Layne Staley, his amazing hair, and his date attending the Shorewood High School prom, 1986
 
Now here’s something you don’t see every day. The video below of Layne Staley (the late vocalist of Alice in Chains) performing with his band Sleze was shot in 1985 at Lakeside High in Seattle. It was one of many local high school gigs the band would perform, fully two years before Alice in Chains would come to be.

According to Johnny Bacolas, the founding member and guitar player of Sleze who uploaded the video, the band mostly stuck to playing cover versions of Slayer and Armored Saint songs. As a matter of fact, the video captures Staley looking rather glam in a ripped-up shirt and striped blazer, while banging out Armored Saint’s 1984 knuckle cracker, “False Alarm.” The drummer (James Bergstrom) is wearing dark lipstick and a choker, and the bass player (Chris Markham) is shirtless and wearing striped spandex pants and some sort of skirt made out of what looks like plastic. It’s first-rate, car-crashy heavy metal goodness.
 

Layne Staley on stage with Sleze, 1985/1986
 
Sleze never played many clubs due to the then-recent passage of the notoriously awful Teen Dance Ordinance, which made it nearly impossible for clubs to accommodate underage clientele (the law was repealed in 2002), so most of Sleze’s gigs took place at local high schools. Despite the fact that Staley didn’t actually go to Lakeside (He went to Meadowdale in Lynnwood, about fifteen miles away from Seattle), it’s still a pretty incredible snapshot into the past life of the greatest grunge-era vocalist ever.

How could this get any better? Maybe the fact that the name Armored Saint is spelled “Armoured Saint” on the bottom of the screen? How fucking adorable. Oh, high school…. how I miss being high in high school.

Full disclosure: The video sadly cuts off just as Sleze breaks into an excellent jam called “Burning Star,” a song recorded in 1984 by the Texas metal band Helstar. To make up for that, I included a quick clip of Staley and Sleze in action in the straight to Seattle Public Access TV cable movie, Father Rock. Also, the audio isn’t the best, but it’s still a must-watch.
 

 
Sleze performing “False Alarm” on June 4, 1985, at Lakeside High School in Seattle, Washington
 

Layne Staley and Sleze and their huge hair making their “acting” debut in Father Rock

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Watch a teenage Mike Patton and pals at Mr. Bungle’s high school talent show
Teen Ween you’ve never seen: Another cult band’s high school talent show