WILLIAM DUVALL Didn't Try To Be LAYNE STALEY When He First Joined ALICE IN CHAINS: 'I Wouldn't Have Done It Any Other Way'

In a new interview with Chaz & AJ in the Morning, a morning radio talk show program on 99.1 WPLR, a rock radio station broadcasting from New Haven, Connecticut, William DuVall was asked how he came to join ALICE IN CHAINS in 2006 as the replacement for vocalist Layne Staley, who died of a heroin overdose four years earlier. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It wasn’t exactly like a formal boardroom proposal. It was more like — at that time, I came in, I did a rehearsal and, of course, I’d known [ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist/vocalist Jerry] Cantrell for some years by then, and we had toured together. He knew what was up, and it was just a matter of getting to know [bassist Mike] Inez and [drummer Sean] Kinney a bit more. And so we all played together, and then afterwards it was kind of, like, ‘Well, we’ve got these shows coming up. Would you do these shows?’ And then I said ‘yes’ to that. And then more shows got booked, and then more shows got booked, and before you know it, we had gone around the world in 2006. So, that’s kind of how it evolved. And here we are, 20 years later.”

When one of the interviewers noted that the ALICE IN CHAINS guys were apparently very impressed with the fact that William didn’t try to sound exactly like Layne, DuVall concurred. “Yeah, exactly,” he said. “I wouldn’t have done it any other way. And that’s all one can do, really, I think, in the end, is just be yourself and do your thing. And so that’s what happened.”

DuVall appears on the last three ALICE IN CHAINS albums: 2009’s “Black Gives Way To Blue”, 2013’s “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” and 2018’s “Rainier Fog”.

Prior to joining ALICE IN CHAINS in 2006, DuVall was a member of punk rock bands AWARENESS VOID OF CHAOS, NEON CHRIST, BL’AST! and FINAL OFFERING. DuVall‘s long musical history also includes COMES WITH THE FALL and Cantrell‘s solo work.

Cantrell befriended the members of COMES WITH THE FALL in the early 2000s, playing shows with the band on the West Coast, then enlisting the musicians to tour with him as both opening act and backing group in support of his album “Degradation Trip”.

In May 2025, ALICE IN CHAINS will appear at a few festivals, including the MMRBQ in Camden, New Jersey (May 10),Sonic Temple in Columbus, Ohio (May 11) and Welcome To Rockville in Daytona Beach, Florida (May 16). They have also lined up several headlining shows, in Uncasville, Connecticut (May 8),Nashville, Tennessee (May 13) and Dothan, Alabama (May 15). ALICE IN CHAINS is also on the bill for the final BLACK SABBATH/Ozzy Osbourne show on July 5 in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

ALICE IN CHAINS has only played one concert since 2023 — an appearance at last year’s Sick New World festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In the last four years, Cantrell has released two solo albums, 2021’s “Brighten” and 2024’s “I Want Blood”, and has toured extensively in support of both efforts, performing material spanning his solo career and ALICE IN CHAINS.