On April 5, 2002, Layne Staley — the hauntingly gifted frontman of Alice in Chains whose voice carried the ache, rage, and beauty of an entire generation — died alone in his Seattle apartment at the age of 34, closing the final chapter on one of rock music’s most tortured and transcendent lives. From the moment Alice in Chains emerged out of the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s, Staley’s raw, wounded harmonies and unflinching vulnerability helped define the darker emotional core of the grunge movement.  His death, arriving years after he stepped back from the public eye yet still painfully soon for the millions who felt connected to his music, transformed an already enigmatic figure into something larger — a symbol of artistic brilliance shadowed by addiction, isolation, and a pain too great to outrun.

Hosts: Eric Colley, Derek Kaufman

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices