"IT'S COOL TO HEAR YOUR INFLUENCES COMING OUT ORGANICALLY"

Jerry Cantrell shaped the sound of alternative rock with Alice In Chains, but on his new solo album he’s taking inspiration from the heroes of his youth: for tone, Jeff Beck and blues-rock master Robin Trower, and for guitar harmonies, Iron Maiden and Thin Lizzy

- Amit Sharma

Jerry Fulton Cantrell Jr. is a master storyteller. If you’ve listened to any of his recordings with Alice In Chains or as a solo artist, you’ll know he has a panache for getting to the heart of the emotion behind the music, embedding the listener deep within the sonic world he’s created. The pictures he paints using his guitar and voice feel inexplicably vivid, attacking the human senses from all mediums, with melodies and harmonies you can almost touch, see and taste.

In the early ’90s, Cantrell’s powerful chemistry with singer Layne Staley made Alice In Chains one of the most influential bands in an era when Seattle was the crucible of alternative rock.

There was an intense emotional darkness in their music – not only in heavy, riff-driven songs such as Man In The Box, We Die Young, Would? and Rooster from the albums Facelift and Dirt – but also in the beautiful acoustic tracks laid down on the EPs Sap and Jar Of Flies. But even without Staley, who died in 2002, Cantrell has steered Alice In Chains through a second phase with frontman William DuVall alongside the classic-era rhythm section of bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney on three acclaimed studio albums.

And while the band has kept Cantrell busy since 2005, recent years have seen him working again as a solo artist.

His 2021 album Brighten was his first solo release in almost two decades since 2002’s Degradation Trip. And now comes I Want Blood, a more up-tempo and hard-hitting record than the acoustic-focused Brighten. It proves that Jerry Cantrell’s creative remit is one that’s unusually broad for an artist working within the confines of rock. The sky really is the limit for this guitar hero…

This album has more distorted electrics and less acoustics that your last one. What made you want to take off the cowboy hat and get heavy?