Mad Season was an American rock supergroup formed in 1994 as a side project of members of other bands in the Seattle grunge scene. The band's principal members included guitarist Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, lead singer Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, drummer Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, and bassist John Baker Saunders. Mad Season released only one album, Above, in March 1995. Its first single, "River of Deceit", was a radio success, and Above was certified a gold record by the RIAA in June.
Mad Season is definitely more blues-y than grunge. For me with Mad Season it was the way Layne sang WAKE UP, and ARTIFICIAL RED, and then RIVER OF DECEIT, everyone else may like LIFELESS DEAD and it's good because Layne sings it but WAKE UP, ARTIFICIAL RED and RIVER OF DECEIT are my top ones The band is Layne Staley singing, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam on guitar, Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees on drums and John Baker Saunders (who was from Minneapolis but McCready met him in rehab there and dragged him back to Seattle with him after their rehab stint.) Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees sings of a few of the songs on the Above album. Layne Staley's vocal range can run rings around any other grunge singer (including Chris Cornell) in my opinion. Layne could sing the phone book and never hit a wrong note. Even at the end of his life, with no teeth and a lisp, his voice, wit and humor were all still there. Layne's voice and vocal range was so powerful he did NOT need auto tune or pro-tools until he lost his teeth and had a lisp around 1998, and even then he still killed the vocals. Barrett Martin (who played with Layne in Mad Season) said that when he stood to the side of the stage, he could hear the sound of Layne’s vocal resonance come out of Layne's body LOUDER than it did coming out of the speakers, Layne's voice was that powerful. The shows they did live at the Moore in 1995... Layne killed the vocals on every song he sang. Even "All Alone" was just an instrumental to begin with and then Layne went in and added the bare minimum of vocals and made it haunting. And ALSO on the Live at the Moore they covered John Lennon's I Don't Want to Be a Soldier... Layne's vocals are AWESOME on that, and the song's good up until they put a distortion pedal on the saxophone. But up until then Lennon may have wrote the song, but Layne perfected it. Layne drew the Above album cover art and wrote the lyrics to the songs he sang on the Above album so they're about his addiction and recovery/12 step, WAKE UP is basically telling himself to wake up from the 10 year love affair w/drugs Slow suicide's no way to go (of course that is what happened, after the KISS shows in 1996 to 2002 it was a 6 year long slow suicide. My Top 5 Mad Season songs: WAKE UP (Live at the Moore, 1995), ARTIFICIAL RED (Live at the Moore, 1995), RIVER OF DECEIT (Live at the Moore, 1995), a toss up between I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING (Live at the Moore, 1995) OR X-RAY MIND (Live at the Moore, 1995), I DON'T WANT TO BE A SOLDIER (Live at the Moore, 1995... John Lennon wrote it, Layne PERFECTED the vocals, the song is good until they decided to put a distortion pedal on the saxophone, then it's just noise). Aside from I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier... Layne wrote all the songs he sang on Mad Season and he drew the cover art for Mad Season's Above album. Back in 1994, near the end of the classic Seattle period, four musicians came together from a wide cross-section of Seattle’s heaviest bands. They included Pearl Jam’s lead guitarist Mike McCready, Alice In Chains lead vocalist Layne Staley, the not-from-Seattle-but-he-fit-right-in bassist John “Baker” Saunders, and Barrett Martin came from the bands Skin Yard and Screaming Trees. Mike and Baker had met in rehab in Minneapolis, and they immediately hit it off with their love of the Delta Blues and the bright clarity that comes from a newly sober mind. They played a series of secret shows at Seattle’s now-legendary Crocodile Café. The intent was to tighten-up the songs and try out the new material on a live audience, and during these shows, they realized a singular vision that would manifest in the studio a few weeks later. Mike McCready wanted to do demos, and Layne said screw that, we're doing a whole album right out of the gate. Layne had tried rehab 13 times, but he could never completely give it up. He tried quitting cold turkey on two of the last attempts at rehab, but that didn't work either. After he returned home from the second attempt at detoxing cold turkey, McCready started calling and then just showing up at Layne's condo with Baker in tow. They all got together and dragged Layne out of his condo, got him excited about doing ABOVE album, thinking if he was creative he wouldn't want the drugs, and for the length of time it took to do that, Layne was excited about the project, but it didn't curb his drug habit. Layne wrote the lyrics to the original songs he sang on the ABOVE album (not including Lennon's I DON'T WANT TO BE A SOLDIER.. even though, LAYNE PERFECTED that song), and he drew the cover art for the album. The vibraphone is done by a Seattle Jazz musician known as Skerik. The Above album was released internationally on March 14, 1995, on Columbia