Background and career
Jerry Fulton Cantrell Jr. (born March 18, 1966) is an American musician who is the founder, lead guitarist, co-lead singer, and main songwriter of the rock band Alice in Chains. The band rose to international fame in the early 1990s during Seattle's grunge movement and is known for its distinctive vocal style which includes the harmonized vocals between Cantrell and Layne Staley. Cantrell started as a secondary lead singer on Alice in Chains' 1992 EP Sap. After Staley's death in 2002, Cantrell was the band's lead singer on Black Gives Way to Blue (2009), The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here (2013), and Rainier Fog (2018), with DuVall primarily singing older songs by Staley in live performances. He also has a solo career and released the albums Boggy Depot in 1998 and Degradation Trip Volumes 1 & 2 in 2002. His third solo album, Brighten, was released in 2021. His most recent release is 2024's I Want Blood. Cantrell has also collaborated and performed with Heart, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Pantera, Circus of Power, Metal Church, Gov't Mule, Damageplan, Pearl Jam, the Cult, Stone Temple Pilots, Danzig, Glenn Hughes, Duff McKagan, and Deftones, among others. Cantrell was named "Riff Lord" by British hard rock/metal magazine Metal Hammer in 2006. Guitar World Magazine ranked Cantrell as the 38th out of "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time" in 2004, and the 37th "Greatest Guitar Player of All Time" in 2012. Guitar World also ranked Cantrell's solo in "Man in the Box" at No. 77 on its list of "100 Greatest Guitar Solos" in 2008. Cantrell has earned nine Grammy Award nominations as a member of Alice in Chains. He also contributed to the soundtracks of The Cable Guy (1996), John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), Dark Nights: Metal (2018) and Sinners (2025), and he has made cameos in films such as Jerry Maguire (1996), Rock Slyde (2009), and Deadwood: The Movie (2019). Cantrell also acted in the Alice in Chains mockumentaries The Nona Tapes (1995) and AIC 23 (2013).
Cantrell was born in Tacoma, Washington, on March 18, 1966, to Gloria Jean Krumpos and Jerry Fulton Cantrell. He grew up in Spanaway, and is the oldest of three children. His father is an Army veteran, and his mother was an amateur organist and melodica player who worked as an administrative assistant for the Clover Park School District in Pierce County, Washington. His maternal grandmother was from Norway, and his maternal grandfather was from the Czech Republic. After Cantrell learned to write, he documented his goal on Dr. Seuss' book, My Book About Me, filling in the sentence "When I grow up I want to be a..." with the words "rock star". Cantrell's father, Jerry Sr., is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Cantrell's first childhood memory is meeting his father for the first time after he had returned from war when he was three years old. Due to the strain of war, his parents divorced when he was seven years old, and Cantrell was raised by his mother, Gloria, and his maternal grandmother in Tacoma. The family lived on welfare and food stamps. Jerry Sr. was the main subject of the song "Rooster", which Cantrell wrote as a tribute to his father, and his mother Gloria is also mentioned by name in the song. Father and son also appeared together on the music video for "Rooster", in which Jerry Sr. recalls the war. Cantrell would later name his music publishing company as Rooster's Son Publishing. Cantrell picked up a guitar for the first time when he was in sixth grade. At that time he played clarinet, and his mother was dating a guitar player who handed his guitar to Cantrell and taught him a couple of chords. Cantrell picked it up very quickly, impressing his mother's boyfriend who suggested that she should buy her son a guitar, so she bought him an acoustic guitar. It would not be until the age of 17 that he began seriously playing an electric guitar. Cantrell learned to play guitar by ear, emulating his heroes. In his mid-teens he bought his first guitar from a swap meet, a Korean-made Fender Stratocaster. Cantrell and his mother moved back to Spanaway where he attended junior high. His first job was delivering newspapers. Cantrell attended high school at Spanaway Lake High School, and, before owning his first guitar, he was a member of the high school choir which attended many state competitions. In his senior year, Cantrell became choir president, and the quartet sang the national anthem at basketball games and won competitions with the highest marks achievable. Cantrell has cited his interest in dark musical tones as dating back to this period: "In choir we performed a cappella Gregorian chants from the 14th and 15th centuries. It was scary church music." His choir teacher and drama teacher were, early on, his two greatest motivators toward a career in music. When Alice in Chains' first album went gold, Cantrell sent both teachers a gold record. He graduated from high school in 1984. His maternal grandmother, Dorothy Krumpos, died of cancer in October 1986, and his mother Gloria died of pancreatic cancer at age 43 in April 1987, when Cantrell was 21 years old. Friends recalled that Cantrell fell into depression and became a completely different person after losing both his mother and grandmother within a short span of time.
