See WDHA Presents: Jerry Cantrell at the Starland Ballroom on Saturday, February 1st!

Jerry Cantrell, best known as the founding guitarist of Alice in Chains, is often regarded as one of the biggest names in hard rock and metal. Throughout his career, he has worked with Heart, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Pantera, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Deftones and more. His solo on Alice in Chain’s “Man in the Box” is considered one of the “100 Greatest Guitar Solos” by Guitar World and has earned nine Grammy nominations for his work in Alice in Chains alone. While he originally was the lead guitarist that would sing backup vocals, at the encouragement of then vocalist the late great Layne Staley Jerry Cantrell began singing lead vocals, officially giving the band two vocalists. The group would become one of the biggest bands of the 90’s, with over 20 million worldwide record sales and nearly every album becoming a multi-platinum hit. Alice in Chains has had many hits, including “Rooster”, “Them Bones”, “Man in the Box”, and “Down in A Hole”. The group’s momentum stopped in 1996 when they unofficially became inactive, with Layne unfortunately passing in 2002. They would get back together in 2005 to play a benefit concert for the tsunami disaster in South Asia the year before, bringing up numerous guests to sing Staley’s parts including Pat Lachman of Damageplan, Maynard James Keenan of Tool, and Ann Wilson of Heart. Later that year, they made the decision to tour again, eventually having Jerry Cantrell step up to handle lead vocals full-time. After getting back on the road, Jerry Cantrell and company began to write and record new music, with the first album since Staley’s death being Black Gives Way to Blue, the title track of which was a tribute to Layne accompanied by Elton John on piano. Alice in Chains has since released two more albums and continues to tour regularly. After Alice in Chains temporarily disbanded, Jerry Cantrell embarked on a solo career. His first solo release was the track “Leave Me Alone”, featured in Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick-starred The Cable Guy in 1996 and reaching number 14 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. He would eventually release his debut solo album, Boggy Depot in 1998, on which Cantrell sang and played guitar, piano, organ, and steel drums. Since his first solo release, Jerry Cantrell released two more solo albums in 2002’s Degradation Trip which sold 100,000 copies by the end of that year and was extremely well received, and 2021’s Brighten. He has continued to tour when not working with Alice in Chains and has made cameos in films like Jerry Maguire (1996) and Deadwood: The Movie (2019). Tickets are on sale Friday at 10am at starlandballroom.com.