Records and it immediately struck a resonant chord with the public that sent the album into gold status within a few weeks. It peaked at #24 on the Billboard Top 200, and the album’s first single, “RIVER OF DECEIT,” was a bona fide radio hit in the United States, reaching the #2 spot on the American modern rock charts. All of this happened, I might add, without the band playing a proper, advertised show or any touring. They did the 4 shows at the Crocodile and the main show that got turned into a VHS/DVD Mad Season Live at the Moore. Mad Season essentially played a grungier version of the Blues. This unusual chemistry made us sound totally unique for our time, in an era of post-Grunge, formula rock that was beginning to dominate popular music then, as it still does to this day. Above was the only complete album of Layne Staley’s introspective, mystical lyrics, and in the almost 30 years since its release. Layne was an extremely intelligent, humorous, and gracious human being, and he cared about things like politeness and kindness to strangers, qualities that seem to be forgotten in today’s narcissistic, nihilistic culture. He laughed easily and talked openly with his fans, and his guest list at shows was always reserved for the young, marginalized people who couldn’t afford to buy a ticket. Those were Layne’s people, the ones without a voice, and through the power of poetic language, Layne gave them a voice. Barrett Martin's best personal memory of Layne "came when we were making the Above album and he was in the studio lounge reading Kahlil Gibran’s iconic book, The Prophet, a book I highly recommend everyone read at some point in your lives. I told him I had read it as a teenager, and I liked the part about the arrows you fire into the world to keep the darkness at bay. Layne said that as musicians we were like burning arrows, arcing across the sky. We started talking about what it meant to be an artist with a spiritual message and I can tell you that Layne deeply felt that he had a spiritual message to convey in his music, even if his lyrics were dark. And that is because darkness must exist first in order for light to emerge in contrast to it; the two are inseparable parts of the same continuum. "This theme is evident in all of Layne’s songs, both with Mad Season and Alice In Chains, and that is because he existed in a realm between darkness and light, a place where he could see both. So please remember this: Layne was very young when he wrote and sang those lyrics, he was only in his mid-twenties (Layne was ONLY 27 when he was with Mad Season in mid to late 1994 through April 1995, before he returned to AIC to record Tripod), yet he said a huge amount with that incredible voice." Several years after Layne’s passing Barrett Martin got a call from an old friend in Massachusetts who had a couple of young children. While on a family drive through the countryside, he was playing the Above album when the last song on the album, ALL ALONE, came on. One of the little ones in the back seat asked if there were angels singing on the song, a question that he relayed to Barrett over the phone. “Yeah, he was a certain kind of angel,” Barrett said, “a dark one perhaps, but an angel all the same.” Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine said Layne sang like an angry angel. After Layne died and Baker died, McCready wanted to restart Mad Season with Chris Cornell singing and Chris had learn how Layne sang the songs before he could put his variation on it. Layne was so much more than his drug addiction. He was able to come up with lyrics and harmonies off the top of his head. He knew enough to know that Jerry Cantrell was playing with the wrong people and gave him contact info for Sean Kinney and Mike Starr. He wrote the lyrics for the songs he sang on Mad Season's Above album and drew the cover art for that album. Layne was a genius in his own right. He was able to figure things out in a snap off the top of his head. Layne just had his demons. At the age of 34, he looked more like an 80-year-old man. He knew he screwed up, between the drugs and his own depression and then his former fiancee dying, Layne just couldn't find a way to dig himself out of his own mess, and at the end with his teeth problems and organs failing on him, he gave up trying. He lost sight of who his true friends were and who was using him. He was never going to give up the drugs. Instead, he tried to attain the same high he felt the first time he did drugs and could never achieve it. Layne's story is more tragic and haunting because you can actually watch and hear him deteriorate over the 12-year span: from the mild use of drugs in 1990 all the way through 1996 when he was deep into a heroin addiction to dropping to 90 pounds by 1998 to 86 pounds when he died in 2002. Layne kept his humor and wit even to the end of his life.
Mad Season was an American rock supergroup formed in 1994 as a side project of members of other bands in the Seattle grunge scene. The band's principal members included guitarist Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, lead singer Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, drummer Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, and bassist John Baker Saunders. Mad Season released only one album, Above, in March 1995. Its first single, "River of Deceit", was a radio success, and Above was certified a gold record by the RIAA in June.
