RANK IN 2014: #42 (+38)
FIRST SONG: Man In The Box (1990)
FAVORITE SONG: Would? (1992)
FAVORITE MEMORY: Without a doubt
Unkie and I making that last-minute road trip to Houston, Texas to see Jerry on his solo tour. More details on that below.
WHAT MAY HAVE AFFECTED CHANGE IN RANK: Jerry mode.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I have a little game for you guys - if you have any beer or wine or your booze of choice in your fridge, take a shot every time I thirst over Jerry Cantrell in this post. Youâll be shitfaced by the time youâre doing reading this!
So the first time I heard Alice In Chains was back in early 2006. I was listening to a 90âs rock station on Launch, and âMan In The Boxâ came on. Immediately I thought it was a total f*cking banger. After that I heard a few other songs around that time like âNo Excusesâ and âRoosterâ. I liked those a lot as well, but for some reason I didnât go in depth with their catalog at that time. I did get a little more familiar with them a few years later when I started getting into heavy metal because âWould?â was on VH1âs countdown of the greatest hard rock songs of all time. I think I discovered âAngry Chairâ around that same time plus they also had the reunion album, Black Gives Way To Blue. âYour Decisionâ was actually the first song to go to #1 on my chart in the 2010âs! The more I heard from them, the more I really started appreciating them. I also started appreciating them more when I started getting into Soundgarden (more on that very soon in this thread). I definitely considered Alice In Chains a more minor core artist, but then came a little thing called âJerry mode.â For those who are not in the Messenger chat, the Jerry mode era probably seemed random as hell to you, so now I will provide all of the details that caused Alice In Chains to jump up a whopping 38 SPOTS from my 2014 list.
It was December 2020 â I was the host of the M4B Radio Top 40, and I was reading a story I believe right before Nancy Wilsonâs cover of Bruce Springsteenâs âThe Risingâ. The story was about how Ann and Nancy as well as many other artists like members of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Metallica, etc. were going to be on an Alice In Chains MoPOP special that was going to be on YouTube, and I remember when I was reading about it I was like damn this sounds like a really cool show. I ended up watching it (and it was awesome â I believe itâs still on YouTube for anyone who is interested). One of the first things that happened on that special was a âladyâ named Nona Weisbaum congratulated Alice In Chains on their MoPOP award, but it was incredibly obviously that âNonaâ was Jerry Cantrell in drag, and when I saw that I was like um what the actual f*ck lmao. After a quick Google search â since, you know, itâs not every day when you see Jerry Cantrell dressed up like an old lady â I learned that it was a nod to a 1995 home video the band did called The Nona Tapes, where Nona (played by Jerry) interviewed the other three bandmates as they drove around Seattle. Again, the whole thing is on YouTube, and I wanted to check it out but I also did not feeling like sitting down and watching a 30-minute video. So I put it in my âWatch laterâ playlist and figured Iâd get back to it within the next few days. A week later, I started working at the doctorâs office I worked at from 2020 to 2023, and between that, the release of Chris Cornellâs posthumous album No One Sings Like You Anymore a few days later, and rekindling my friendship with
Julian in January 2021, my newfound interest in Alice In Chains was pushed aside⌠but not for very long.
Fast forward to one Sunday in March 2021 â I didnât have anything going on that day. I had some free time on my hands, which didnât happen very often since I started this new job, so I was like you know what let me catch up on my âWatch laterâ playlist on YouTube. The first thing that was on there was The Nona Tapes, still saved on there from when I first added it three months earlier. First off, Jerry as his Nona Weisbaum character is f*cking hilarious. Thereâs so many funny one liners in the whole thing, but there were also clips of the band getting interviewed while they were all hanging out on a couch. There was a scene where Jerry was wearing this black suit looking fine as hell and he was petting Layne Staleyâs cat Sadie (Jerry actually ended up adopting her after Layne passed away in 2002). And of course, there was the part where Jerry goes, âIâM THE MAN IN THE BOX! GET IT?! GET IT?!â
For context, I always thought Jerry Cantrell was extremely attractive. I remember maybe like 15 years ago, I saw him on Heartâs Behind The Music episode talking about Nancy Wilsonâs first solo album, and I remember thinking damn heâs hot.
