Alice in Chains: The Untold Story

Chapter 28

ON THE NIGHT he got home from Brazil after being fired from the band, Mike was in his mother’s basement when he called a friend. “Alley, man, I need you here now.” Steve Alley hadn’t spoken with Mike in a long time but drove over. Mike brought a copy of the twenty-four-track Alice in Chains demo that got the band signed, and they sat in his car until five o’clock in the morning, talking and listening to the demo. “He wanted to listen to it again and again, and he’s like, ‘Hey, man, what do you think about that bass line?’” Alley recalled. “He was trying to grab on to everything that was our past, kind of. He was just trying. He was drawing at straws for bringing back the innocent times.”

At some point in early 1993, Bryan Carlstrom was pulling into the parking lot of El Dorado Studios. There was an alcove in the front of the building right off Sunset Boulevard, and he saw Mike standing there. “Hey, Mike, what are you doing?” he asked.

“He walks over to my car, and he had the bottom of a can, and obviously had been cooking heroin in it there in that little indentation of the building, and he didn’t recognize me. He didn’t even know that he was standing in front of the studio that he had once been recording a record at. He didn’t even know where he was. It was a sad time.”

Mike, for whatever reason, still held a grudge against Randy Biro. A few years after his dismissal from the band, when both of them were living in Los Angeles, Mike called him. In that conversation, Biro said, Mike was “yelling and screaming, fucking high as a kite, blaming me for him being kicked out of the band. He said I manipulated everybody into doing that … I didn’t have that much power. That was insane.”

According to Aaron Woodruff, the only member of Alice in Chains Mike kept in touch with after his dismissal was Layne. He had a difficult time adjusting to life after Alice in Chains. Besides his escalating drug addiction, people who knew Mike generally tend to agree he never got over not being in the band. He would introduce himself as Mike Starr from Alice in Chains, even though he had been out of the band for years.

Mike was hired to play bass for Sun Red Sun, the new band started by the former singer of Black Sabbath, Ray Gillen. Jason Buttino said he was “almost one hundred percent sure” that gig was set up for him by Susan. Besides personnel issues within the band, Gillen had developed AIDS and was unable to finish recording his vocals. He died on December 3, 1993. He was thirty-two years old.1

Mike checked in to the Lakeside-Milam Recovery Center in Kirkland, Washington, where he met another patient named Jason Buttino while they were roommates going through detox. Buttino had no idea who Mike was and didn’t figure it out until he started hearing rumors that the bassist for Alice in Chains was there. “I just thought he was another rocker dude, just like me, and just a normal person.” Mike began feeling uncomfortable with the attention and left the facility within a day of the rumors starting to circulate. Buttino hit it off with John Starr and, later on, with Mike and Gayle. Buttino and Mike began hanging out and became friends.

According to Woodruff, when Mike was sober, he was fine, a nice guy. But when he was on drugs, he became a completely different person. “[When] Mike was on pills he wasn’t himself—not real selfish but self-absorbed, and he was all about just getting high and doing whatever he did.”

On April 12, 1994, Mike was arrested for attempting to steal luggage at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and for possession of marijuana and “possession of dangerous drugs,” identified as Valium. According to the police report, “Witnesses noticed suspect taking bags from an airport baggage area and taking items out of them, placing them into another bag, and switching baggage claim tickets on the bags.” Mike, who was high at the time, later told Woodruff the airline had lost his luggage. He told Buttino he thought he was opening his own bag. According to court records, he served ninety days in Harris County Jail.2

Mike moved in with Buttino during the mid-1990s. He wasn’t writing music at the time and was deep into heroin addiction. Buttino estimated Mike was using between two and five grams a day, spending an average of about five hundred dollars a day. Mike was aware he made a mistake trying it in the first place. One time, after Mike and Buttino had gotten heroin, Mike shot up and nodded off. Buttino was about to shoot up when Mike came to, took the syringe out of his hand, and squirted it on the ground. He started crying and told Buttino, “You’ll never do heroin. I’m never going to let you do it. I wish I never started it. I wish I’d never touched it.”

At some point during this period, Mike mentioned an interest in writing a book telling his story, a coffee table–style book that would be titled Unchained. In July 1998, Mike met John Brandon, a journalist with local television and print experience. After the release of the Music Bank box set in 1999, Mike asked Brandon to help him produce a music video for “Fear the Voices” using material from Mike’s private collection of twenty-five videotapes he made while in the band. The video was sent to the band, their management, and their record label but never saw the light of day. While working on the video, Mike asked Brandon if he would write the book. For the project, Brandon interviewed Mike, his family, and a few of his friends.

Published in 2001, Unchained: The Story of Mike Starr and His Rise and Fall in Alice in Chains has several inaccuracies in the text. There are two in particular that deserve correction.

The first is the claim that Mike told the band and management during the Brazil trip in January 1993 that he was taking time off from the band and leaving of his own accord. Multiple sources, including Mike himself, have said on the record that Mike was fired.

The second major inaccuracy deals with Demri’s death. One paragraph makes the following unsourced assertion: “In Seattle, with doctors, a counselor and John Starr by her side—Demri passed away.” After reading this, Kathleen Austin angrily denied it. “This is bullshit. Demri died at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, and there were two people there—me and my sister. And that’s the only people that were there. This is a lie, an out-and-out lie.” Demri’s death certificate confirms she died at Evergreen.3

On May 5, 2003, Mike and John Starr boarded Southwest Airlines flight 584 from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, Utah. Mike spent nearly half an hour in the bathroom before returning to his seat. Shortly after, a flight attendant saw the elder Starr trying to inject his son with a needle. The attendants eventually informed the pilot, who asked the tower to contact local law enforcement. Two Salt Lake City police officers boarded the flight as soon as it pulled into the gate and escorted the Starrs to the airport police station.

