NEW YORK (Top40 Charts) -
Alice in Chains' lead singer Layne Staley was found dead in his North Seattle home late Friday (April 19) night. He was 34.
Although the King County Medical Examiner's office conducted an autopsy on his body on Saturday (April 20), the exact cause and time of death will not be known for several weeks. A drug overdose -- or drug-related suicide -- is the top contender as the cause of death, as Staley was a known heroin addict for the past decade and was found with drug paraphernalia around his body.
After the troubled singer had not been heard from for a while, a family member went to his home to check on him and discovered his body. Staley is thought to have been dead for approximately two weeks, according to the Seattle Times.
A public vigil was held Saturday night at the Seattle Center fountain, the same place a vigil was held for the late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana when he took his life with a shotgun blast to the head in April 1994. Fans from the Northwest and around the country began drifting in around 6 p.m. with flowers, mingling with the usual set of tourists at the Center and with local teens on their way to the prom.
Around 6:45 p.m., Alice in Chains members showed up, including guitarist Jerry Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez, drummer Sean Kinney, and former bassist Mike Starr. Also in attendance were Alice in Chains manager Susan Silver, her husband Chris Cornell (sporting a new bleached-blonde short haircut), and Cantrell's personal manager Bill Siddons. They talked solemnly with their friends and family members, but remained at arm's length from fans and journalists. TV news crews and photographers were asked to leave.
A teary-eyed Kinney did speak to longtime Seattle journalist Gene Stout of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and allstar writer Gillian G. Gaar, saying, "My heart is broken. Do you know what this feels like? I can't say anything else at this time."
Matt Fox, a local musician and activist, who knew the band members for years and wrote an early story about them for Seattle magazine Backlash, said that though he and Staley lived in the same area (University District), he hadn't seen him around the neighborhood of late.
Around 8 p.m., the aforementioned musicians and friends walked away to commiserate together. As the sun set, fans began leaving flowers and candles, some brought guitars and played music.
Alice in Chains was founded in Seattle in 1987 and was an integral part of the early-'90s grunge scene that also spawned Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and others. The band released 10 albums, starting with 1990's Facelift on Columbia Records. The success of that album, which featured the metal hit "We Die Young," earned the young group a 1991 American Music Awards nomination.
The band's breakthrough moment came shortly after, in 1992 with the song "Would?" from Dirt. Aside from "Would?," the band was also known for such alternative rock hits as "Rooster," "Man in the Box," "I Fade Away," "No Excuses," "Angry Chair," and "Again," as well as for their participation in Cameron Crowe's film, Singles.
Due to Staley's drug problems of the past several years, the band remained relatively dormant, though released collections, such as 1999's box set, Nothing Safe: Best of the Box, 2000's Live, and 2001's Greatest Hits. The group's last full studio album was 1995's Alice in Chains, which debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200. Staley also formed a side-project Mad Season, which featured Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees), Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees), Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), and John Saunders.
