Layne Staley Quotes

I’m gonna be here for a long fuckin’ time. I’m scared of death, especially death by my own hand. I’m scared of where I would go. Not that I ever consider that, because I don’t. I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of where I was going to go if I did follow through with it. That makes me sad for my friends who have taken their lives, because I know that if your time is not finished here, and you end it yourself, then you gotta finish it somewhere else. There was a time when things seemed desperate, and I thought taking my life might be a way out. I made a couple of really weak attempts, mostly to see if I could do it, and I couldn’t.

I wrote about drugs, and I didn't think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them. Here's how my thinking pattern went: When I tried drugs, they were fucking great, and they worked for me for years, and now they're turning against me - and now I'm walking through hell, and this sucks. I didn't want my fans to think heroin was cool. But then I've had fans come up to me and give me the thumbs up, telling me they're high. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen.

People have a right to ask questions and dig deep when you're hurting people and things around you. But when I haven't talked to anybody in years, and every article I see is dope this, junkie that, whiskey this - that ain't my title. Like 'Hi, I'm Layne, nail biter,' you know? My bad habits aren't my title. My strengths and my talent are my title.

I don't think any drug that can cause brain damage, failing kidneys, hardening arteries, pain, and suffering should be made available. Drugs are not the way to the light. They won't lead to a fairy-tale life, they lead to suffering.

Kurt [Cobain] and I weren't the closest of friends, but we ran into each other at shows and hung out a lot. I knew him well enough to be devastated by his death. I just don't understand it at all. The last time I saw him, he gave me a ride from QFC on Broadway to a friend's house, the whole way there, which was about a fifteen minute drive, he talked about his daughter. For such a quiet person, he was so excited about having a child, he really loved that little girl. About a month later I saw on the news, that he was dead.

Los Angeles Times: And is Staley’s temperament as dark as his lyrics would suggest?
Staley: Most definitely, at least from noon to 11 p.m. It’s a product of our generation. People are angry. But I seem to do OK between 11 and midnight.

Los Angeles Times: In a more recent phone interview, however, Staley proved more forthcoming, saying he isn’t at all surprised at the speculation inspired by the lyrics.
Staley: I figured as much. People decipher our lyrics and take things too literally. It won’t change the way I write, though.

[on Dirt] It's simple. One theme is: Drugs are bad. The other theme is relationships, bad. The last theme is: album, good. Maybe something this blatant and heavy and straight to the point might steer people away from being excited about the idea of trying heroin. There was nothing that blatant shoved in my face, discouraging me.

We [Alice in Chains] don't stuff our personal demons inside us, we get them out. It's therapeutic. I'm sure I'll never be completely 100 percent at peace with myself and the world. I'll always be bitching and moaning about something.

From song to song, the album [Dirt] changes from glorifying drugs to being completely miserable and questioning what I thought once worked for me. By the end of the album, it's pretty obvious it didn't work out as well as I thought it would.

The facts are that I was shooting a lot of dope, and that's nobody's business but mine. I'm not shooting dope now, and I haven't for a while.... I took a fucking long, hard walk through hell. I decided to stop because I was miserable doing it. The drug didn't work for me anymore. In the beginning I got high, and it felt great; by the end it was strictly maintenance, like food I needed to survive. Since I quit doing it, I tried it a couple of times to see if I could recapture the feeling I once got off it, but I don't. Nothing attracts me to it anymore. It was boring.

Once it got really big with Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, there wasn't much mentioned about us. All those bands put out records around the same time, and we hadn't put one out in two years. I don't think it hurt us, though. I'm glad we didn't get lumped together with them, because we're not those other bands.

I think our lyrics reflect reality. Maybe not someone else's reality, but definitely ours, you know? I don't write about bullshit and neither does my guitar player, Jerry Cantrell. I have a fascination with how brainwashed people get with religion and how they'll give up their money, their time and their whole life for a cause that they're sure is right, but I'm sure is wrong. I think there's a lot of people who are scared of life and living and they want to make sure they get to Heaven or whatever. I try to stay away from it as much as I can. I was raised in the church until I was 16 and I've disagreed with their beliefs as long as I can remember, so when I had the choice I chose not to believe in anything apart from myself.