William Duvall

THE ALICE IN CHAINS MAN LEAVES THE AMP ON STANDBY FOR HIS DEBUT SOLO ALBUM, ONE ALONE, AND STRIPS HIS SONGWRITING BACK TO THE BASICS

- Jonathan Horsley

William DuVall is not one to overthink the business of songwriting. The Alice In Chains frontman’s debut solo album, One Alone, takes a deep dive into themes most personal to him, catching him in a moment of unplugged reflection, but it was conceived right in the moment. It is as though to do otherwise, and fastidiously map his compositions out, might choke the life out of the whole enterprise.

“With Alice, there might be a little more forethought,” he explains. “But that is just the nature of that band. We have got two singers that we are having to deal with, all these harmonies, all these layers, and all this stuff. That does require a bit more thought. But, yeah, for my own music, it is totally, totally instinctive.”

Even the tracks that had been written and recorded with his previous band Comes With The Fall had that same instinctive vigour willing them into being; tracks such as White Hot, which he shared with his bandmates a few moments before the red light went on the studio. When DuVall came to track