Interview: Mike Inez – Alice In Chains
Anaheim, California
My first impression of Mike Inez was that he loves music. I know what you’re thinking – Captain Obvious to the rescue! Of course he does but it’s not what you think. He doesn’t come at it from the point of view of a highly successful bass player in one of the most legendary bands ever – he lives and breathes music and stands behind anyone wanting to put in the blood, sweat and tears into this carnival we call rock and roll. Seeing him interact with fans is an amazing display. He never seems to rush the selfie or scribble his autograph for the sake of time. He appears genuinely interested when someone (everyone) tells him that he was their inspiration for playing in a band and that they are recording a new record. He never seems annoyed or dis-interested. This is the same guy that toured the world with Ozzy Osbourne when he was just a young man. The same guy that absolutely shreds the bass on a nightly basis with Alice In Chains. You want a down to earth person that bleeds music – then Mike is your guy.
We I sat down with Mike Inez, he had just announced that Fishman were releasing the Fluence Legacy Series Mike Inez Pickups. These aren’t just any bass guitar pickups – they were designed to give the user that classic Inez tone and power. Mike told me, “We’ve got the only pickup in this building that you want to have for bass. That’s a bold statement but we’ve been working on this proto-type for a couple of years and we finally got to the point where we basically are ready to get our tone out to the world.” Mike gave a demonstration of them at NAMM and there’s no doubt they got it right with these.
Since we were talking about tone and how it can be so signature and important to the song I asked him about his favorites to play on stage. Mike says, “I’d say the heavy Alice in Chains songs like, Dam That River, We Die Young.. the heavy fast stuff. That’s my thing, Jerry likes the slow, sludgy stuff. Sean likes anything weird, say Godsmack and stuff like that. William likes to play the new stuff. He got to write the vocal lines on some of that stuff. So we all have our favorites but I’m always pushing for the heavy though.” I was telling him about some of my personal favorites and I mentioned Rotten Apple being one of those songs and he said, “It’s my favorite beginning to any one of our records. I think we wrote it, recorded it and mixed in like ten or eleven days or something like that. We did in between tours and then we get a note from our management company that says – Hey your album went to number one!”
Unreal.
One area in history I’ve always wanted to speak with Mike about was the time Alice In Chains played with Kiss at Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Mi. This was the tour that Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons reunited with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss and played a sold out tour, once again as the Starchild, the Demon, Space Ace and the Cat Man. For this guy, it was best case scenario that could’ve happened in my hometown. As a child Kiss was my favorite band and in 1996, there was no band greater to me than Alice in Chains. Mike had many interesting points of view from that day – A funny conversation with Gene about the chicken that was catered in, Ty Cobb, Billy Corgan and Sebastian Bach, a stage dive and the epic-ness of playing that show. I’ll let you listen for yourself but I’ll leave you with this. Mike tells me, “That was one of the gigs that I’ll always remember especially with Layne. That was one of the last firing Layne shows.. it was great..”
You can hear to my entire conversation with Mike Inez by clicking on one of the links to your favorite place to listen to podcasts or you can watch our conversation on YouTube. As we ended our chat, we joked about Mike’s plans to start building a recording studio in his house and he says, “One of my best friends is a contractor guy and he’s going to do it. Every time I pick up a nail gun or a saw he goes, you’re gonna cut your hand off!” So I interject – please don’t. Mike says, “I’ll play gigs with my feet if I have to, I don’t care :laughs: I love this stuff!” Indeed, he does.
-Tommy Marz
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More Alice in Chains including twelve great vocal performances by Layne Staley
