The song is about the strength of a soldierwho headed to Vietnam, leaving behind his wife and kids, and saw his buddy die. Layne loved it but his dealer offered some unsolicited advice with Layne telling him to shut up. Guitarist Jerry Cantrell agreed with the sentiment, and just like that, Alice in Chains was on a break. He told me how So the song Rooster has a deeper meaning then what comes across to most people. The run would prove to be Alice's final full-scale tour; the following spring and summer they were scheduled as one of the openers on Metallica's Shit Hits the Sheds jaunt, but they canceled at the last minute, as Staley was in the throes of his heroin addiction. The "Rooster" character was based on AIC guitarist Jerry Cantrell's father (Jerry Cantrell Sr.) whose life long nickname was "Rooster". Alice in Chains continues on today, having released the impressive The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here in 2013, and also opening some early dates on Guns N' Roses' current reunion tour. Jerry Cantrell has been appeared in channels as follow: Deftones, JerryCantrellVEVO, Genius, Jerry Cantrell. Of course, I was never in Vietnam and he wont talk about it, but when I wrote this it felt rightlike these were things he might have felt or thought. ", 7. "He jumped out in the crowd with his broken with his cast, so I thought that was kind of nutty," added bassist Mike Starr in the same interview. Pellington's solution? Cantrell's father, Jerry Sr., is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Perhaps that's why he was nicknamed rooster? He is best known as the founder, lead guitarist, co-lead vocalist, and main songwriter of rock band Alice in Chains. The guitarist also noted that while the negativity toward DuVall was still ongoing in 2018, Alice in Chains is ultimately their band and they are free to "create new chapters" for it as they see fit. Cantrell's father, Jerry Sr., is a Vietnam Vet with PTSD and every fourth of July would go berserk and chase the neighborhood kids with a meat clever for shooting off fireworks. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Soldiers from Vietnam were dragged to a foreign land to kill or be killed in a fight that turned out to be based on something that was far less noble an endeavor than WWII. He watched as his father struggled with PTSD throughout his childhood until, eventually, it destroyed his family. I said, God, you look like a badass in those sunglasses. And it was like, All right, lets go. Have visited you at the WALL in D.C. Will always remember you as a good looking young man with a good heart and a wild side that drew we young men to you. But when it comes to the bands that make up the Big Four of grunge, none ever unleashed an album as monolithic and downright harrowing as Alice in Chains' 1992 masterpiece, Dirt. He went to live with his mother and grandmother in Tacoma, Washington. According toRevolver, things weren't much better when they were in the studio. We lived in the same house and partied together and drank as much as each other. They did some drinking, but there were no drugs. In 1996,Rolling Stonedid a powerfulinterview with Cantrell and Layne Staley (Alice in Chains' heroin-addicted frontman, who eventually overdosed and died in 2002)where Cantrellsaid, "My dad was trained to be a f*@!ing killer After that, you can't just come back home and say, 'OK, everything's cool. "He just made that up on the spot," Carlstrom recalled. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Parrott's addiction resulted in fatal bacterial endocarditis, and Staley took the news of her passing extremely hard. Is rooster by Alice in Chains about Vietnam? He also has a solo career, having released the albums Boggy Depot in 1998 and Degradation Trip Volumes 1 & 2 in 2002. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. We were driving down Hollywood Boulevard, so I pointed to one called the Tropicana." "Rooster" was the name that he went by in Vietnam. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. He bad mouthed the wrong person and was immortalized in this song. Friends recalled that Cantrell fell into depression and became a completely different person after losing both his mother and grandmother within a short span of time. The band had their last full tour with Staley in 1993, when they were co-headlining Lollapalooza. The song was written as a tribute to his fathers experience in Vietnam and I'm thinking that the lyrics "they've come to snuff the rooster" and "you know he ain't gonna die" relate to his father facing death constantly in Vietnam, and his will to live. "We never looked at it as a part of somebody is replaceable, because Layne Staley is not replaceable, Mike Starr is not replaceable," Cantrell said. So the song Rooster has a deeper meaning then what comes across to most people. And he's crying and punching me in the face. Would love to have any photo's for Cantrell or Gambill. In the lyrics to the