He BARELY Knew His Father. So He Wrote HIS WAR

The story of the Alice in Chains 1992 hit ‘Rooster’ from their sophomore release Dirt.

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This Remembrance and Veterans Day, we dig into the true story behind “Rooster,” the Alice in Chains song Jerry Cantrell wrote about his father, Jerry Cantrell Sr., a U.S. Army soldier who served two tours in Vietnam and came home a stranger to his own son.

Cantrell’s earliest memory is being introduced to his dad. He was about three years old. His father never talked about the war, and when Jerry finally asked, he got one line: “That’s dead, son, let it lie.” His parents split when he was still a kid, and Jerry grew up near Tacoma, Washington, angry at the man who wasn’t there.

Then, in 1991, sleeping in a tiny room at Chris Cornell and Susan Silver’s place in West Seattle, Cantrell tried something different. Instead of writing about his father, he wrote as his father. The result was “Rooster,” a six-minute trip into the Vietnam jungle, built entirely from imagination, about a man nobody back home wanted to hear from.

We break down the lyrics line by line, from “Ain’t found a way to kill me yet” to the malaria pills, the letters home and the hidden reference to Cantrell’s mother, Gloria. We cover the song’s earliest live performance at Seattle’s Off Ramp Café, the Singles movie session at London Bridge Studio that quietly produced the first demo, and the Dirt sessions in Los Angeles with producer Dave Jerden.

Then comes the night Cantrell played it for his dad. Alice in Chains were opening for Iggy Pop, and Jerry Sr. stood at the back of the club in a grey Stetson and cowboy boots, crying the whole time. When his son asked if he’d got it right, his answer was three words: “You got too close.”

We also go inside the “Rooster” music video directed by Mark Pellington, filmed with Vietnam veteran Dale Dye as military adviser, and the 45-minute on-camera interview where Jerry Sr. finally talked about the war. It was also original bassist Mike Starr’s final video with the band.

Finally, we follow how “Rooster” became an unofficial anthem for soldiers from Vietnam to Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan, why troops facing an enemy they couldn’t see heard their own war in it, and how the song brought a father and son back together, all the way to Jerry Sr. walking on stage to introduce it himself.

Along the way, we look at the ranch the two Jerrys built together in Oklahoma, the publishing company Cantrell named Rooster’s Son, and the 2007 show at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa where Jerry Sr. joined the band on stage. It’s a story about war, but it’s also a story about a son finally hearing his father, and a father finally being heard.

Lest we forget.

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Written by Rock N' Roll True Stories