Upon arrival at the station, both Starrs gave police consent to search their luggage. Police found heroin and drug paraphernalia. They were arrested and taken to Salt Lake County Jail. Mike was charged with having drug paraphernalia for personal use, disorderly conduct, and possession of a controlled substance. A local bail bonds agency put up $10,650 for his bail. Mike and his defense attorney decided to plead guilty to unlawful possession of a controlled substance for the heroin charge. His lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge all signed off on the deal. Mike, however, didn’t show up for sentencing on August 25, 2003. A judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest, setting bail at $20,000. This bench warrant would come back to haunt him several years later.4

In the summer of 2009, a woman walked into Bass Northwest and approached Evan Sheeley. “I’ve got somebody that wants to talk to you real bad. Do you mind if I bring him in?” she asked him. It was Mike. Sheeley hadn’t spoken to him in years because Mike forgot to acknowledge or credit him for his work in the liner notes for Dirt. According to Sheeley, “He came in and said, ‘I’m really sorry for what I did.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He says, ‘Well, I didn’t give you credit.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I know. That’s fine; I accept your apology. What are you really here for?’

“He was trying to figure out how to get money from Alice in Chains. He felt they owed him millions of dollars. And I had to remind Mike that he did not really contribute a lot to the songwriting process and that he needed to go back and check his records, because he had probably sold maybe his rights to certain things for money back in the day.”

Sheeley encouraged Mike to move on with his life. The two took a picture together before Mike left. That was the last time Sheeley saw him. Mike went to California to film the VH1 reality show Celebrity Rehab shortly after.

In early 2010, Mike reentered the public eye as the third season of Celebrity Rehab aired. According to Mike’s official biography for the show, he had already been to rehab thirty times. The guilt of his last meeting with Layne still weighed on him seven years later.

Reminiscing about his Brazil overdose, Mike told Dr. Drew Pinsky that “I let him [Layne] die, too, and he saved my life. Isn’t that terrible? On my birthday.” During a voice-over narration, Pinsky described Starr as being “clearly haunted by very intense feelings surrounding the death of his friend Layne Staley” and added that that threatened his sobriety and needed to be addressed in treatment. With encouragement from Pinsky, Mike finally told Nancy Layne McCallum of his feelings about the last time he saw Layne.

He looked her in the eye and said, “I wish I would have known he was dying. I wish I would have called 911. He told me that if I did, he would never talk to me again, but there’s no excuse. I should have done that anyways. I wish I wouldn’t have been high on benzodiazepam and wouldn’t have just walked out the door.”

“Did you see Layne die?” McCallum asked.

“No, I didn’t see Layne die,” Mike answered.

“He was agitated because I was too high. He used to get mad at me when I took them. He’d be like, ‘You’re an idiot on these pills.’ And then I got mad at him, and I said, ‘Fine, I’ll just leave.’ And his last words to me were, ‘Not like this—don’t leave like this.’ I just left him sitting there. His last words to me were, ‘Not like this.’ I can’t believe that. I’m so ashamed of that.”

“You know, Mike, he could have called 911,” McCallum answered.

“He would not call 911.”

“I know.”

“No, I know that. I’m just saying, I don’t know why he would not call them.”

“Because he was embarrassed. A beautiful man with huge talent had squandered his life and his talent. That’s not a judgment; it’s just a statement of fact, and he knew that. And it’s a horrible thing, but I don’t blame you, and I never have. Layne would forgive you. He would say, ‘Hey, I did this, not you.’”5

Aaron Woodruff thinks Mike never got over the guilt and blamed himself until the end. After taping for the show ended, he appeared on the spin-off series Sober House. Mike played with musicians from the School of Rock, as well as ex–Guns n’ Roses drummer Steven Adler and former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley during a performance at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, which included covers of “Man in the Box” and KISS’s “Shout It Out Loud” and “Rock and Roll All Nite.” Mike had been getting back into music again, with at least two different ventures, according to an interview he did with Pinsky on Loveline. He said he had been collaborating with Iggy Pop’s guitarist, Whitey Kirst, having recorded eleven tracks together. In early 2010, he relocated to Los Angeles to play bass on singer Leiana’s cover of Sonic Youth’s “Kool Thing.” Leiana told Blabbermouth.net it was Mike’s first sober studio session in about twenty years. It was also his last studio recording.6

Mike’s initial signs after the programs were good. He was asked to participate in a panel at the Pasadena Recovery Center. Pinsky offered a glowing assessment of his patient, stating, “Mike, in spite of having the most awful withdrawal we’ve ever documented on the show, is doing fantastic. I saw him last night and I cannot wait to get him on the radio show and let him speak for himself. He is doing amazing.”7

Mike’s former bandmates publicly slammed the program but not him. “Addiction is no joke, and we know that firsthand. We lost a good friend of ours to that. Mike deserves a better life,” Jerry said during an interview with an Atlanta radio station. “That particular show, I think it’s a real travesty and a shame to put people in a really vulnerable situation like that and make it entertainment for people to see … It’s just kind of disgusting to me, actually. It’s nothing I back.”

He added, “I totally back Mike, and I back his efforts to get clean and [he] remains somebody that I and the band really care about—he’s a friend of ours, you know, and we wish him the best.”

Sean offered similar sentiments during an interview with Philadelphia radio station WMMR, saying, “It exploits people at their lowest point, when they’re not in their right mind, and the sad part is, this is like entertainment for people when it’s actually a life-and-death situation. I don’t think it helps anybody and it makes entertainment out of people’s possible death, and that’s pathetic and it’s stupid. So I don’t support that show at all and I think it’s pretty disgusting. But Mike getting his life together or anybody doing that, I’ll support that.”8

Mike sounded happiest in the Loveline interview when talking about his family, particularly his mother, for whom he had recently bought a furniture set, he said, with a sense of pride in his voice. While discussing Nancy McCallum’s annual August concert fund-raiser in Layne’s memory, he expressed an interest in putting a band together for the event.

Mike still missed his friend. “I feel naked without Layne in this life,” he explained. “I don’t care about a band thing, I don’t care about them dismissing me from the band. I never quit the band, for one thing. I’m not a quitter. I’m not a quitter, that’s for sure. I don’t care about any of that. I love Layne for the human being that he [was], and I just … I really miss him.”

Asked about the possibility of reuniting with Jerry and Sean, Mike said, “Jerry Cantrell and Sean Kinney are my brothers. They will be forever. I spent ten years with them, and they will always be my brothers, they will always be in my heart, and I would do anything for them. And so if they ever asked me to play with them, I would definitely play with them.”9

Mike went to San Diego in August 2010 to visit Aaron Woodruff, taking a bus to the beach near where he lived. A street was closed off where there was a block party with a live band. Mike got up onstage and performed with them. “He got up there and jammed and everybody was recognizing him, and I sat back and watched all the attention he was getting. I was really proud of him, and I was really, really, truly almost, like, wanting to cry, I was so proud of him.”

“Here he is just walking in—that old Mike is back. I hadn’t seen that since high school probably. He was charismatic—positive energy. You know, everybody loved him and he was pretty good there and allowed him in.” That was the last time Woodruff saw him.

That same summer, Brooke Bangart—one of Mike’s childhood friends—was checking in to a San Diego hotel with Melinda and Mike. There was a large grand piano inside, and she heard Lionel Richie’s “Hello” on the piano. It was Mike. At the time, she thought, “I know that’s him. We’re gonna get kicked out of here for sure,” Bangart said at his memorial service.10

In late 2010 or early 2011, Mike moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, to start a band with Travis Meeks, the former singer from Days of the New. On the night of February 17, 2011, Mike was riding in the passenger seat of a van being driven by Meeks, which got pulled over by a Salt Lake City police cruiser for a traffic violation—Meeks had driven over the median when making a turn, and Mike wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Buttino was surprised to hear Mike wasn’t buckled up. “That was the thing that Mike always criticized me the most on, wearing my seat belt.”

“Hey, Officer, have you heard of Alice in Chains? I used to be the [bass] guitarist for them. We are down here in Utah, me and Travis, putting together a new band,” Mike said, according to the police report. The officer ran a background check on Meeks and Mike. While he was getting the information from dispatch, his partner handed him a bottle with pills that Mike was taking, later identified as six Opana pills and six alprazolam pills.11

Meeks was issued a traffic citation for driving on a suspended license and released. The officer discovered Mike’s bench warrant from 2003. He was arrested and taken to Salt Lake County Jail. He was let go on prefile release for the new charges, on the condition that he show up in court for a hearing. Someone paid the twenty-thousand-dollar bail on the bench warrant.12

In late February or early March, Mike had a phone conversation with Nancy Layne McCallum. As she recalled during his memorial service, “He’s turned the corner. He wasn’t obsessing on old stuff. He was really positive and happy, and I know that he was one rung higher in his ladder to heaven.”13

On March 7, Travis Meeks; his wife, Micaela; and Mike drove to Orem, Utah, to pick up a methadone prescription. Mike made several phone calls during the course of the day. He called Melinda’s fiancé, Chris Jurebie, and left him a voice message. His final words on the recording were: “You’re my little brother. I love you; we’re brothers for life.”14

At some point, he left a thirty-five-second voice mail for a drug dealer asking for marijuana, which was later posted on the Web site TMZ.15

The Meekses were up all that night packing to leave for a road trip the next day. At around midnight, Micaela went upstairs to use the bathroom next to Mike’s bedroom. She saw him listening to music and trying to go to sleep.

According to the police report, Travis tried to wake Mike up between 5:00 and 7:00 A.M. the next morning to leave for the trip. He was described as “sleepy but responding to Travis.” That was the last time anybody saw him alive. A driver was supposed to pick them up that morning but didn’t show up. They never left for the trip and fell asleep instead. Micaela estimates that she and Travis slept from 8:00 A.M. until 1:00 P.M. At some point in the early afternoon, the Meekses found Mike, wearing a T-shirt and gym shorts, lying in his bed near a laptop computer, unresponsive. They called Spencer Roddan, the owner of the house. Roddan arrived a few minutes later, and at 1:42 P.M. he dialed 911.16

Salt Lake City police and fire department personnel arrived shortly after. Fire personnel concluded he was dead and there was nothing more they could do. He was forty-four years old. The police officers interviewed Mike’s housemates. Travis Meeks told them Mike was a recovering addict but speculated the pressure to get back into music and go on the road may have been too much for him. He also said Mike had been using benzos—mixing methadone and diazepam. Roddan told police Mike was using Percocet, methadone, and, according to the police report, “others including one [Roddan] described as Opana, a hard opiate.” Officials also found empty prescription pill bottles in Mike’s name and unidentified white pills.17

One of the officers called Gayle Starr to inform her of her son’s death. She told the officer that Mike had had “very high anxiety and back problems” but was not aware of any other health issues. She also said he’d had a drug problem for years.18

Alice in Chains posted a statement on its Web site that read, “Jerry and Sean are mourning the loss of their friend and ask that the media respect their privacy—and the privacy of the Starr family—during this difficult time. Their thoughts & prayers are with the Starr family.” On his public Facebook page, Mike Inez wrote, “R.I.P. Michael Christopher Starr. I’m gonna play your great bass lines with integrity and truth. You kicked ass. Period.”

Other musicians took to Twitter to offer their condolences and pay tribute to Mike, including former Guns n’ Roses members Steven Adler, Matt Sorum, and Slash; former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy; and Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx. Two of Mike’s Celebrity Rehab castmates Mackenzie Phillips and Lisa D’Amato also paid their respects, as did Dr. Drew Pinsky and Jennifer Gimenez, the house manager on Sober House.19

According to his will, Mike appointed his mother, Gayle, as executrix of his estate and his sister, Melinda, as a backup in the event their mother would not be able to serve in that capacity. The will states Mike intended to make a list of items from his personal property to be given as gifts at a later time. The rest of his assets and estate were to be distributed equally among his parents and sister. According to a court document, Mike’s assets were valued at in excess of $350,000—primarily future royalty payments—and his debts at not more than $240,000, meaning his estate was solvent.20 There are no publicly available estimates for the current value of Mike’s estate three years after his death.

A private memorial service was held at Experience Music Project on March 20, 2011, followed by a public service at the International Fountain immediately after.21 Photos were compiled into a slide show, which was projected on-screen as people spoke. Mike’s white Spector bass, his signature instrument, was displayed onstage. Mike’s friends and family shared memories from elementary school up until his final days.

“Really hard” is how Buttino described the service. “Kathleen [Austin] walked up to me and just hugged me for a while and hung out with me, and she knew it was hard for me. I hadn’t really talked to Gayle in a while, and it was hard for me to walk up to her. She just gave me a big hug, and I told her I loved her and sorry and I tried, and we both about burst into tears, so I walked away. [It was] the hardest thing I ever went through.”

Dr. Drew Pinsky and Mike Bloom, the cofounder of the Pasadena Recovery Center, sent videotaped statements offering their condolences. The statements were included with a montage of Mike’s highlights from Celebrity Rehab and Sober House.

