doing sound check and the guitars were so loud that this was the only spot where we could hear each other speak. That band was Kyuss. Who knew at the time that one of the culprits was the one and only Josh Homme, who would end up becoming my friend many years later as the frontman for Queens Of The Stone Age.
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