The first album that Cantrell owned was Elton John's 1974 Greatest Hits compilation, which was a gift he received from his father when he was 10 years old. He noted in an interview that he was "raised on country music" as a youth and that he admires the emotion conveyed in the genre. He also considers himself "half Yankee and half redneck". However, hard rock music caught Cantrell's interest predominantly. He would later cite guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Ace Frehley, Tony Iommi, Angus Young, Jimmy Page, Glenn Tipton, K.K. Downing, David Gilmour, Nancy Wilson, and Eddie Van Halen as major influences, as well as Elton John and bands Fleetwood Mac, Heart and Rush as his early songwriting idols. Cantrell also cited Soundgarden as a big influence on him.
In 1985, Cantrell was attending college during the Winter Semester, but he decided to quit it and moved to Dallas, Texas, to join a band with a couple of friends. Cantrell worked doing asbestos abatement around the Dallas and Houston areas. He also worked at the music store Arnold and Morgan Music Company. While working at the store, Cantrell bought what he described as his first "real guitar", a 1984 G&L Rampage. During that time, he had a band with Vinnie Chas (from Pretty Boy Floyd), called Sinister. Later they formed another band called Raze. While living in Dallas, Cantrell met an early incarnation of the band Pantera and started a long friendship with brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul. In 1985 or 1986, Cantrell moved back to Tacoma and began a band called Diamond Lie, which included singer Scott Damon, drummer Bobby Nesbitt and bassist Matt Muasau. The band started playing concerts in Tacoma and Seattle with the goal of getting a record deal. They recorded a four-song demo at London Bridge Studio. When Cantrell was 20 years old, he was working several part-time jobs to pay his rent, one of which involved throwing boxes of frozen fish in a warehouse. He spent his time outside of work playing guitar and jamming with any band he could find. Three weeks after his mother's death on April 11, 1987, Cantrell went to see the band Alice N' Chains perform at the Tacoma Little Theatre, and was impressed by the voice of the lead singer, Layne Staley. Diamond Lie played their last concert in July 1987. Cantrell met Layne Staley, then Alice N' Chains' lead singer, at a party in Seattle around August 1987. He was homeless after being kicked out of his family's house, so Staley invited Cantrell to live with him at the 24-hour rehearsal studio "The Music Bank". Shortly after Cantrell moved in with Staley at the Music Bank, Alice 'N Chains broke up. Cantrell wanted to form a new band and Staley gave him the phone number of Melinda Starr, the girlfriend of drummer Sean Kinney, so that Cantrell could talk to him. Cantrell called the number and set up a meeting with Kinney. Kinney and his girlfriend went to the Music Bank and listened to Cantrell's demos. Cantrell mentioned that they needed a bass player to jam with them and he had someone in mind: Mike Starr, with whom Cantrell had played in a band in Burien called Gypsy Rose. Kinney pointed at his girlfriend and said: "that's weird cause that's his sister". Kinney called Starr and a few days later they started jamming with Cantrell at the Music Bank, but they didn't have a singer. Staley was already starting up another band, but Cantrell, Starr and Kinney wanted him to be their lead singer. They started auditioning terrible lead singers in front of Staley to send a hint. The last straw for Staley was when they auditioned a male stripper – he decided to join the band after that. Staley, who was Cantrell's roommate at the time, agreed to join on the condition that Cantrell join his funk project (which ended shortly after), and Staley joined Cantrell's band on a full-time basis. The band had names like "Mothra", "Fuck" and "Diamond Lie", the latter being the name of Cantrell's previous band. Diamond Lie gained attention in the Seattle area and eventually took the name of Staley's previous band, Alice N' Chains, and was quickly renamed as Alice in Chains. Cantrell attended