 Local promoter Randy Hauser became aware of the band at a concert and offered to pay for demo recordings . However , one day before the band was due to record at the Music Bank studio in Washington , police shut down the studio during the biggest cannabis raid in the history of the state . The final demo , completed in 1988 , was named The Treehouse Tapes and found its way to the music managers Kelly Curtis and Susan Silver , who also managed the Seattle @-@ based band Soundgarden . Curtis and Silver passed the demo on to Columbia Records ' A & R representative Nick <unk> , who set up an appointment with label president Don <unk> . Based on The Treehouse Tapes , <unk> signed Alice in Chains to Columbia in 1989 . The band also recorded another untitled demo over a three @-@ month period in 1989 . This recording can be found on the bootleg release Sweet Alice . 