Thank You 🙏🏿🙏🏿
Mad Season is definitely more blues-y than grunge. For me with Mad Season it was the way Layne sang WAKE UP, and ARTIFICIAL RED, and then RIVER OF DECEIT, everyone else may like LIFELESS DEAD and it's good because Layne sings it but WAKE UP, ARTIFICIAL RED and RIVER OF DECEIT are my top ones
The band is Layne Staley singing, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam on guitar, Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees on drums and John Baker Saunders (who was from Minneapolis but McCready met him in rehab there and dragged him back to Seattle with him after their rehab stint.)
Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees sings of a few of the songs on the Above album.
Layne Staley's vocal range can run rings around any other grunge singer (including Chris Cornell) in my opinion. Layne could sing the phone book and never hit a wrong note. Even at the end of his life, with no teeth and a lisp, his voice, wit and humor were all still there. Layne's voice and vocal range was so powerful he did NOT need auto tune or pro-tools until he lost his teeth and had a lisp around 1998, and even then he still killed the vocals.
Barrett Martin (who played with Layne in Mad Season) said that when he stood to the side of the stage, he could hear the sound of Layne’s vocal resonance come out of Layne's body LOUDER than it did coming out of the speakers, Layne's voice was that powerful.
The shows they did live at the Moore in 1995... Layne killed the vocals on every song he sang. Even "All Alone" was just an instrumental to begin with and then Layne went in and added the bare minimum of vocals and made it haunting. And ALSO on the Live at the Moore they covered John Lennon's I Don't Want to Be a Soldier... Layne's vocals are AWESOME on that, and the song's good up until they put a distortion pedal on the saxophone. But up until then Lennon may have wrote the song, but Layne perfected it.
Layne drew the Above album cover art and wrote the lyrics to the songs he sang on the Above album so they're about his addiction and recovery/12 step, WAKE UP is basically telling himself to wake up from the 10 year love affair w/drugs Slow suicide's no way to go (of course that is what happened, after the KISS shows in 1996 to 2002 it was a 6 year long slow suicide.
My Top 5 Mad Season songs: WAKE UP (Live at the Moore, 1995), ARTIFICIAL RED (Live at the Moore, 1995), RIVER OF DECEIT (Live at the Moore, 1995), a toss up between I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING (Live at the Moore, 1995) OR X-RAY MIND (Live at the Moore, 1995), I DON'T WANT TO BE A SOLDIER (Live at the Moore, 1995... John Lennon wrote it, Layne PERFECTED the vocals, the song is good until they decided to put a distortion pedal on the saxophone, then it's just noise). Aside from I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier... Layne wrote all the songs he sang on Mad Season and he drew the cover art for Mad Season's Above album.
Back in 1994, near the end of the classic Seattle period, four musicians came together from a wide cross-section of Seattle’s heaviest bands. They included Pearl Jam’s lead guitarist Mike McCready, Alice In Chains lead vocalist Layne Staley, the not-from-Seattle-but-he-fit-right-in bassist John “Baker” Saunders, and Barrett Martin came from the bands Skin Yard and Screaming Trees. Mike and Baker had met in rehab in Minneapolis, and they immediately hit it off with their love of the Delta Blues and the bright clarity that comes from a newly sober mind.
They played a series of secret shows at Seattle’s now-legendary Crocodile Café. The intent was to tighten-up the songs and try out the new material on a live audience, and during these shows, they realized a singular vision that would manifest in the studio a few weeks later. Mike McCready wanted to do demos, and Layne said screw that, we're doing a whole album right out of the gate.
Layne had tried rehab 13 times, but he could never completely give it up. He tried quitting cold turkey on two of the last attempts at rehab, but that didn't work either. After he returned home from the second attempt at detoxing cold turkey, McCready started calling and then just showing up at Layne's condo with Baker in tow. They all got together and dragged Layne out of his condo, got him excited about doing ABOVE album, thinking if he was creative he wouldn't want the drugs, and for the length of time it took to do that, Layne was excited about the project, but it didn't curb his drug habit. Layne wrote the lyrics to the original songs he sang on the ABOVE album (not including Lennon's I DON'T WANT TO BE A SOLDIER.. even though, LAYNE PERFECTED that song), and he drew the cover art for the album.
The vibraphone is done by a Seattle Jazz musician known as Skerik.
