Alice in Chains


"I'm not expecting to win," Alice in Chains drummer Sean Kinney told Noisecreep about his band's seventh overall nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance, this time for 'Check My Brain' from 'Black Gives Way to Blue.' Kinney further insisted, "We're zero and six, and I am expecting to be zero and seven. I expect to have seven losses!"

While the skinsman isn't particularly concerned about winning, he feels that the just being invited to the party is enough. Given the band's comeback in the wake of original (and beloved) vocalist Layne Stayley's death, a fate from which most bands never recover, much less go to be Grammy nominated for, this seventh nomination means something because it's an acknowledgment.

"I know you don't want to call it a 'comeback,' but it is, isn't it?," Kinney said. "It's a rebirth. That's enough for me. They noticed everything we've done since we started the band when we were young in 1990. We are great at losing these awards. We've never won, and I don't expect to win."

If they do finally win with this incarnation, featuring new singer William DuVall, Kinney admitted it would be bittersweet. "It'd be cool and it'd be bittersweet," he said. "Layne told me one time when we lost, 'We should've won that.' So it'd be bittersweet. He thought it'd be funny if we won. Either way, it's fine. It won't change anyone's life. You don't get one and instantly everything in your world is hunky dory. Millions won't rush out and buy your record, since no one is buying records. But being noticed, since we started, from first record on? We got weaseled in every time, and that's cool."

Kinney, in what appears to be trademark desert-dry humor, admitted that he has utilitarian purposes for awards the band has actually won, like the Moon Man statuette they won from MTV for Best Video From a Film for the song 'Would' from the movie 'Singles.' "We tried to make a bong out of it, but it didn't work. So now it's a toilet paper holder," he laughed. He also commented that the Grammy statue looks heavy -- like it'd make a good door stop! But in all seriousness, he said, "They pay attention to us and always have, so it's nice. And that matters more than if we win. It won't change my life if we win."

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