SATO guitarist Ken Kramer said, “I just remember him as an unconditionally loving person. It didn’t matter, any of you guys, whoever you were, if you knew him, he loved you unconditionally, no matter what.”

Andrew Wood’s fiancée, Xana La Fuente, recalled, “The last time I saw Mike, I told him I wouldn’t give up on him even if I was standing over his grave. Yesterday marks twenty-one years, sixteen hours, and … well, you guys know [Wood’s death]. The people that were there for me during that were Jerry, Mike—you guys made all that a lot better for me. We don’t say good-bye to Mike. We say hello to heaven.”

Happenin’ Harry, a Los Angeles show promoter and musician, said that when they lived together, Mike walked out of Harry’s closet wearing his clothes because he wanted to dress up as Harry for Halloween. He also recalled Mike’s giving out hundred-dollar bills at shows to starving guitar players who didn’t have enough gas to get home. Harry once went over to Mike’s house when Mike was “so proud” he had gotten a new car. “Dude, check it out!” Harry thought he would get a ride, but Mike got in the car by himself and drove it around the block.

Jerry and Sean were in attendance. Jerry said, “Looking at all those pictures is amazing. It made me think about the first time I met him, which was in Burien, I guess. My mother and my grandmother had just passed, and I didn’t really have anywhere to go. I had met this guy Tim Branom, and he had invited me to come to his house and to stay for a couple of days. I was kind of camped out in his basement, and he said this guy was coming over to play bass with us to try out for Gypsy Rose, I guess. Mike cruises up on a motorcycle, and he just looked really cool, man. He was a great guy. We got to spend about a week together. I didn’t make the band, actually. Brock [Graue] did. I got cut. I think Mike lasted a little longer than I did.”

“I met Layne … very shortly after that,” Jerry explained. “He introduced me to Sean, and we were talking about maybe getting together and jamming. He’s like, ‘Do you got any ideas for a bass player?’ I was like, ‘I met this guy Mike Starr, who’s really cool.’ He’s like, ‘That’s really weird, because he’s my friend and I’m dating his sister. I think I can make that happen.’ So he brought him down, and that’s how everything started for us.”

“I’m just thinking about all the good stuff, and there was a lot of it. We created some really amazing music together. That will always continue to live. We’re in the process of playing that, and still living that. That part is always alive, and Mike was a big part of that. We were a bunch of rat kids, man. We kind of bonded together; we lived under a wharf at the Music Bank. We ran keys—Layne and I ran keys for TV dinners. Mike and Sean and I, we’d go to 7-Elevens at four o’clock in the morning to get the old dried-up food to eat. We relied on each other and we were a family. Gayle gave us a place to live, and we lived in that house for a long time. John lived with us for a while. Mel was part of the family. He was a good man. He had a good soul. He had a big heart. I heard a very good friend of mine, who’s not here anymore, say that the best that we can hope for is to be human, and Mike most certainly was that. He was my friend. I love him and I’ll miss him.”22

Chapter 29

BECAUSE LAYNE DIED WITHOUT a will, was not married, and had no children, his biological parents had to go to court to be named coadministrators of his estate. According to a court document, Layne’s assets were valued “in the approximate amount of over $500,000” and his liabilities at “less than $100,000.”1 There are no publicly available estimates for the current value of the estate twelve years after Layne’s death.

The process of going through Layne’s apartment and taking inventory of his personal effects was not easy. Because of health concerns surrounding the drug paraphernalia found in the apartment and Layne’s hepatitis C diagnosis, a special cleaning crew was hired to sanitize the entire apartment so they could start packing up Layne’s things.

Mike Korjenek, an employee at a waterproofing company that had previously done work in Layne’s building, was hired to do some work in Layne’s apartment less than a week after his death. When Korjenek and his colleague walked into the apartment—knowing the identity of the previous owner—they noticed the carpeting had been changed and all the furniture had been removed.

“It was pretty much empty, and it looked like there had been some work done already on the interior,” Korjenek recalled. As he was working, the apartment was already being shown to potential buyers. “One of the realtors, a woman realtor, turned to me and in so many words she said, ‘Don’t mention anything about that rock star dying here.’”

After his death, it was discovered that Layne had several storage units broken into, with personal effects missing or stolen. Among the items taken and later recovered: Layne’s artwork, which the estate found itself in the frustrating position of having to buy back from someone who thought “Layne would want them to have it”; his Harley Davidson motorcycle, which was driven for fifty miles on two flat tires and displayed in someone’s living room; and items from his car, which was also extensively vandalized. After hearing of his death, the Lynnwood Police Department contacted their Seattle counterparts to inform them they had Layne’s MTV Video Music Award in their evidence room. Also taken but not yet recovered as of this writing were Layne’s journals.2

Susan later said, “I had been through an incident in 2002 with another client who had been a very serious drug addict who had a lot of his belongings in different storage lockers that were broken into. And at one point, a box of his belongings made its way to the hands of some guy that tried to extort $50,000 for himself and his bandmates for this box of belongings, and that was a terrible feeling.”3

Some of the items might be missing for reasons other than theft. Layne was very generous, according to multiple sources. An example: several years earlier, he had given Ron Holt handwritten lyrics and artwork, items that Holt has since lost. There is a market for Layne Staley memorabilia, and it is potentially very lucrative. According to Darren Julien, president and CEO of Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, the lyrics and art could be worth several thousand dollars each. Depending on their content, his journals could be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Layne’s original artwork for the cover of Above, along with the corresponding handwritten letters from Layne to the record label, sold at Christie’s for more than ten thousand dollars.4

* * *

Less than a year after his death, Adriana Rubio’s book, Layne Staley: Angry Chair—A Look Inside the Heart and Soul of an Incredible Musician, was published in January 2003. The book was poorly written, and its only news value was a series of quotes attributed to Layne that Rubio claimed were from an interview he gave during a 3 A.M. phone call on February 3, 2002. Because the book was published after his death, Layne was never able to comment about the quotes attributed to him. Evidence suggests the conversation never happened.

