QUOTES


Layne's Wise Words!
I see a lot of you out there are dressed up like Kiss...
but none of you are dressed up like me. What's up with that?"
"It's just writing about things, feelings, not that we're
dark or depressed...just as much as anyone else is."
"We write about ourselves because we know about ourselves."

Layne Staley, Nov. '91
"I'm Layne Staley and I sing like a lark...I'm Layne Staley
and I sing like a lark..." Layne Staley
"I've always looked for the perfect life to step into. I've
done all the work, taken all the paths to get where I wanted.
But no matter where I go, I still come home me. At home
I'm just Layne, a guy who has intrests that extend far
beyond music. Music is the career I'm lucky enough to
get paid for, but I have other desires and passions."
"Our perception of songs that we've written...the meaning
changes from day to day...to whatever stage we're at in our
life and careers."
Layne Staley, 1994
"When somebody starts asking me if I'm an addict or how
messed up I am or just some stupid stuff like that, it's like
'man do you have a brain at all?'Aside from a brain, do you
have any feelings at all? What if I started asking these
questions? This is really personal stuff"!
"The songs are about things that we were thinking and we
wrote 'em down, and when you listen to 'em, whatever you
think it's about...THAT'S what it's about!"

Layne Staley, 1995
"We Die Young is about gang violence. That was
something that was happening in Seattle, something
that kinda opened our eyes. It just seemed like things
were getting out of hand. Incidents where kids were
getting shot, and getting their tennis shoes ripped off
their dead bodies. It just seems like these kids are
dying at younger and younger ages and getting involved in
gang activity."

Layne Staley, 1991
"What do you mean, I'm a wild front man! I'm jumping all
over, I do the dance moves..."

Layne Staley, 1991
"[Man In The Box] is kind of loosely based on media
censorship. It's only my theory, so it's not a fact or
a statement."

Layne Staley, 1991
"Everyone in the band listens to different things. We're
influenced by different bands...so all that comes together."

Layne Staley, 1991
"This is a song about a girl who makes me feel all fluffy
inside...fucking bitch!"

Layne Staley ....before "Love, Hate, Love"
"I wish I could just hug you all, but I'm not gonna"
Layne Staley......after MTV Unplugged
"We were on tour and the songs on Sap were songs
that we had written...and Sean, during the process of
working on these songs, had a dream that we had
recorded these songs. And since they were a little bit
milder than the rest of our material, in his dream the
record was called "Sap," because it was sappy."

Layne Staley, 1994
"I'm dumbfounded by me all the time. Wow! What a....
thrill.....and a joy"
Layne Staley.....'The Nona Tapes'"
"I made a stupid decision and now I'm paying for it. My bed
isn't made, I'm tired, I haven't slept well for two weeks. I
haven't been laid in a month. I don't have a girlfriend. And I
have a warrent for my arrest. Being me is no different than
being most anyone else, I guess. "
Layne Staley
"I found out through the Internet that i have AIDS. I
learned that I was dead. Where else would I find these
things? I don't see a doctor regularly. I was in San
Fransico at Lollapalooza, and this girl walked up to
me and stopped like she had seen a ghost. And she
said, 'You're not dead.'.and I said 'No, you're
right, Wow."
Layne Staley......in Rolling Stone mag.
"Nobody ever asks Meat Loaf, 'What do you eat? Why do
you eat so much? Shouldn't you lose some weight?' No,
he shouldn't. He's fucking Meat Loaf. He writes songs,
and he has a great time, and none of your fuckin'
business. Maybe he eats meatloaf every fucking night,
you know?"

Layne Staley, 1996
"We try to be real nice and friendly to people, but sometimes
they take advantage of that."
"We survived a Slayer crowd every night for about fifty days
and thought we could do about anything after that."
"I used to walk six miles barefoot in the snow, to school..
"People have a right to ask questions and dig deep
when you're hurting people and things around you,
but when I haven't talked to anybody in years, and
every article I see is dope this, junkie that, whiskey
this -that ain't my title....My bad habits aren't my
title. My strengths and my talent are my title."

Layne Staley, 1996
"There's no huge, deep message in any of the songs.
It was just what was going on in my head right then.
We had good times, and we had bad times.We recorded
a few months of being human."
In Jerry Cantrell's own words!
"You should see us on the road sometime by the end of the
road"
"And when power ballads come back, we'll get big hair
again"
"Rehearsals and this band are two words that don't really go together, kinda like
'Military Intelligence'..."
"Our music’s kind of about taking something ugly
and making it beautiful"
Mike Inez talks!
"But bass players are the most important..."
"Backstage is greatly overrated"
Sean Kinney's Humor!
"Hate those guys. We hate each other. Sometimes we'll get
in our bigCadillacs and do drive-bys on each other's houses. We're like rival gangs." (Regarding Soundgarden)
"We've mastered the art of making pretty music that makes
you want to die"
"There's nothing worse than talking about yourself to find
out that you're not that interesting"
"The difference for me is I just don't sleep on friends'
couches anymore."


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