 Although Alice in Chains has been labeled grunge by the mainstream media , Jerry Cantrell identifies the band as primarily heavy metal . He told Guitar World in 1996 , " We 're a lot of different things ... I don 't quite know what the mixture is , but there 's definitely metal , blues , rock and roll , maybe a touch of punk . The metal part will never leave , and I never want it to " . The Edmonton Journal has stated , " Living and playing in Seattle might have got them the grunge tag , but they 've always pretty much been a classic metal band to the core . " Over the course of their career , the band 's sound has also been described as alternative metal , sludge metal , <unk> metal , drone rock , hard rock , and alternative rock . Regarding the band 's constant categorization by the media , Cantrell stated " When we first came out we were metal . Then we started being called alternative metal . Then grunge came out and then we were hard rock . And now , since we 've started doing this again I 've seen us listed as : hard rock , alternative , alternative metal and just straight metal . I walked into an HMV the other day to check out the placement and see what 's on and they 've got us relegated back into the metal section . Right back where we started ! " . According to Mike Inez , they were always the metal <unk> of the Seattle scene . 
