ALICE IN CHAINS Singer's Legacy Lives On Through Music

Tom Scanlon of the Seattle Times reports: As a teen, he was known to his friends as Layne Elmer, as he took his stepfather's last name in high school. He went back to his birth name of Staley when he started a rock career that rocketed him far beyond Lynnwood.

In 2006, Nancy McCallum represented her son by attending Layne's 20th high-school reunion, at Meadowdale High School. She introduced herself to people and had conversations with some of Layne's old friends — who were astonished to learn he had become the lead singer of ALICE IN CHAINS.

"They said 'Layne Staley was Layne Elmer? He was the quietest boy in our class!' They were shocked."

In a phone interview, his mother painted the picture of an artistic, introspective young man. Her Layne was a somewhat indifferent student, excelling in classes he liked, not bothering with homework in subjects that bored him.

"He was one of the shortest boys in his class, until his sophomore or junior year in high school. In his junior year he had pretty much lost interest in school — he'd been picked on because he was small, so he was really through with the scene. I presented the option to quit school — he was old enough that he didn't have to be in school, he could work on his hobbies and projects and have a part-time job. He had just gone through a growth spurt, going from being the shortest boy in class to being 6 feet tall — and he had always wanted to be 6 feet tall. He said, 'The girls have started to notice me.' He chose to stay in school.

"He got in trouble doing things kids do. He dabbled in trying drugs, about the age 13 or 14. Then his junior and senior years he stayed drug-free, and he was the happiest then."

Was it just pot at 13 and 14, or stronger drugs?

"Whatever they find on the playground," McCallum answered. "You say 'just pot,' but it's disgusting to me. Pot is not a benign drug, it's illegal for a very good reason. It's an asymptomatic drug in that people lose their vigor to complete their work.

"I had no preparation for that, because my family didn't do drugs at all, even medical or over-the-counter. At school Layne was around people who were using pot — I don't know if anything else was involved. My husband and I didn't drink, so we didn't have alcohol around."

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