So yeah, this was absolutely not a new thing. But when I saw Jerry in The Nona Tapes in the scenes where heâs playing himself and not Nona, I developed a SUPER huge celebrity crush on him. I believe the cause of this was because of him looking hot and also seeing him be funny and goofing around. The entire band â especially Jerry â have an awesome sense of humor that makes me really enjoy all of their interviews. But there was just one problem â a problem that I will probably talk about more when I get to a certain artist still to come in the top three. The last time I had a celebrity crush that I gushed over, I was made to feel really bad about it by someone and this person accused me of âthrowing away a friendship Iâve had for more than half of my life over a celebrity fantasy.â Iâm not going to go in depth about the juicy details, but if you want to know more, all I will tell you is to check out my posts in the November 2020 Chit-Chat thread and you will have your answers. Anyway, although this bad seed was no longer in the picture and I havenât even spoken to him since June 2020, I was still suffering PTSD from how awful he was to me, especially near the end of our friendship, so I did something that was very, very, VERY unlike me â I kept quiet about my newfound artist obsession. I did this because I was afraid of drama happening since, you know, when I have a crush on a rock star I am apparently worse than Hitler. So yeah, I was going to try for the first time ever to have a quiet artist obsession. As you can tell from my current avatar and signature, that did not happen.
About a week goes by and I am quietly binging Alice In Chains music and checking out more of their interviews and Jerry interviews and things like that, the only difference is that I am not telling anyone in the chat about it like I usually do. One night after work, I watched some Alice In Chains videos, and something in me just snapped and was like f*ck THIS, THE WORLD MUST KNOW NOW THAT I LOVE JERRY! I went on a HUGE tirade in the Messenger chat about how Iâve been secretly binging Alice In Chains music for a week and havenât told anyone because I was afraid of drama. Off the top of my head, some things I said during this tirade include âIâM READY TO THROW AWAY ANOTHER FRIENDSHIP OVER A CELEBRITY FANTASY BITCH. BRING IT THE f*ck ON!â followed by a photo from the movie Bring It On, âSHUT UP, ICE CREAM BOY!â (which was directed at
Pipa ), and my personal favorite, âI TRIED SO HARD TO BE QUIET ABOUT THIS, BUT THEN I REMEMBERED SOMETHING â IâM f*ckING JESSIELOU BITCH!â So yeah, the cat was out of the bag, to be honest Iâm surprised I was able to be quiet about it for a week, I am notoriously terrible at keeping my thoughts about artists I love (and hate
) inside. But the point is, after that it was all Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, with me. I continued binge watching interviews, live performances, and music videos. I even have on my computer an explicit version of the video for Jerryâs solo single âMy Songâ. All Iâm going to say on that subject is that I like that video very much. đ On a similar subject, I also enjoyed seeing him on Headbangerâs Ball in nothing but a skimpy blue Speedo. Oh man this write-up is gonna get my ass in trouble lmaoooo.
Around this time, I did a Book Club episode on Jerryâs solo career, which to this day is one of my favorite episodes of the series ever. I think all of his solo albums are extremely underrated, ESPECIALLY Degradation Trip. Thatâs definitely my favorite of the three. And then the Brighten era, Christ almighty how iconic was that??? Probably my all-time favorite album era I have witnessed. It was absolute perfection from the very start up to the very end. Leading with âAtoneâ?? What a m*th*rf**k**g GAME CHANGER that was! Still to this day my favorite solo song of his and one of my top 10 favorite songs from him ever. The anticipation for that song was such a moment, because he was hinting at it every day throughout the entire month of July 2021 on his Instagram. Fun fact: my song âLeft On Readâ was written in about half an hour, and the lyrics are me ranting about how impatient I am getting about him releasing his new single. There was no deep meaning behind that song. I wrote an entire album about my emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend, I wrote âThe Unwanted Warâ, a really emotionally draining song that goes in-depth about my friendship breakup with my ex-friend Katie (who some of you may know as âSlutorisâ). Iâve written some very personal stuff. âLeft On Readâ was NOT one of those songs, itâs literally just me 2daying Jerry through song.
After âAtoneâ came out and Jerry suggested a solo tour on his Instagram Q&A, I started what I called the âJerry fund.â
A frequent pattern that Iâve mentioned several times throughout this countdown is that a lot of artists I like tend to skip Florida when they tour. I donât know what the f*ck is in the water, but apparently unless youâre country or rap, thereâs no guarantee youâre coming to Florida. So I decided to create a âJerry fundâ, which was me putting some extra money into my savings account by selling some stuff, mostly clothes, accessories, home goods. I sold stuff on Ebay, Poshmark, and the classifieds at my work, but the place I had the best luck with BY FAR was Facebook Marketplace. Business was especially booming on there! At this time I would wake up and like five Marketplace orders would be placed. It was awesome! And I especially loved that my parents started getting involved in helping me with the Jerry fund too â my Mom would give me books and CDâs she didnât want any more to sell, and my Dad would give me old electronics. Both of them were well aware of my love of Jerry and Alice In Chains. Okay, so maybe they donât know that I wanna bang Jerryâs brains out, but they donât have to know
everything.
