I wonder how many people Jerry Cantrell has told to air drum. It’s a valid question, I swear! I met Jerry the same night as I met Slash, Flea, Dave Navarro… It was at the Troubadour in April of 2008 for the Justice Tour show. Now, Alice in Chains is probably my favorite band. The Chains, Nirvana, Deftones, and Tool are in the top spots and are very close together. So it was pretty amazing to meet Jerry. I also like his guitar playing a lot. I think he may be my favorite guitar player of all time. I love his tone, it is absolutely amazing. He also makes the simplest riffs and solos sound so damn cool it is amazing. He gives hope to a guitar player like me. I just flat out dig his style. And if he wants to get technical and crazy and rip some serious chops, yeah, he can do that too. And is he one of the best harmonizers in the history of harmony? Yes. In my humble opinion. Chad says they use a bunch of 2nds. Whatever it is, it sounds cool as hell when Jerry harmonized with Layne, and now when he harmonizes with William DuVall (Alice in Chains’ new singer). Jerry Cantrell flat out rules.

Well, when State Radio was backstage at the Troubadour in the curtained off area, Jerry was rehearsing, acoustic style, the song “Brother” by Alice in Chains with a guy named Dave Gibbs on bass. They were going to play it as a duo at the front end of the show that night. Now, when they were rehearsing, Chad was sitting a good 8 feet from them watching and humming these cool, crazy harmonies. He was probably humming his 2nds. Now, Chad is an unbelievable singer. I think everyone who has heard him sing in Dispatch and State Radio knows this. And Chad is also trained really well, he knows his stuff. He could sing his way out of a paper bag per se. He amazes me constantly that his voice holds up the way it does. And his voice has amazing character.

Anyway, Jerry noticed that Chad was humming along. He stopped the song after the second verse and said, “Who is singing those harmonies?”. At first it was hard to tell if Jerry was mad that Chad was singing. But it was clear that he wanted an answer. Chad slowly raised his hand. “Those were killer man! Come up here and sing those and maybe we could do those during the show!”. Chad got up, and as he was walking towards Jerry to sit near him, he goes, “Mad Dog was singing too!”. “Naw, I wasn’t,” I said. And I wasn’t. I am not nearly as good of a singer as Chad, and if I was humming along it was just the base melody that Jerry was singing. I could never pick out the harmonies that Chad did. “Come on Mad Dog!” Chad said, “You were singing too”. “Come on over man,” said Jerry. Damn it! Maybe Chad was nervous and there will be strength in numbers. I can fake sing. Then I thought that since I knew Alice in Chains a little better than Chad, maybe I could latch on to his harmonies and help him with the words.

Guess what? Nope. It was a lot of pressure man! Ha. I honestly think I was ruining Chad’s awesome harmonies during the verses and I couldn’t think of the chorus part when it came up. Neither could Chad. Damn it! I was worthless. The part of the song that goes, “You were always so far away”, the chorus if you will, sounded so different with just Jerry singing that I couldn’t think of the chorus part that Layne did. Chad couldn’t either. I honestly think if I hadn’t ruined Chad’s awesome harmonies in the verse (even if he didn’t know the words) that Jerry would have taught Chad the chorus. Chad probably would have remembered, and he catches on quick, and he would have been on stage singing with Jerry. Instead, when we got to the chorus, after I had bombed the verse, and we had no idea how Layne’s part went, Jerry stopped the song and said, “Yeah, I definitely feel uncomfortable with that chorus when William isn’t singing”. William is the new Chain’s singer who takes Layne’s parts and wasn’t there that evening. “You know it is a pretty cool thing Dave and I have going as a duo, maybe you guys can sing halfway back from the mic during the show if you still want to do it”. OH! Hint, hint. Now I was feeling real bad because I was blowing this for Chad. I saw my chance for an out from the singing right here and tried to throw a Hail Mary to get Chad back to singing alone. “You know I am a drummer and I definitely know the acoustic version of this song on drums. Maybe I could drum quietly and Chad could sing”. I thought this was a reasonable suggestion. If we ran through the song and he heard me drum on a pad and Chad did some harmonies alone I’m sure he would have been psyched.