In the updated e-book, retitled Layne Staley: Get Born Again, Rubio said she spoke to Layne for two and a half hours and was going to publish the complete transcript of that conversation. Based on what Rubio wrote, it is clear she did not speak to Layne for two and a half hours. The portion of her book detailing their conversation runs approximately six pages. In contrast, my interviews with Randy Hauser—two hours and thirty-three minutes—run 101 pages; with Paul Rachman—one hour and twelve minutes—run thirty-three pages; with Mark Pellington—twenty-seven minutes—run eleven pages. There is no way what Rubio published is anywhere near a two-and-a-half-hour transcript.

During my research, I have read or listened to Layne’s comments in many interviews over the years and obtained quotes attributed to him. In doing so, I became familiar with his way of speaking, his word selection, and the types of subjects he would and wouldn’t discuss. If you set aside the substance of the comments in the Rubio book, it is necessary to look at the language. It doesn’t read or sound like something he would have said. She quotes Layne at least ten times making specific reference to lyrics and titles of Alice in Chains or Mad Season songs. During my research over the course of three years, I have not found a single instance of Layne’s referencing his own lyrics or song titles the way Rubio claims he did in her interview.

In the first edition of her book, there is a quote attributed to Layne in which he speaks of Jim Morrison’s poetry, which concludes, “Please do me a favor, go and read about Morrison and God, go and see how the government of all countries kill us, go and watch the news … then let me know if I’m wrong: Can I be as my GOD AM?” In addition to the lyrical reference to “God Am,” Layne is alleged to have touched on a pet topic of Rubio’s: she wrote a book titled Jim Morrison: Ceremony—Exploring the Shaman Possession, and it should be noted that, for it, she tried to interview a man in Oregon claiming to be Morrison, who had allegedly faked his own death decades earlier.5

Rubio and John Brandon were collaborating on a biopic about Layne, with Rubio writing the screenplay and Brandon directing and contributing to the script. According to Rubio, one of the producers involved received a letter from the law firm that represents Alice in Chains. A partial excerpt of the letter, quoted on Rubio’s blog, reads, “The literary work upon which your project is based contains misleading information about our clients and portrays our clients in a negative and false light. Since our clients cannot be involved with your film and will not support any project based in whole or in part on any literary work written by Ms. Rubio and Mr. Brandon, our clients would prefer that you cease developing your project and move on to one that does not require our clients’ input or the literary work written by Ms. Rubio and Mr. Brandon.”

According to Rubio’s blog profile, the project was derailed because “The Staley Estate did not authorize it.” In an e-mail, Rubio said she had passed my interview request on to John Brandon but had not heard back. She declined to be interviewed, citing her mother’s poor health. “With all due respect,” she wrote, “both Layne Staley and AIC are not a priority in my life now.” Rubio’s book further contributed to the misinformation about Layne, enough that more than a decade later, her “interview” is still cited on his Wikipedia page as of this writing. Layne’s family has disavowed her book.6

On December 9, 2011, an attorney filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office seeking to trademark the Alice in Chains name under the ownership of Nancylayneco LLC, a Seattle-based company owned and controlled by Nancy Layne McCallum. Attorneys representing Alice in Chains filed a notice of opposition in January 2013, objecting to McCallum’s application and requesting it be denied by the USPTO. As of this writing, ownership of the Alice in Chains trademark has not yet been determined, but according to a legal filing dated July 9, 2014, an extension for the discovery period has been requested because both sides are “engaged in settlement discussions.”7

* * *

In 2001, Chris Cornell started working on material for Audioslave. According to court records, he checked himself in to rehab in late 2002, and, while he was there, he and Susan separated. Cornell filed for divorce a year later.8 According to a court document filed by Susan’s attorneys, Cornell wanted to finalize the divorce quickly because his girlfriend, the Paris-based publicist Vicky Karayiannis, was pregnant, and he wanted to start a family with her. They would later marry. He gave Susan a settlement offer, which she accepted, and the divorce was finalized on March 2, 2004.9

Litigation surrounding the divorce would play out over several years, involving multiple cases, courts, and attorneys in Washington and California. There were further legal disputes about personal effects of his that had remained at their Seattle home, now owned by Susan, including Grammy awards, lyrics and demos for songs, and a collection of guitars that Cornell had used during his career.

* * *

At the beginning of the decade, Alice in Chains was still on hiatus. Although he left the door open for an Alice reunion as long as all four members were “alive,” Jerry made another solo album.10 Dave Hillis moved to Los Angeles in 2000 and ran into Jerry at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood. The two wound up hanging out together. At the time, Hillis was living in a studio apartment in Hollywood and was waiting for a two-bedroom unit to open up in his building. Jerry eventually took over his old apartment.

According to Hillis, there were a lot of musicians and actors who lived in the building, including Comes with the Fall, a band from Atlanta that Jerry was a fan of. This was the beginning of Jerry’s friendship with William DuVall.

“Comes with the Fall had just moved from Atlanta to LA,” William said during a 2013 interview. “[Jerry] came up and introduced himself to me at the Dragonfly Club on Santa Monica in LA. That’s how we met. Then it evolved into him learning our songs with us in our apartment. He would sit there, ‘Show me that thing you’re doing.’ Then he was finishing up Degradation Trip and he asked us to go on tour with him, so that kind of cemented our friendship.”11

William’s musical career began with the Atlanta hardcore band Neon Christ in the fall of 1983, in which he played guitar. Neon Christ released a self-recorded, self-produced record in early 1984 on Social Crisis Records—a name William came up with. In addition to being musicians and record producers, Neon Christ had to be business entrepreneurs, responsible for selling their own records. “In the early days of the hardcore scene in America, it was so small. I’d even extend that to the entire scene in the whole world—little pockets of people in Finland, then you’d find out about a little pocket of people in Japan, a little pocket in Italy, and you’d get these letters,” William said during a 2013 interview with Drowned in Sound. “To be in your bedroom trying to come up with these songs, then to be in your friend’s bedroom shoving envelopes and getting orders from Russia, then you get these broken-English letters … This was pre-Internet, in the early eighties, and it was so small and so innocent, and so passionate.”

