William DuVall

An American songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and powerhouse singer, William DuVall began his career in the early '80s fronting the influential punk rock outfit Neon Christ. In the late '90s he co-founded the Atlanta-based hard rock/heavy metal group Comes with the Fall, and in 2006 he became the co-vocalist for grunge legends Alice in Chains, with whom he has recorded three albums, including 2018's Rainier Fog. In 2019, he released his first solo album, One Alone. DuVall was raised born and raised in Washington, D.C. but moved to Atlanta when he was 14. While his earliest influence was Jimi Hendrix, it was the burgeoning Atlanta punk and hardcore scene that would serve as his training grounds. His first band, Awareness Void of Chaos, was short-lived, as was the fleeting yet seminal Neon Christ, who had ties to contemporary hardcore acts Corrosion of Conformity and Bl'ast, and released two authoritative albums before calling it quits in 1986. DuVall enjoyed a short stint with Bl'ast shortly after Neon Christ's dissolution but eventually formed a new band, Final Offering, in 1987. The following year saw him team up with Hank Schroy (bass guitar) and Matthew Cowley (drums) for the Jimi Hendrix-inspired power trio No Walls, who released one album, 1992's Full Moon, under the tutelage of Living Color guitarist and songwriter Vernon Reid. DuVall won an ASCAP Pop Music Award in 1996 for co-writing the Grammy-nominated song "I Know" for Dionne Farris, and that same year he formed the glam rock outfit Madfly alongside Nico Constantine (guitar), Jeffrey Blount (bass guitar), and Bevan Davies (drums). The band issued two studio albums, Get the Silver (1996) and White Hot in the Black (1998), before changing their name to Comes with the Fall in 1999 after the departure of Blount. With Adam Stanger taking over bass duties, the newly minted band released their eponymous debut in 2000, followed by The Year Is One in 2001. They joined Alice in Chains founder Jerry Cantrell's solo band on the road in 2001 and 2002, and DuVall was asked to perform the vocal parts on the Alice in Chains songs that were previously sung by Layne Staley, who'd died of a drug overdose on in April of 2002. In 2006, Cantrell offered DuVall a full-time job with the newly re-formed Alice in Chains and made his first public appearance with the group at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart. This new iteration of the group would last longer than the original, issuing three new studio albums (Black Gives Way to Blue, 2009, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, 2013, and Rainier Fog, 2018) and mounting successful tours both at home and abroad. In 2016, DuVall teamed up with guitarist Ben Weinman of the Dillinger Escape Plan, guitarist Brent Hinds of Mastodon, drummer Thomas Pridgen of the Mars Volta, and bassist Wielbert Collinson of Dethklok for the hard rock/progressive metal supergroup Giraffe Tongue Orchestra, and released the studio LP Broken Lines. October 2019 saw DuVall release his very first solo album, One Alone, which was issued through his own DVL label. ~ James Christopher Monger