In a riveting episode of Gibson TV’s Icons, Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell recalls the intense and surreal backdrop that set the stage for the band’s seminal album, “Dirt.” As the recording process began in Los Angeles, the city was engulfed in chaos following the infamous Rodney King verdict — a moment that Cantrell and his bandmates would never forget.
Cantrell paints a vivid picture of the band’s early days in the studio. The timing couldn’t have been more ominous. “We came to LA to record “Dirt”, and we moved into Jordan’s studio,” he explains. The Rodney King trial was at the forefront of everyone’s minds. “We were all kind of watching the trial intently because, you know, we had a feeling which way it was going to go, and it wasn’t going to be good for the Black community at all — or Rodney King. If these guys got off, it was going to be apocalyptic, you know? That’s what we were all talking about and thinking about.”
The verdict, which acquitted the officers involved, set off an eruption of violence and unrest across the city. “Sure as [hell], man, when that verdict came down and those cops got off, within minutes the town started erupting. We started seeing fires, and we started seeing people get pulled out of cars—like on TV,” Cantrell recounts. This upheaval unfolded just as the band was unloading their equipment for their first day of recording.
What followed was a dramatic and harrowing escape. The band had to navigate through streets filled with rioters, fires, and looting to retrieve their belongings and leave the city. “We were in kind of the Valley over on Lankershim, and we were staying at the Oak Woods, which was out in Venice. So we had to either leave right there with what we had or go home, grab a few clothes, and get out of town for a bit, because the city was quickly devolving into a really dangerous place to be.”
The tension of the moment was palpable as they decided their next steps. Cantrell remembers a conversation with Slayer’s Tom Araya about what to do next. Ultimately, they chose to retreat to the isolation of Joshua Tree. “We picked a place to meet, and I think we rented a couple of Volvos or whatever.” Even getting out of LA was a challenge.
“I remember the streets being full of people running around, buildings on fire. We stopped for gas, and people were just coming in and taking stuff… We tried not to look anybody in the eye too much and just get your gas, get some water, get some food, and get the [hell] out. But that’s how that record started. And then we went out to Joshua Tree and dropped acid. I think Tom had a couple of dry peyote tabs he brought out there. We hung out for like four or five days. But that was the beginning of “‘Dirt'”
The chaos of those early days left a profound mark on “Dirt,“ an album often lauded for its raw intensity and emotional depth. Cantrell reflects on the duality that defined both the record and the band. “Dirt’s an intense record. The material that we were writing at that time was pretty gnarly, you know? That’s a hard record, it’s really pretty too, and it’s a good mix of both. And I think that’s kind of the equation of the band, it was a mix of the harder, heavier, uglier stuff with the pretty, beautiful sound.”
From the tumult of riots to the solitude of the desert, the journey to creating “Dirt” encapsulated the very essence of Alice In Chains: beauty and brutality in equal measure. It’s no wonder the album has endured as a defining piece of the grunge era and a testament to the power of art born from chaos.
