The first note of one particular song is all someone needs to hear to know that it’s by Alice in Chains.
Alice in Chains guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell recently revealed that song in a fan Q&A via Metal Hammer.
“The first big one was Man In The Box and that seems to be one of our immediate, universal riffs,” Cantrell shared. “Rooster [from 1992’s Dirt] is another but I don’t know if that’s necessarily a ‘riff’. I’d say Man In The Box.”
When asked if he ever got tired of playing that riff, Cantrell replied: “Once you hit that first note and get into the groove, and you hear the roar from the crowd, any feelings of tiredness or whatever, I don’t really get.”
“I think you’re lucky if you have a song that people want to hear, so you’ve got to play it for them,” he continued. “We’ve been lucky enough to have a good handful of songs throughout the years, so the challenge becomes, what do you cut out? Somebody’s always going to be bummed out. Ha ha!”