Rooster by Alice In Chains may have become one of the band's defining tracks, but its meaning was rooted in humble beginnings. When guitarist Jerry Cantrell found himself temporarily homeless at the start of 1991, he turned to a fellow grunge legend for help. “I was between places to live at that time,” Cantrell recalls, “so I moved in with [Soundgarden singer] Chris Cornell and his wife Susan Silver at their house in Seattle. Susan was managing Alice In Chains at the time. I stayed for a few weeks, up in this little room.”
Alone, late at night, Cantrell’s thoughts kept turning to his estranged father, whose psychological scars from his service in the Vietnam War had contributed to the breakdown of the family some years earlier. “That experience in Vietnam changed him forever,” explains Cantrell, “and it certainly had an effect on our family, so I guess it was a defining moment in my life, too.