The Above album was released internationally on March 14, 1995, on Columbia Records and it immediately struck a resonant chord with the public that sent the album into gold status within a few weeks. It peaked at #24 on the Billboard Top 200, and the album’s first single, “RIVER OF DECEIT,” was a bona fide radio hit in the United States, reaching the #2 spot on the American modern rock charts. All of this happened, I might add, without the band playing a proper, advertised show or any touring. They did the 4 shows at the Crocodile and the main show that got turned into a VHS/DVD Mad Season Live at the Moore.
Mad Season essentially played a grungier version of the Blues. This unusual chemistry made us sound totally unique for our time, in an era of post-Grunge, formula rock that was beginning to dominate popular music then, as it still does to this day. Above was the only complete album of Layne Staley’s introspective, mystical lyrics, and in the almost 30 years since its release.
Layne was an extremely intelligent, humorous, and gracious human being, and he cared about things like politeness and kindness to strangers, qualities that seem to be forgotten in today’s narcissistic, nihilistic culture. He laughed easily and talked openly with his fans, and his guest list at shows was always reserved for the young, marginalized people who couldn’t afford to buy a ticket. Those were Layne’s people, the ones without a voice, and through the power of poetic language, Layne gave them a voice.
Barrett Martin's best personal memory of Layne "came when we were making the Above album and he was in the studio lounge reading Kahlil Gibran’s iconic book, The Prophet, a book I highly recommend everyone read at some point in your lives. I told him I had read it as a teenager, and I liked the part about the arrows you fire into the world to keep the darkness at bay. Layne said that as musicians we were like burning arrows, arcing across the sky. We started talking about what it meant to be an artist with a spiritual message and I can tell you that Layne deeply felt that he had a spiritual message to convey in his music, even if his lyrics were dark. And that is because darkness must exist first in order for light to emerge in contrast to it; the two are inseparable parts of the same continuum.
"This theme is evident in all of Layne’s songs, both with Mad Season and Alice In Chains, and that is because he existed in a realm between darkness and light, a place where he could see both. So please remember this: Layne was very young when he wrote and sang those lyrics, he was only in his mid-twenties (Layne was ONLY 27 when he was with Mad Season in mid to late 1994 through April 1995, before he returned to AIC to record Tripod), yet he said a huge amount with that incredible voice."
Several years after Layne’s passing Barrett Martin got a call from an old friend in Massachusetts who had a couple of young children. While on a family drive through the countryside, he was playing the Above album when the last song on the album, ALL ALONE, came on. One of the little ones in the back seat asked if there were angels singing on the song, a question that he relayed to Barrett over the phone. “Yeah, he was a certain kind of angel,” Barrett said, “a dark one perhaps, but an angel all the same.”
Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine said Layne sang like an angry angel.
After Layne died and Baker died, McCready wanted to restart Mad Season with Chris Cornell singing and Chris had learn how Layne sang the songs before he could put his variation on it.
Layne was so much more than his drug addiction. He was able to come up with lyrics and harmonies off the top of his head. He knew enough to know that Jerry Cantrell was playing with the wrong people and gave him contact info for Sean Kinney and Mike Starr. He wrote the lyrics for the songs he sang on Mad Season's Above album and drew the cover art for that album. Layne was a genius in his own right. He was able to figure things out in a snap off the top of his head. Layne just had his demons. At the age of 34, he looked more like an 80-year-old man. He knew he screwed up, between the drugs and his own depression and then his former fiancee dying, Layne just couldn't find a way to dig himself out of his own mess, and at the end with his teeth problems and organs failing on him, he gave up trying. He lost sight of who his true friends were and who was using him. He was never going to give up the drugs. Instead, he tried to attain the same high he felt the first time he did drugs and could never achieve it.
Layne's story is more tragic and haunting because you can actually watch and hear him deteriorate over the 12-year span: from the mild use of drugs in 1990 all the way through 1996 when he was deep into a heroin addiction to dropping to 90 pounds by 1998 to 86 pounds when he died in 2002. Layne kept his humor and wit even to the end of his life.
THANK YOU 🙏🏿🙏🤘🙏🏿🙏🤘🙏🏿🙏🤘🙏🏿🙏🤘🙏🏿🙏🤘🙏🏿🙏🤘🙏🏿🙏🤘🙏🏿🙏🤘🙏🏿🙏🤘
Can you do Red Hot Chili Peppers - “I could have lied”?! Great reaction!!
Absolutely 💯💯
@@DonnieAndD I think you’ll really like it! thank you!!