Alice in Chains begins tour

Detroit: Alice in Chains are returning to the road next week as headliners of a triple bill featuring fellow rockers Deftones and Mastodon.

The BlackDiamondSkye arena trek -- which takes its name from the groups` latest albums -- kicks off September 16 in Chicago, and runs through October 16 in Las Vegas. Highlights include a September 24 stop at New York`s Madison Square Garden, and a hometown gig at Seattle`s Key Arena on October 8. "One of the things that`s great about this tour is every band has their own style, their own flavour, but the bill somehow meshes very well," said Alice singer/guitarist William DuVall, who replaced late frontman Layne Staley in 2006. The new-look band has not yet made plans to record a follow-up to 2009`s "Black Gives Way to Blue," its first new release in 14 years. But DuVall indicated it was just a matter of time. He said "there`s plenty of riffs flying around," usually from impromptu sessions on the tour bus or in dressing rooms and sound checks before concerts. "That was the case when we first started back up," DuVall explained. "We would just stockpile these fragments, and then some time later we would sift through the mountain of stuff, and that`s what became `Black Gives Way to Blue.`" That album debuted at No. 5 on the U.S. pop chart last October, and yielded a hard rock Grammy nomination. Bureau Report