(Follow Up Report)

Written by: Ginny Gaines  

When November 11, 2025 rolled around, fans of Alice In Chains were surprised by something they never expected to see, a brand-new book built from the private journals and artwork of the band’s late singer, Layne Staley. The book was titled "This Angry Pen of Mine". The recovering of the Journals of Layne Staley, and it hit like a lightning bolt across the rock world. The story of how this book came together feels almost like someone found a treasure chest filled with Layne’s personal writings, scribbled lyrics, half-finished thoughts, poems, drawings, that sat quietly with his family. These weren’t polished pieces meant for the world. They were the raw scraps of a gifted but troubled artist who mostly kept his deepest feelings close to the chest.

Eventually, Layne’s family decided it was time. They teamed up with publishers who promised to handle the material with care, and they assembled everything into a single volume. His mother, Nancy McCallum, even wrote the foreword, sharing memories of the son she knew beyond the music videos and the headlines. She wanted people to see Layne as the multi-layered, thoughtful person he truly was.

The book itself feels more like an art journal than a traditional biography. With each page, you get something different, handwritten lyrics, doodles, personal notes, sketches, old photos, and even pages where Layne experimented with visual ideas that never became songs. It’s messy in the way real creativity is, but it’s intimate in a personal way that notebooks always are.

Soon after it came out, the book took off. Fans and collectors rushed to get their copies, and within its first week, stores were already reporting it as a bestseller. Music websites, magazines, and critics all covered it, some praising it as a rare window into a private mind, others questioning whether Layne would have wanted these deeply personal pages out in the world. But even that debate showed just how much his voice still matters to people, nearly two decades after his passing. One thing everyone agreed on was how powerful it was to see Layne’s own handwriting again and to see the ideas that lived in his head before they ever became iconic songs.

A portion of the book’s earnings has been directed toward the Layne Staley Memorial Fund, a charity created by his parents to support addiction recovery programs in Seattle. That piece of the story mattered to them, because Layne’s struggles were neither a secret nor something they wanted to be remembered only as tragedy. They hoped the book could do some good while also showing the vulnerable, creative heart behind the music.

Of course, there were bumps along the way. Some fans noticed small mistakes in early copies, metadata issues or odd phrasing that didn’t feel right. And plenty of people wondered how much was actually from Layne’s journals versus how much was curated after his passing. Still, the consensus was that the project came from a place of love, especially with the family so involved. In the end, "This Angry Pen of Mine" turned into more than just a book. It became a piece of Layne’s legacy, something that lets fans sit with his words the way you’d sit beside an old friend while they draw, write, think, and try to figure out their place in the world. It’s not a tidy story. It’s not a polished one. But it’s real. And for someone like Layne Staley, real was always the point.

That's a wrap for my follow-up on "Layne Stayley's Lost Journals" book release ...Thank you for reading and in closing, please just know, Soundwave Music Media will be here and I will always do my best to bring you the rock music report! Please consider supporting me and the crew by purchasing a Soundwave shirt or hat and support our sponsors! Rock On! Until next time...🤘

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