Cantrell didn’t bite. “Or you could just sit behind us and air drum!”. Okidoke. I guess that’s a no. Not even a ‘sure, let’s give it a trial run right now and decide after that’. Not invited. Shot down. Not only did this eliminate my chances of drumming but it also gave Chad the hint that Jerry wasn’t too into messing around on this one. So Chad backed off on the vocals. And Jerry just did his thing with Dave for the show that night. It’s actually too bad we didn’t get a shot. Because Chad is such a good singer that he definitely could have added to Jerry’s performance, and I definitely could have made it a lot livelier with drums. There were a few acoustic acts but most of the night was electric, and I think our additions would have brought Jerry’s performance up to the next level.

To be honest, Chad is just a nice guy and he was trying to include me in the harmonies with Jerry because he knew I liked Alice in Chains so much. By doing so I think he shot himself in the foot. But that’s the type of guy he is, he would rather try to include his friend than clinch the deal for just him. The gesture did mean a lot to me, and I apologized to him later on. He downplayed it of course and said it was his fault because he didn’t remember the chorus. I wish I remembered it to this day! I should have. Maybe I could have slightly redeemed myself.

After we went on and I played ‘real drums’ I saw Jerry alone back stage again. He had already played his acoustic set with Dave. People had been extremely complimentary of our set and had commented on how they dug my drumming, especially how I was able to incorporate so many styles. So I was flying high at the time. Jerry took me back down a slight notch when he just looked at me and did an air drumming motion… It was actually kind of funny, and my friends, especially Chris DeLisle, the bass player for Ratfynkt, loves how Jerry stuck it to me with the air drumming comment and then subsequent motion. Hey, you need to get brought back to earth somehow. And it was funny. And I still love Alice in Chains and Jerry Cantrell to this day. I might even love the guy more for it. He had the balls to flat out shoot my ass down.

Anyway, I had met Sean Kinney (the Alice in Chains drummer) in the crowd that night. I saw him in the crowd and I said, “Sean! Why aren’t you playing tonight?”. He said, “I’m just watching man!”. I said, “Cool. It is nice to meet you, I’m Mike. I love your drumming”. “Thanks”. I definitely understand the watching thing now, after drumming professionally for over 6 years. Sometimes you just gotta chill and watch others work their magic. Then you can really appreciate the other artists, instead of having to worry about playing yourself.

So when I saw Jerry again, I had met Sean, and used that as a topic piece to actually talk to the guy and get him past his air drumming phase. It had actually made me feel good to see Sean out there, because since Sean was there, and wasn’t playing, it made me feel a little bit better about my air drumming rejection. I mean, it might have been a slap in the face to Sean if he showed up and Jerry hadn’t asked him to drum but some shmuck like me goes up and drums his parts. So at least I can take some solace in the chance that I wasn’t really rejected… it was just circumstance, right? I, also, had met a girl through Jess (Jess eventually went on to marry Chuck but we had just met Jess the day before) who knew Jerry and said that she had never seen Jerry with a beard, and he had one that night. She said he wasn’t shaving because he was so busy recording, and that he was working really hard, and that his patience was a bit shorter because of it. Understandable. He was busy recording the newer Alice in Chains record ‘Black Gives Way to Blue’, which is definitely one of my favorite albums of the last 5 years. So I forgive him on behalf of his awesome music.

“I just saw Sean out there. Why isn’t he jamming tonight?” I said to Jerry. “I think he is content to be watching. I think he is in awe of Stuart Copeland out there tearing it up”. “Yeah,” I said, “but they are completely different drummers. Stuart is on top of and pushing the beat a lot, whereas Sean lays back and is really strong on the backend of the beat”. “Yeah… you’re right,” said Jerry. He seemed a little surprised at my analysis, and the fact that I actually knew something insightful about drumming! “Well, they are both amazing drummers for sure. Maybe next time, right?” I said. “Yeah,” said Jerry. And then we parted ways as we exited the backstage. It was an awesome exchange. I had just talked drum shop with Jerry Cantrell and he agreed with my assessment of his drummer! Well, at least he did at the time… maybe. Score a moral victory for me! And if you know Jerry, please tell him I have been practicing my air drumming…