After 35 years as a "band guy," Alice in Chains' William DuVall finally goes solo with 'One Alone'

Dvl RecordingsThirty-five years into his career, Alice in Chains vocalist/guitarist William DuVall is finally striking out on his own with his debut solo album, One Alone. As it turns out, the album essentially happened by accident.

As DuVall tells ABC Audio, he had originally written what became the first track and lead single for One Alone, “Til the Light Guides Me Home,” for another artist. However, things changed when he went to a studio to record a demo for the song.

“Once the engineer and I heard it back, we were, like, ‘Whoa, man, that’s…I don’t know, you might wanna rethink giving that away,'” DuVall recalls.

Since the demo didn’t take much time to record, and everything in the studio was already set up, DuVall decided to lay down a few more tracks. He left with a total of eight songs recorded, and eventually came up with enough for an album.

While One Alone came together pretty naturally, the concept of “going solo” was a major hurdle for DuVall mentally, and caused something of an identity crisis.

“I’ve always been in bands,” DuVall says. “I [was] a band guy from the time I was a teenager. I believe in the band as a unit, as a family unit as much as a musical unit.”

Eventually, DuVall was able to overcome that “psychological leap” as One Alone took shape as an entirely solo work of art, featuring just his voice and an acoustic guitar.

“It wouldn’t have felt authentic to give this some sort of a band moniker,” DuVall says. “I just thought, this is what it is, so let’s just call it what it is: William DuVall, One Alone.”

One Alone is out now.