River of Deceit – Mad Season

Oh what could have been. When you take Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, John Saunders of The Walkabouts, Barret Martin of Screaming trees, and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, arguable the greatest vocalist of the 90’s grunge movement, and throw them in a studio, you get Mad Season. Born out of a rehab stint by McCready (guitar) and Saunders (bass), they were soon joined by Martin on the drums in 1994. McCready recruited his friend Layne Staley to sing, with the underlying idea that Layne being around and working with three sober (at the time) musicians would encourage his own sobriety. After recording their only album (in about 7 days) the band played some shows before going on an unofficial hiatus to go back to their respective bands. Unfortunately in 1999, John Saunders passed away from a heroin overdose, and in 2002, Layne Staley went out the same way. In 2015, McCready and Martin played the album in its featuring Duff McKagan on bass and Chris Cornell on vocals, with the Seattle Symphony. The performance was released later that year as Sonic Evolution / January 30, 2015 / Benaroya Hall.

River of Deceit, the supergroups most well known is also, in my opinion, their best. It feels the most personal and introspective, which is saying something, as I think the whole album is a very introspective piece. Writing credits are attributed to the entire group, but I have to think that these are Layne’s words. With different instrumentation, this could easily be an Alice in Chains song. I think what made Layne’s lyrics with AiC so special was how personal they were, almost like looking into his mind, the good, the bad, and everything in between. With River of Deceit, he is able to pull this off again. I think what makes this whole album/project so cool is you can really Layne’s dark lyrical style paired with McCready’s more relaxed/Hendrix influenced guitar playing. It really comes out on this song in particular.

Link to song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm72DPJCX58

Link to live performance – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StqioKCPqF8

Link to live with Chris Cornell (there is way better quality audio on streaming platforms) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJf_-H9ZxUA