While history remembers him as a tortured lyricist, brooding singer-songwriter and captivating performer, Layne Stayley's friends remember the late Alice in Chains frontman for his laughter. "He lived for humor," remembered AIC bassist Mike Inez in a 2013 tribute. "The main thing for me was just his laugh. You could hear it all the way across the room, and there was just, like, realness to it." That playful wit is on full display during a brief interaction Staley once had with an interviewer, in which he finished the conversation by leaping into a hilariously on-point impersonation of Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine.
While the actual interview segment is most likely taken from an episode of Headbangers Ball, one savvy YouTuber cut the footage of Staley singing the "Symphony of Destruction" lyrics, "Watch him become a god," in Mustaine's high-pitched shrill and pasted it right after Mustaine reciting the lines himself onstage. The back-to-back is perfectly timed and Staley's impersonation is hysterically accurate. Watch and laugh above via YouTube.