On the significance of the hardcore scene, William said, “The hardcore thing is the first time the kids actually seized control of the means of production, in a meaningful way that was happening concurrently across the world, without you and your little scene knowing about anyone else. It’s a weird thing in the collective consciousness, where it just had to happen.”12

According to Randy DuTeau, William’s bandmate and singer in Neon Christ, the band started out heavily influenced by thrash, but the music evolved from an emphasis on speed to an emphasis on structure and melody. That musical progression was largely the result of William’s diverse range of musical influences up to that point.13

Jerry tapped Comes with the Fall and another band, Swarm, as his opening acts for a monthlong solo tour of clubs and small venues in March and April 2001. In addition to being an opening act, Comes with the Fall would be pulling double duty as Jerry’s backing band, because Rob Trujillo and Mike Bordin were unavailable for touring.14

After returning to Seattle to attend Layne’s memorial service, he decided not to cancel or postpone any of his remaining tour dates. That spring and summer, he found himself in the odd situation of opening for Nickelback and Creed, both influenced by Alice in Chains.

The Nickelback/Jerry Cantrell tour came to Seattle a month after Layne’s death. Jerry dedicated “Down in a Hole” and “Brother” to Layne, the latter of which featured a guest appearance by Ann and Nancy Wilson. He closed his set with “Them Bones.”15

* * *

Sean and the former guitarist from Queensrÿche, Chris DeGarmo, formed a side project in 1999 after they finished touring behind Boggy Depot. Mike Inez and Vinnie Dombroski were recruited to fill out the band. The group went by the name Spys4Darwin—named after one of the homeless people who hung around the Seattle recording studio where they worked. In 2001, the band released a six-song EP titled microfish. After Jason Newsted quit Metallica, Mike was considered as a replacement, although Rob Trujillo ultimately got the job. Mike joined Heart in 2002, a gig that would last for four years. On October 22, 2004, the Alice in Chains partnership—at this time consisting of Jerry and Sean—received a letter from Sony Music that stated, “Sony BMG has recently received notice that both Jerry Cantrell and Sean Kinney have ceased to perform as members of the group ‘Alice in Chains’. Sony BMG hereby notifies you … of our election to terminate the term of the Agreement,” referring to the band’s contract signed in September 1989.16 Alice in Chains was without a record label for the first time in fifteen years.

More than two years after Layne’s death and two months after being dropped by Sony, it took another tragedy—one of cataclysmic proportions—to bring the surviving members of Alice in Chains back together. On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.1 to 9.3 earthquake in the Indian Ocean set off a devastating series of tidal waves, killing more than 227,000 people and displacing nearly 1.7 million in fourteen countries throughout Southeast Asia. It was the third-strongest earthquake on record since measurements of magnitude began in 1899.17

A few months later, Sean was helping to organize a benefit show in Seattle, with all proceeds going to relief efforts. The show was announced on KISW. The buzz and demand for tickets was immediate. According to Jeff Gilbert, “It just detonated all over this city. I’ll tell you, that thing sold out so flippin’ fast, there were people scrambling, trying to find tickets.”

The plan for the show was for Sean, Jerry, and Mike—in their first public performance as Alice in Chains since 1996—to play with a revolving door of singers, including Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, Puddle of Mudd’s Wes Scantlin, Heart’s Ann Wilson, and Damageplan’s Pat Lachman. The show ended with Wilson, Keenan, Lachman, and Scantlin taking turns singing in what the Seattle Post-Intelligencer described as a “We Are the World”-esque performance of “Rooster.” The show raised more than $100,000 for relief efforts.18

The crowd response was overwhelmingly positive. “It was a really cool thing to do in the hometown, and we probably didn’t really think about it until we were up onstage. We were like, ‘Whoa…’ playing those songs without Layne. That was a heavy thing, and it was also kind of a healing thing in a way, too, dealing with that reality,” Jerry would later recall.19

“The crowd went apeshit. I think that might have been the point where those guys stepped off and said, ‘Okay, I think we can do this again.’ And they looked great—they sounded just so powerful,” Gilbert said. “It was brilliant. It was a very healing moment to see them come back out, like, ‘We’re not dead yet.’ They tore it up, big-time.”

* * *

After the band regrouped in spring 2006, Duff McKagan temporarily joined as a rhythm guitarist. While there was criticism about the band carrying on without Layne, McKagan was unapologetically for it. “These guys had to move on because they still had way too much to offer the rock-and-roll world. In an age of paint-by-numbers corporate rock, we fucking needed Alice in Chains,” he wrote in his memoir. For the first rehearsal with William, the plan was to ease him into it, but he went straight for “Love Hate Love,” a more vocally challenging song, and nailed it. After they finished, Sean looked at William and the others and said, “I think the search is pretty much over.”20

William’s first public performance fronting Alice in Chains took place on March 10, 2006, at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Alice in Chains and other musicians had been invited for an episode of VH1’s Decades Rock Live! honoring Heart. It was the second time Alice in Chains had performed publicly in a decade—their biggest show since Layne’s final shows in 1996—and it was going to be filmed for a television special.21

The plan was for Alice in Chains to perform “Would?” with ex-Pantera front man Phil Anselmo handling vocals—a performance he dedicated to Layne and his slain former bandmate Dimebag Darrell; “Rooster” with Ann Wilson; and “Man in the Box” with William. During a camera rehearsal, Wilson hadn’t arrived yet, so William stepped in and sang “Rooster.” Wilson arrived in the middle of the performance and, after hearing him, told William, “Okay, you’re going to have to do that song.”

Of Ann Wilson’s decision to cede her spot to him, William said, “Her moment was supposed to be ‘Rooster,’ they’d been talking about it in all the papers and everything, ‘Wait till you hear Ann sing “Rooster,”’ and then she gave the song to me! It blew the whole thing out of the water. It was great because her doing that guaranteed me a spot in the show when it was broadcast, which gave birth to this proper resurrection of the band.”22

The taping was significant to Susan, who had signed settlement agreements with Chris Cornell a few days earlier. “I realized that it was OK. As much mental anguish as we had gone through—‘Is it OK to go on without Layne?’—this mantra kept going through my head as I’m watching these guys rehearse, ‘Choose to live, choose to live.’ They chose to live and what they love to do—play music. That was really inspiring,” Susan said. She compared what Ann did for William that night to what Cornell had done for Eddie Vedder nearly sixteen years earlier—giving her blessing to the new guy on a nationally televised program. “I know that it’s really personal for me, but it was also a historic moment. That specific acknowledgment towards how things are now, that there’s a history not to be forgotten, and there’s a history about to be made.”23

William’s second show would be much smaller: an invitation-only show at the Moore Theatre in Seattle. But he arguably performed under much greater pressure, not only because the venue held historical significance for Alice in Chains but also because audience members included Layne’s parents and Kim Thayil.24 Jeff Gilbert was there for that exclusive show, and he was impressed by what he saw and heard. “The minute he opened his mouth, it was like, ‘Holy crap! Where does he get that sound and that power?’ You wouldn’t think somebody that thin can push that much air out of his mouth to get that sound,” he recalled. “That’s a pressure cooker of a situation to walk into, in a town that loved that band so much, and to step into Layne’s spotlight. I mean, that’s got to be terrifying beyond belief. But he did it with such class and grace and power, and they delivered a perfect freakin’ set. I remember turning to somebody and [saying], ‘Can you believe this? They just pulled off the impossible.’”