Then the tour dates come out, and color me shocked Pikachu face when I see that he has not one but TWO tour dates in Florida! He was planning on coming to Orlando and St. Petersburg.
Unkie and I got tickets to the show in Orlando that was scheduled for April 12, 2022.
I am anticipating this concert for MONTHS. Iâm SO freaking excited for it!
Unkie and I are making plans of things to do in Disney Springs because the show was supposed to be at the House Of Blues there. The closer we got to the date, the more excited I became. And then on April 11, 2022, I got a notification that Jerry made a post on Instagram, I click on it thinking itâs going to be a photo of him on his tour with the comment âSee you tomorrow Orlando!â Unfortunately, I was wrong. His next three shows â Orlando, St. Petersburg, and Atlanta, Georgia â got canceled because he said that someone in his team end up getting COVID. We later found out that it was actually Jerry himself who had it. I was not upset with Jerry at all. Not only did I believe him about COVID, but he only canceled three shows â not f*cking 10 like Adele did. Not to mention,
Unkie and I got a refund on the Orlando show right away, and yet Adele is still holding
Julianâs money hostage, so yeah, f*ck her. Anyway, onto artists who are actually relevant in the world of JessieLou these days, I wasnât upset with Jerry, I was upset that I wasnât gonna get to see him. It was very disappointing. My family knew that I was very upset about this and Iâm not gonna lie, I was pretty depressed about this for a few days. I know thatâs a trivial thing to get upset about, but yâall donât understand how EXCITED I was for this show.
Unkie and I made plans to watch Minnie (our family beagle who is also the sweetest little angel in the world!) that week. Our original plan was after the concert, we were going to go to my parentsâ house and watch Minnie while my parents went on a cruise. During this week when we were watching the baby,
Unkie and I were talking a lot about a possible back-up plan. He suggested going to Jerryâs show in Houston, Texas the following weekend on April 23, 2022. The reason why we did not get tickets right away for that is because we wanted to wait for any other announcements from Jerry to see if he was going to cancel any more shows. We were GLUED to his Instagram that week. The moment he announced that he was feeling better and the tour was back on,
Unkie and I got the tickets and made plans for a last-minute trip to the home of BeyoncĂŠ and Megan Thee Stallion. We were back in business baby!
Unkie and I made a fun road trip out of it. He picked me up from work that Friday evening. We had Chick-Fil-A for dinner, listened to an episode of the M4B Radio Top 40 hosted by
Pipa in the car, grabbed some snacks at Buceeâs (my go-to convenience store snack, of course, are gummy worms). We spent that Friday night at a hotel in Mississippi, which was the halfway point, and then did the rest of the drive from Mississippi to Texas the next day, which also just happened to be Record Store Day. Thanks again to
Julian for finding me the Cranberriesâ Remembering Dolores vinyl as I couldnât find it at any of the record stores in Houston. We spent the afternoon in Houston, other than the record stores we also got a late lunch/early dinner at a really good pizza spot that I donât remember the name of (although Iâm sure
Unkie does
). And then of course that night was the concert.
BEST. CONCERT. EVER. To say that Jerry and his band lived up to my VERY high expectations would be an absolute understatement. Everything was excellent from the way everyone sounded to his voice to the set list. I LOVED that he opened with âAtoneâ. If I had to cherry pick and criticize just
one thing, I do wish he performed âHeaven Beside Youâ, but honestly, no biggie, his setlist was awesome. We got âSea Of Sorrowâ which Alice In Chains hasnât performed since the Facelift era, and the first ever live performance of the Brighten album track that had a major cult following on here, âNobody Breaks Youâ.
Unkie and I both had a fantastic time and it was definitely one of if not my favorite concert memory. Iâm very grateful that
Unkie suggested that last minute road trip and did all of that for me. I have also seen Jerry twice after that with Alice In Chains â
Unkie and I saw them in Phoenix, Arizona on my 30th birthday a few months later in September 2022, and last October
Pipa and I saw them open for Guns Nâ Roses in Vancouver, British Columbia. BUT WAIT, THEREâS MORE! This September for my 32nd birthday, me,
Unkie, and
Pipa will all be seeing Jerry solo again open for Bush. Thank you
Unkie for the early birthday gift!
So yeah, that ended up being one hell of an essay. I think itâs safe to say that I f*cking hate Jerry Cantrell.