Murray's Music

Remembering Kurt & Layne

I’m about a week late on this as I wanted to write about Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley that passed on the same day 8 years apart. April 8th, 1994. I just turned 12 years old and saw on MTV News that Kurt Cobain died at the age of 27. It was the first influential death of my lifetime. I knew Kurt was in and out of rehab and just had a baby. It was hard for me to understand how someone so famous and successful could take his own life. It hit my friends as well, they had their hair colored in Kool-Aid and had Nirvana written on their school books and created 3 peice bands inspired by Nirvana. This death was very public and so wasn't their drug use. Courtney Love was reading the suicide note on television. They had a child together and her future was in the public eye and not to mention one of the greatest bands in the world was no more. The MTV Unplugged album came out shortly after in November and the band bagan to gain more exposure. Years later Kurt Cobain's Journals was published and shared some of the things he was dealing with personally. They went on to release a new song and many documentaries about the band. "Soaked in Bleach" which looks into the investigation of Cobain’s death was highly controversial and makes things even more confusing about his final days. My favorite Seattle band was Alice in Chains. I loved Jerry Cantrell because I knew he was the driving force of the band. I also know that they were at their best when Layne Staley was singing. The band had many songs about drug use with tracks like Junkhead, Godsmack, and Dirt. There were times you could hear the change in Layne’s voice from album to album and once rumored to need dentures to perform the song "Another Brick" on the Faculty Soundtack. They also performed an MTV unplugged and there were many mistakes and do-overs. Some quetioned if Staley would even show up. Cantrell went solo and the band no longer created new music. Layne Staley was found dead on 4/20/2022 (Of course) on the same date as Kurt Cobain’s death (April 5th). They were friends, I read the book Unchained where Layne specifically said he couldn’t believe Kurt would take his own life because he always talked about how much he loved his daughter. That always stuck with me. Layne's death was also the same week that Cantrell’s new album "Degradation Trip" was coming out. I had tickets to see Cantrell as he was opening for the band Creed. He did a tribite for Layne during the show with a video montage and played many AIC songs. You can hear some of the issues and resentment in many of the songs on Degradation trip, most notably “Bargain Basement Howard Hughes”. Cantrell went on to say that he hasn’t revisited the album because he was in such a bad place. He also mentioned that he got sober after the death of Layne Staley. Nirvana band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl have gotten together over the years to pay tribute with Paul McCartney and Joan Jett as singers. The Foo Fighters have welcomed Novoselic to play with them many times and recorded bass on a few albums. Grohl is on record that he only wrote one song about Cobain. “Friend of a Friend” written as a member of Nirvana in 1990 and re-recorded in 2005 on the album In your honor. Many bands wrote about Cobain including Anthony Kedis of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the song Tearjerker. As for Layne Staley, many bands wrote songs in his honor. Stained wrote a song named “Layne” along with Black Label Society. Black Gives Way To Blue, the title track and final song was a tribute to Staley and had Elton John play the Piano on the 2009 Alice In Chains album. Cantrell went on to say that he was deathly sick when writing the song and had undigested grief in losing Layne. He believes it was the pain of saying goodbye. Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley were 2 of the most influential artists of our time and their music association lives with us forever.