In terms of William filling the spot held by Layne, Mike said, “I’ve never seen a guy just stand up in front of an audience, look them in the eye, not that he’s trying to fill those shoes, but that was just a really ballsy thing for the guy to do.”25

There was never any plan to change the band’s name, despite arguments among Alice in Chains fans. There are two precedents for bands that have carried on after the death of their lead singers: that of Joy Division, which changed its name to New Order, and that of AC/DC, which carried on with its original name. Alice in Chains chose the latter option. “It never even crossed our mind to change the name,” Sean told journalist Gillian Gaar. “We could call ourselves Leather Snake, go play our songs, and people would go, ‘The guys from Alice in Chains are playing the club down the street!’ They’d never be, like, ‘Hey! Leather Snake kicks ass!’”26 After touring with William for nearly two years, the band began exploring the idea of writing and recording new material for the first time in a decade. After the Alice in Chains/Velvet Revolver tour finished in October 2007, Jerry planned to take a few weeks off. Instead of resting, he started writing new material on his first day home. The band rented a house with a studio and recorded a demo. Shortly after, they signed a deal with Virgin/EMI to release their next album.27

Dave Grohl suggested the band record at Studio 606, the Foo Fighters’s recording studio in the San Fernando Valley, and that they work with producer Nick Raskulinecz. When Raskulinecz got a phone call saying Alice in Chains wanted him to produce their next album, he was hesitant at first. He had grown up listening to Alice in Chains. “How can there be Alice in Chains without Layne Staley?” After getting to know each other, the band played him “Check My Brain,” and he was on board immediately. He told Mix, “As an Alice in Chains fan, and now as their producer, I knew what I wanted to hear: I wanted to hear the record after Dirt, which I don’t feel they ever made.” Jerry and William had no problem creating the band’s trademark two-part vocal harmonies. According to the album’s engineer, Paul Figueroa, “That part of Alice didn’t die; when you hear those harmonies, it’s almost like hearing a ghost.”28

“Check My Brain” is driven by the repeated bending and releasing of two notes on the guitars, giving it a sort of back-and-forth, seasick feeling. Lyrically, the song is about “finding yourself in the belly of the beast, and totally being cool with living there,” according to Jerry. “Every rock band’s got the California tune, so it’s kind of like the anti-California California song, without really bagging on the place.”29 There were preliminary discussions for the band to team up with Mark Pellington again for the music video, but it didn’t work out and they chose another director.

The album’s emotional centerpiece is its title track, “Black Gives Way to Blue,” the band’s musical tribute to Layne. Jerry wrote the song and said of its subject, “We dealt with all of that privately, and are continuing to do so, the reality of Layne dying and the reality of what do you do with the rest of your life, I kind of put that into a song. I guess that was the first time I kind of said it out loud.”30 When it came time to record “Black Gives Way to Blue,” there was a discussion about who should play the keyboard part. Baldy, the band’s blogger and member of their road crew who had worked with them for years, made a seemingly implausible suggestion: “Why don’t you call Elton?”

They laughed at the idea of getting Elton John at first, with Jerry skeptically noting, “Yeah, right! I’m sure he has plenty of other things to do than to come play on our song.”

But Baldy, who had previously worked for him, persisted. “You never know unless you ask,” he observed. Jerry sent Elton John an e-mail explaining what his music meant to them and what the song was about, along with a demo. Much to everyone’s surprise, he responded, saying he liked the song and he would play on it.

“In the studio he was really relaxed and gracious, and he’s got a great sense of humor,” Jerry recalled. “We were just trying to be cool: ‘Oh, yeah, no big deal.’ But we were excited. [Sean] and I had to walk out a couple of times to smoke cigarettes, like, ‘Holy shit, this is killer.’ It’s one of those highlights you can’t expect in life, and you’re lucky to get them once in a while. And that is one.”

“I was kind of surprised that Alice in Chains would ask me to do anything. I never thought I’d play on an Alice in Chains record,” John told Entertainment Weekly. “When I heard the song, I really wanted to do it. I liked the fact that it was so beautiful and very simple. They had a great idea of what they wanted me to do on it, and it turned out great.”

So it was that Elton John—the man whom Jim Elmer had taken Layne to see for his first concert, whose songs Layne had sung while sitting at a piano and drinking cheap beer during late nights at the Music Bank, who had a profound influence on Jerry’s decision to become a musician—wound up playing piano on an Alice in Chains song about Layne.31

In early July 2009, Susan was having a party at her West Seattle home with forty to fifty guests in attendance, including Jeff Gilbert. At one point during the party, she said, “I’m going to put on some new music downstairs.” Gilbert and about a dozen other guests followed her into the room, where, unbeknownst to everybody, she proceeded to play Black Gives Way to Blue in full—premiering the record to a handful of close friends.

“She put it on and, boy, oh boy, you heard that riff from ‘Check My Brain.’ And, right there, you’ve got that old adrenaline shiver just shot through the room,” Gilbert recalled. There were no fears of the album being surreptitiously recorded and leaked online because the guests were all close friends of Susan’s and because it was a complete surprise.

