Releases

Elton John guest on Alice In Chains album

By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 12 August 2009

A track on Alice In Chains’ new album features a piano part played by Elton John, the band have revealed. John appears on the album’s title track, ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’, a tribute to the band’s former lead singer Layne Stayley, who died of a drug overdose in 2002.

Speaking about John’s involvement, guitarist Jerry Cantrell said: “We were thinking about adding piano to the track and a friend suggested we call Elton. I remember laughing and saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll get right on that’. But I decided it was worth trying and wrote Elton an email explaining what that song means to us – that it’s a real, raw openhearted song for Layne. We sent him the track and got a call shortly after saying he thought it was beautiful and that he wanted to play on it. We were blown away. Elton John is a huge influence on me as a songwriter and having him on that song is an amazing honour for us”.

He continued: “Elton was finishing his Red Piano run in Vegas, so we flew there and hung out for a few hours. Walking into a studio and seeing the sheet music for that song on Elton’s piano made it meaningful on so many different levels. The whole experience was pretty magical”.

Elton added: “I’ve long been an admirer of Jerry Cantrell and when he asked me to play on ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’, I was very flattered and couldn’t resist. It was a great recording session with Alice In Chains for a beautiful song”.

The album, ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’, is due for release in September. Here’s the tracklist:

All Secrets Known
Check My Brain
Last Of My Kind
Your Decision
A Looking In View
When The Sun Rose Again
Acid Bubble
Lessons Learned
Take Her Out
Private Hell
Black Gives Way To Blue