GRUNGE SINGER LAYNE STALEY; LYRICS OFTEN ABOUT DRUGS

SEATTLE - Layne Staley, 34, lead singer and guitarist for the Seattle
grunge band Alice in Chains, was found dead April 19 in his apartment here.

The King County (Wash.) medical examiner's office did not release the cause
of death.

A Seattle police spokesman said, "It was natural or an overdose - that's
the way it was determined by our investigators."

Police did not immediately release details on what was found at the scene.

With Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, Alice in Chains was one of the
most prominent bands of the Seattle grunge scene of the early 1990s. The
group was known for its dark, menacing sound, which combined grunge and
heavy metal, and often wrote about heroin.

In a 1996 interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Staley spoke of how his drug
use influenced his lyrics.

"I wrote about drugs, and I didn't think I was being unsafe or careless by
writing about them," he told the magazine. "Here's how my thinking pattern
went: When I tried drugs, they were [expletive] great, and they worked for
me for years, and now they're turning against me - and now I'm walking
through hell."

The group's first album, "Facelift," was released in 1990. It later
released "Dirt" and "Alice in Chains." The group's hits included "Man in
the Box," "Them Bones," "Rooster" and "Would?"

The latter song was partly inspired by the 1990 heroin overdose death of
Andrew Wood, singer of the seminal grunge group Mother Love Bone.

Mr. Staley's body was found about eight years after Nirvana singer and
guitarist Kurt Cobain was found dead in his Seattle home of a
self-inflicted gunshot wound. Heroin was found in Cobain's bloodstream.

In the 1996 interview, Mr. Staley reflected on Cobain's death: "I saw all
the suffering that Kurt Cobain went through. I didn't know him real well,
but I just saw this real vibrant person turn into a real shy, timid,
withdrawn person who could hardly get a 'hello' out. . . . At the end of
the day or at the end of the party, when everyone goes home, you're stuck
with yourself."

Mr. Staley was born in Kirkland, Wash. He started playing the drums when he
was 12. He played the drums and sang in glam bands around Seattle before
focusing on vocals. In one of his early bands, the group dressed in women's
clothing and gave out condoms.

With Alice in Chains, he designed and illustrated the group's CD covers and
inside booklets.