Black Gives Way to Blue was released on September 29, 2009, and entered the Billboard charts at number 5, eventually being certified gold by the RIAA. One major change in the fourteen years since Alice in Chains had last released an album was the emergence of the MP3 format and file-sharing technologies. It leaked online two weeks ahead of the release date. During an interview with the radio station Q101, Sean jokingly compared it to prison rape: “It’s like going to prison—[you] know you’re gonna get raped, but you’re not ready for it. You think you’re all prepared for it, but you’re not really prepared for how violent that rape is.”32

Following the success of Black Gives Way to Blue, the band took time off. They had a few musical ideas they had come up with during the course of touring—Jerry came up with the guitar riff for “Hollow” while warming up for the last show of the tour in Las Vegas—but a follow-up album would have to wait. Jerry had to undergo surgery for bone spurs and cartilage in one of his shoulders—having already been through the same procedure for the other shoulder six years earlier. He recorded a demo for “Voices” before the surgery. While he was in rehab after the surgery, he came up with the riff for “Stone” in his head, but since he couldn’t play guitar at the time, he started recording on his iPhone and hummed the melody.33

Once Jerry recovered, work on the album began in earnest, with Nick Raskulinecz producing again. Before that, on May 31, 2012, Jerry was honored by MusiCares—a foundation established by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to act as a safety net for musicians during financial, medical, or personal emergencies. He was awarded the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award for “his dedication and support of the MusiCares MAP Fund and for his commitment to helping other addicts with the addiction and recovery process.” The MAP fund allows musicians access to addiction treatment and sober living resources. He would be presented with the award at that year’s MusiCares MAP Fund benefit in Los Angeles, at which Alice in Chains would be performing. Mike jokingly referred to the honor as the “Junkie of the Year” award. Although Jerry was honored by the award, he noted his band’s history in an interview with Rolling Stone: “‘I am nobody’s fucking role model,’ he says. It’s too much pressure: ‘Everybody’s human, everybody has flaws, everybody falls down. It’s just a fucking fact of life. And a lot of people stand and get the fuck back up after falling. Some people don’t get that chance. My band’s been a harsh example of that—what happens when you don’t deal with it.’”34

He gave a brief acceptance speech thanking his bandmates; Susan; the band’s comanager, David “Beno” Benveniste; the other musicians who were performing at the benefit; and his sponsor. He also told the story of how he got sober: “I crash-landed here almost nine years ago, in Los Angeles. Sean was at the door with my brother. So my choices were open the door and go to rehab, or jump out the back window down a cliff into some blackberry bushes—that’s the choice I took. Luckily they caught me, because I couldn’t go anywhere. I was stuck in a bush at the bottom of a cliff, bleeding, and I ended up here.”

He noted, “I’ve had a lot of help, and all I can claim is showing up and doing the work. I am as imperfect as they come. I just try to do what I can to not get high today, and that’s pretty much gotten me to where I am today. I just don’t get high today and wake up the next day to try to do the same thing.” Jerry celebrated the tenth anniversary of his sobriety while on tour in Vancouver on July 1, 2013.35

Work on the album continued. The song “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” found the band dabbling into social commentary, criticizing religion. It was also chosen as the album title, which was announced on the band’s Web site after rearranging the letters into an anagram and encouraging fans to decode it. The album was released on May 28, 2013, and debuted at number 2 on the Billboard chart.36 When the band began touring in support of the album, Sean had a new kick drum with the letters LSMS—Layne Staley and Mike Starr’s initials—stenciled on it.

Nearly four weeks before the album’s release, Nancy Layne McCallum filed a lawsuit against the Alice in Chains partnership, as well as Jerry, Mike, and Sean as individuals. In doing so, she was seeking a letter of direction from Jerry and Sean asking for payment directly to her, without deduction, of half of the royalties due to Layne under the band’s 1989 record deal; for an accounting of all the money received by the partnership relating to the 1989 contract and the sale and use of Layne’s works; for an inventory of all individual assets belonging to Layne or the partnership under the control of Jerry, Mike, and Sean, a request that covers “film, video, unreleased recordings and mixes, photographs, posters, merchandise and artwork”; and for a court-granted temporary injunction that would prevent the band from “licensing or otherwise exploiting Mr. Staley’s personality rights without Plaintiff’s written permission” or from retaining any of her royalties from Layne-related income. The lawsuit does not specify the monetary value being sought, only that it would be “proven at trial.”37

According to the most recent filing available as of this writing and signed by attorneys for both McCallum and the band, “The parties are engaging in the voluntary exchange of information. They believe such an exchange is a more efficient manner of conducting discovery at this stage than the preparation and exchange of the Disclosures.”38

* * *

The year 2015 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of the We Die Young EP and Facelift, which makes the band eligible for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Besides age, criteria for induction include “influence and significance of the artists’ contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.” The ultimate decision on whether to induct an artist or not is up to an international voting body of more than six hundred artists, historians, and members of the music industry. Musicians with the highest number of votes or who get more than 50 percent of the votes are inducted, typically between five and seven a year.39

One factor that could work in Alice in Chains’s favor is the fact that many of their grunge and alternative rock peers have become eligible for induction in the past few years. On the other hand, their luck with the Hall of Fame could go in lockstep with their luck at the Grammys—they have yet to win a single award despite multiple nominations over the course of more than two decades. The Hall of Fame has eluded musicians like Deep Purple, The Cure, Willie Nelson, and Soundgarden, who have been eligible for years but have yet to be inducted as of this writing.40

Asked about the possibility of Alice in Chains being inducted, Jerry responded during an interview with Radio.com, “We don’t think about it a whole lot. We’re not in this to win awards, or be part of the thing. I have to say that’s the attitude I went [to Heart’s 2013 induction into the Hall of Fame] with.” He added, “I also have to say, in fairness, that my opinion was a little bit changed by being a fly on the wall and being kind of a guest, a guest alongside Heart, seeing how much it meant for them, and how well they did it. It was a cool show and it was with a lot of respect … It’s always nice to be recognized for your work, let’s put it that way.”41

Of the band’s legacy, Jerry said during an interview with The Skinny, “One of the things I’m most proud of—at risk of sounding self-important—is that I think this has been an important band. We’re a link in the chain. It’s mattered to us and it’s mattered to a lot of other people, too.

“Hopefully we’re making good music and we’re a pretty good band. I think we are. I guess that’s really what it comes down to. I mean, if we were shit I don’t think we would have made it this far. We must be doin’ something right. We are old school, just by the fact of being old! We’re all creepin’ up on fifty here in a few years. We’ve lived a pretty interesting life—wouldn’t change a thing, even the bad stuff. We’re continuing to do what we committed ourselves to. I have this saying: the thing that you did as a kid to not have a job has now become your life’s work. That’s pretty cool.”42