Died On This Date (April 5, 2002) Layne Staley / Alice In Chains
themusicsover Layne Staley
August 22, 1967 – April 5, 2002
Layne Staley was the lead singer of hair band killers, Alice In Chains. The band was part of a new musical movement that exploded out of Seattle in the early ’90s. It was called Grunge and Alice In Chains ruled alongside Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana. It married the best elements of metal with punk and spoke to millions of disaffected teens of that era. Staley’s voice separated them from the pack. It was metal but it was also rock god. On stage, he quickly became one of the generations most captivating front men. Sadly, as the band’s success soared in the mid ’90s, so did Staley drug habits. And it only got worse in 1996 when his fiance died of drug abuse. As the decade came to a close, Staley was mostly invisible to fans of Alice In Chains, making sporadic contributions to soundtracks and such. On April 19, 2002, Staley’s lifeless body was found in his condo by his mother and step father. He was surrounded by various drugs and paraphernalia. The autopsy concluded that he had died of a deadly dose of heroin and cocaine, or “speedball.” The coroner determined the official date of death as April 5, 2002, two weeks before he had been found. It was amazingly eight years to the day after Kurt Cobain died just as tragically.
What You Should Own
Buddy Blue was best known as a founding member of San Diego’s favorite sons, the Beat Farmers. He was also a music critic with reviews featured in the San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego Reader, Los Angeles Times, Orange County Weekly among others. In 1983, Blue helped form the Beat Farmers with Rolle Love, Jerry Raney and the legendary 
Freddie Everett was a Houston blues guitarist/singer-songwriter known throughout those parts as “The Texas Legend.” A guitar virtuoso, some even called him the “Texas Hendrix.” Throughout his relatively short career, Everett has shared the stage with Sammy Hagar, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, 
Zombies founding member and guitarist Paul Atkinson passed away from liver and kidney disease on April 1, 2004. He was 58. While the Zombies failed to take off like so many other British Invasion bands of the early 1960s, their songs like “She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No,” and “Time Of The Season” will forever be remembered as key moments in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. And no worthy collection of psychedelic rock song is complete without “Time Of The Season,” which didn’t even become popular until long after the band had broken up in 1967. Atkinson went on to work for RCA Records as an A&R Rep where he was credited for signing Abba, Mr. Mister, Judas Priest and Bruce Hornsby.