William DuVall, frontman for the iconic band ALICE IN CHAINS, will release his second solo album, “11.12.21 Live-In-Studio Nashville”, on June 10 via DVL Recordings. The effort captures an explosive power trio performance recorded live direct-to-disc at the famed Welcome To 1979 Studio in Nashville on November 12, 2021. No “fixing” or remixing took place after the fact whatsoever. It’s as supercharged, raw, and exciting as it gets. The CD is housed in a beautiful six-panel gatefold digipak. The first 500 copies are autographed by DuVall.
DuVall spoke about the making of “11.12.21 Live-In-Studio Nashville” while sitting backstage at the Academy Green Room in Dublin, Ireland where his European solo tour opened on April 25 after two and a half years of postponements. William said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It’s a live-in-the-studio record, so it’s not like I went into the studio for a month — it was more like I went into the studio for an evening, and we cut it live there straight to lacquer, which means that you’re cutting straight into the plastic disc that’s going to be used to make your LP. So there’s no fixing of any kind that can be done; it’s simply not possible. What you play is what you get. It’s essentially like doing a live radio broadcast or television broadcast, only with the added technical pressure of someone having to cut a needle into the lacquer live while you’re playing. So if anyone messes up — whether it’s the lacquer-cutting engineer, the recording engineer or the musicians — everyone has to start over.”
“11.12.21 Live-In-Studio Nashville” track listing:
01. The Last Light
02. The 3 Wishes
03. Unbreakable
04. Fire Come Down
05. Rockslide
06. So Divine
07. White Hot
08. Flying Blind
The official music video for “Rockslide” from “11.12.21 Live-In-Studio Nashville” can be seen below. The visual was assembled by Roger Okamato from photos taken at the live album recording session by Madison Thorn.
William‘s critically acclaimed debut solo effort, “One Alone”, arrived in October 2019. The 11-track album showed DuVall‘s powerful voice with nothing but an acoustic guitar to back it.
In contrast to the multi-layered sonic assault, comprising most of his discography, “One Alone” was as sparse and intimate as it gets — part late-night confessional, part living room concert. As William described it at the time: “I felt the need to peel everything back. This album is strictly one voice, one guitar. It reveals the very core of who I am as a singer, guitarist, and songwriter.”
Three years ago, DuVall told Q104.3‘s “Out Of The Box” that he didn’t decided to make an album until he had already recorded the first track, “‘Til The Light Guides Me Home”. “I had written it with the possible intention of giving it to someone else, and when I first [had the song idea], it was playing like a record in my head,” he explained. “It was one of those [quick] songs. … It is what we live for, and it doesn’t happen nearly often enough. But when it does, you just go, ‘Okay, I’m in.’ And you just let it happen — get out of your own way.”
The initial recording session saw DuVall demoing seven more tunes, all of which ended up on the “One Alone” album.
Prior to joining ALICE IN CHAINS in 2006, DuVall was a member of punk rock bands AWARENESS VOID OF CHAOS, NEON CHRIST, BL’AST! and FINAL OFFERING. DuVall‘s long musical history also includes COMES WITH THE FALL and ALICE IN CHAINS guitarist Jerry Cantrell‘s solo work.
Cantrell befriended the members of COMES WITH THE FALL in the early 2000s, playing shows with the band on the West Coast, then enlisting the musicians to tour with him as both opening act and backing group in support of his album “Degradation Trip”.
DuVall appears on the last three ALICE IN CHAINS albums: 2009’s “Black Gives Way To Blue”, 2013’s “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” and 2018’s “Rainier Fog”.