Here's a fun fact – Alice in Chains' current vocalist and William DuVall and world famous drag queen RuPaul came up in the same Atlanta underground scene. DuVall revealed as much during a recent interview with Metal Hammer.
DuVall noted that his hardcore punk band, Neon Christ, would play at any Atlanta club that would have them in the mid-80s, and one of the clubs was the local LGBTQ+ venue The Celebrity Club, which also hosted drag shows.
“We’d play anywhere that would have us," DuVall told Metal Hammer. “Our gigs at the Celebrity Club would have different countercultural mixes: you’d have the punk rockers coming to see us and mixing with gay crowd and the drag crowd. Everybody was: ‘Hey, we like high energy music’, and we were so committed to our thing. I think people recognize that level of commitment no matter where you're coming from. And RuPaul was part of that scene.”
RuPaul was a DIY promoter just like the punks were. In fact, DuVall says he even asked Ru for some tips.
"[He was] a really industrious guy at a really young age… just like we were,” stated the musician. "He was promoting himself as a superstar way before anyone knew who he was. He was plastering his flyers all around the city – we were wondering what kind of glue he was using, cause I swear the flyers he put up in 1985 were still there in 1995!"
DuVall said Ru was a fan of the music "I think he recognized something he liked. He would come to our shows – there are tapes of him screaming at us from the audience. We really respected him and think he respected us.”
DuVall added that he would love to reconnect with Ru and share stories of their times in the scene. We would too, and we'd hope a camera was recording.
DuVall's band Neon Christ will have their 1984 recordings released on Record Store Day.