album's title track Staley sings about being covered with dirt. His maternal grandmother, Dorothy Krumpos, died of cancer in October 1986, and his mother Gloria died of pancreatic cancer at age 43 in April 1987, when Cantrell was 21 years old. Required fields are marked *. Fortunately for Kinney, the producer, Dave Jerden, didn't feel that Gilmore could capture the Alice in Chains drum sound, so the band took a little while off but not enough for Kinney's hand to heal. Rooster was also a nickname for M60 machine gunners because the muzzle flash looked like a roosters tail. However, as Rolling Stone notes, poor Staley was hardly the only member of the band to struggle with addiction. Cantrell was born in Tacoma, Washington, on March 18, 1966, to Gloria Jean Krumpos and Jerry Fulton Cantrell. On the same topic, Cantrell also mentioned that he inherited his love of music from his mother, who seems to have supported him throughout his journey. There's a reason why Staley is wearing sunglasses in the "Rooster" video Also talk to infantry soldiers, not POG's about this kind of shit. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. "At first I was dumbfounded," Staley told Rolling Stone. He named the brooding, dark song "Rooster"after his dad's old nickname, and Cantrell Sr. was so fond of the end result that he agreed to appear in the music video. Jerry Fulton Cantrell Sr., nickname "Rooster,"was a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Jerry Cantrell Jerry Cantrell was born in Tacoma, WA, on March 18 1966. The Rooster was his fathers nickname. He was totally cool, totally calm, accepted it all, and had a good time doing it. Starr's life proved to be a hard one, as he found it difficult to shake his addiction. After Staley's death in 2002, Cantrell took the role of Alice in Chains' lead singer on most of the songs from the band's post-Staley albums, Black Gives Way to Blue , The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here and Rainier Fog , with DuVall harmonizing with him in the new songs and singing Staley's vocals in the old songs in live concerts. That sh!t scars you forever. Cantrell Sr. served two combat tours in Vietnam, and also appears in the music video talking about his war experiences. What is the meaning of the song Rooster by Jerry Cantrell? I had talked to my grandpa a Vietnam Vet And he actually told me a lot about how this song moved him. He was back there with his big gray Stetson and his cowboy boots hes a total Oklahoma man and at the end, he took his hat off and just held it in the air. It would be interesting to know IF the writers father was in the 101st? Definitely a song about a different time with that old familiar tired song about war. '", 2. Layne's response? How do I get Cantrell-1111 to be for my gedcom ancestor? This form needs Javascript to display, which your browser doesn't support. 5 Why did Alice in Chains call their first album Dirt? 2023 Audacy, Inc. All rights reserved. "I said, 'God, you look like a badass in those sunglasses.' Layne Staley said that Starr left because he didn't want to keep up with the band's hectic touring and press schedule, while Starr later said that he was straight up fired because of his addiction issues. document.write('
');var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; Soon after the release of Dirt, the singer spent several of his band's fall 1992 dates opening for Ozzy Osbourne confined to a wheelchair, after a mishap on an all-terrain vehicle backstage at a show in Oklahoma City resulted in him riding over his own foot. he ruled supreme over his little empire, and thought no one could touch him. "Don't film down there," Rachtman warned the cameraman at one point. However, after recording just one song, Cantrell started experiencing excruciating pain in his arm, which he described feeling "like an icepick in your joint." About The comment that anti-war protesters did not spit on soldiers. Alice in Chains and Starr parted ways in 1993. From drugs, firings and broken bones to mayhem of L.A. riots, Alice in Chains' Layne Staley (left) and Jerry Cantrell, San Jose, California, April 11, 1993, photograph by Tim Mosenfelder / Getty Images. 'I remember staying up all night and writing that song,' the guitarist said. Rooster was the name that he went by in Vietnam. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. In Greg Prato's book, Grunge Is Dead:The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music, Cantrell says that the losses happened within a span of six months or so, leading him to a situation where he had no immediate family(apparently, at that point his dad didn't count). POPNABLE usa, EN AF AM AR AZ BE BG BN CA CO CS CY DA DE EL EO ES ET EU FA FI FR FY GA GD GL GU HA HI HR HU HY ID IS IT IW JA YI JW KA KK KM KN KO KU LA LT LV MG MI MK ML MN MR MS MT MY NE NL NO PA PL PS PT RO RU RW SD SK SL SM SN SO SQ SR ST SU SV SW TA TE TG TH TK TR TT UK UR UZ VI XH YO ZH-CN ZU BS CEB NY HAW SI UG LB HT ZH-TW.