Alice in Chains came out of Seattle in 1987, right as the city was about to change rock music for good. The original lineup of Layne Staley on vocals, Jerry Cantrell on guitar, Mike Starr on bass and Sean Kinney on drums built something that never quite fit any one label.
Lumped in with grunge, the band were always heavier and darker than the tag suggested. Cantrell's grinding guitar riffs and those eerie, layered vocal harmonies with Staley gave them a sound nobody has really managed to copy since. The lyrics went to bleak places most bands wouldn't touch, and that honesty is a big part of why the music still lands.
Most people know them from tracks like "Man in the Box," "Rooster," "Would?" and "Nutshell." Their 1992 album Dirt is the one that gets called a grunge-era classic, and it still holds up as one of the most uncompromising records of the decade.
The band's story hasn't been an easy one. Staley's death in 2002 was a heavy loss, but the surviving members eventually regrouped, brought in William DuVall, and kept making records and touring. They've earned a lot of respect for carrying on without ever cheapening what the band stood for.
There's also the visual side, the dark, surreal artwork that's been part of their identity from the start and looks just as good on a t-shirt as it does on an album sleeve. Multiple Grammy nominations along the way haven't hurt either.
Decades on, their influence runs right through modern rock and metal, and a whole generation of bands owe them a debt. Grab a piece of that legacy with an officially licensed Alice in Chains tee from Teerex.