a Guns N' Roses concert at the Seattle Center in 1988, and took an Alice in Chains demo tape to give to the band. He met Axl Rose after the show and gave him the tape. As he was walking away, Cantrell saw Rose throwing the demo away. Years later, Guns N' Roses chose Alice in Chains to be the opening act of their 2016 reunion tour. Alice in Chains' final demo, The Treehouse Tapes, was completed in 1988 and found its way to the music managers Kelly Curtis and Susan Silver, who also managed the Seattle bands Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden, respectively. Curtis and Silver passed the demo on to Columbia Records. After three months of negotiations, Alice in Chains signed to Columbia Records on September 11, 1989.
Jerry Cantrell was the lead guitarist, co-lyricist, co-lead singer and main composer of Alice in Chains until the group's near-permanent hiatus beginning in the late 1990s and leading through the death of lead singer Layne Staley in April 2002. Cantrell's guitar contribution gave a heavy metal edge to the band's unique grunge style. Cantrell started to sing lead vocals on the 1992 acoustic EP Sap, and his role continued to grow in the following albums, making Alice in Chains a two-vocal band. Cantrell stated that it was Staley who encouraged him to sing. Although Alice in Chains has been labeled grunge by the mainstream media, Cantrell identifies the band as primarily heavy metal. He told Guitar World in 1996, "We're a lot of different things ... I don't quite know what the mixture is, but there's definitely metal, blues, rock and roll, maybe a touch of punk. The metal part will never leave, and I never want it to". Alice in Chains was one of the most successful bands of the 1990s, selling over 20 million records worldwide, and over 14 million records in the US alone. Their debut album, Facelift, was released in 1990 and has been certified double-platinum by the RIAA, selling over two million copies. Cantrell dedicated the album to his late mother Gloria and to his close friend Andrew Wood, lead singer of the band Mother Love Bone who died in 1990. Speaking with Spin magazine in January 1991, Cantrell confirmed that the song "Sunshine" from Facelift was written about his mother's death. "When I was a little kid, I'd always tell her, "I'll be famous and buy you a house and you'll never have to work again. I'll take care of you like you took care of me.' When she passed away, it was a really shitty time for me. I didn't know how to deal with it then, and I still don't. But it gave me the impetus to do what I'm doing." In February 1992, the band released the acoustic EP Sap. The EP has been certified gold, and it features guest vocals by Ann Wilson from the band Heart, who joined Cantrell for the chorus of "Brother", and Staley for the chorus of "Am I Inside". The EP also features Mark Arm of Mudhoney and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, who appeared together on the song "Right Turn", credited as "Alice Mudgarden" in the liner notes. The opening track, "Brother", featured Cantrell on lead vocals. The song was about Cantrell's relationship with his younger brother, David. Cantrell also played bass on the last track, "Love Song". Their second full-length album, Dirt, was released in September 1992 to critical acclaim and was certified quadruple platinum. The album's lead single, "Would?", was written by Cantrell as a tribute to his late friend Andrew Wood. The song was also featured on the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's 1992 film Singles. The album's fourth single, "Rooster", was a tribute to Cantrell's father. Alice in Chains' second acoustic EP, Jar of Flies, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1994, becoming the first ever EP and first Alice in Chains release to top the charts. It has been certified triple platinum by the RIAA. The album's fifth track was an instrumental song, "Whale & Wasp", described by Cantrell as "a conversation between whales and wasps". Alice in Chains broke up for six months following the cancellation of their opening act at the Metallica tour in July 1994, citing "health problems within