Dirt

The debut Facelift sold almost nothing at first, and the band worked its way up from small rooms around Seattle to opening slots for Extreme and Iggy Pop. The turn came when the video for "Man in the Box" got into regular rotation on MTV, and by 1991 they were on the Clash of the Titans tour with Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer. Recording began in the spring of 1992, with Dave Jerden producing again. The sessions ran from April to July at Eldorado Recording Studios in Burbank, London Bridge Studio in Seattle and One on One Studios in Los Angeles. The closing "Would?" is older than the album: Rick Parashar produced, engineered and mixed it beforehand, and it first appeared on the soundtrack to the 1992 film Singles. Most of the songs are Jerry Cantrell's, but "Hate to Feel" and "Angry Chair" were written by Layne Staley alone, who also played the guitar on them. Tom Araya of Slayer sings on "Iron Gland". Depression, pain, anger, heroin, war and death are the subjects, set down plainly. Bassist Mike Starr was dismissed in January 1993 during the tour behind the album, which makes this the last record by the original four. The running order here is the original's as printed.