the band". The band's self-titled third studio album was released in November 1995, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and has been certified double platinum. The singles "Grind", "Over Now", and "Heaven Beside You" feature Cantrell on lead vocals. The band did not tour in support of their self-titled album. On April 10, 1996, Alice in Chains played their first concert in two and a half years for MTV Unplugged, a program featuring all-acoustic set lists. The show featured some of the band's highest-charting singles, including "Rooster", "Down in a Hole", "Heaven Beside You", "No Excuses" and "Would?", and introduced a new song, "Killer Is Me", with Cantrell on lead vocals. Cantrell stated that he was ill during the performance as a result of food poisoning from a hot dog consumed before the gig. Alice in Chains performed four shows supporting Kiss on their Alive/Worldwide Tour in 1996, including the final live appearance of Layne Staley on July 3, 1996, in Kansas City, Missouri. Shortly after the show, Staley was found unresponsive after he overdosed on heroin and was hospitalized. Staley rarely left his condo in Seattle, but in 1998 the band reunited to record two new songs, "Get Born Again" and "Died", originally intended for Cantrell's second solo album, the songs were released on the 1999 box set Music Bank. Still in 1999, the band released a 15-track compilation titled Nothing Safe: Best of the Box. Their first compilation, titled "Live", was released on December 5, 2000. In 2001, a second compilation titled Greatest Hits was released.
Although never officially disbanding, Alice in Chains was plagued by extended inactivity from 1996 onwards due to Staley's substance abuse, which resulted in his death in 2002. The band reformed in 2005 when drummer Sean Kinney had the idea to reunite the surviving members to perform a benefit concert for the victims of the tsunami disaster that struck South Asia in 2004. On February 18, 2005, Cantrell, Mike Inez and Sean Kinney reunited to perform for the first time in 10 years as Alice in Chains at the K-Rock Tsunami Continued Care Relief Concert in Seattle. The band featured Damageplan singer Pat Lachman, as well as other special guests including Maynard James Keenan of Tool, Wes Scantlin from Puddle of Mudd and Ann Wilson of Heart. A few months after that concert, the band called their former manager Susan Silver and Cantrell's manager Bill Siddons and said they wanted to tour as Alice in Chains again. On March 10, 2006, Cantrell, Inez and Kinney performed at VH1's Decades Rock Live! concert, honoring fellow Seattle musicians Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. They played "Would?" with singer Phil Anselmo of Pantera and Down and bass player Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, then they played "Rooster" with Ann Wilson and Comes with the Fall singer William DuVall. The band followed the concert with a short United States club tour, several festival dates in Europe, and a brief tour in Japan. To coincide with the band's reunion, Sony Music released the long-delayed third Alice in Chains compilation, The Essential Alice in Chains, a double album that includes 28 songs. Between 2006 and 2007, Cantrell played in a number of concerts with Alice in Chains featuring guest lead singers such as Ann Wilson, Mark Lanegan, James Hetfield, Phil Anselmo, Billy Corgan, Scott Weiland Sebastian Bach, and William DuVall. Cantrell explained the band's reunion saying, "We want to celebrate what we did and the memory of our friend. We have played with some [singers] who can actually bring it and add their own thing to it without being a Layne clone. We're not interested in stepping on [Staley's] rich legacy. It's a tough thing to go through. Do you take the Led Zeppelin approach and never play again, because the guy was that important? That's the approach we've taken for a lot of years. Or, do you give it a shot, try something? We're willing to take a chance on it. It's completely a reunion because the three of us who're left are back together. But it's not about separating and forgetting — it's about remembering and moving on."
