Metal Allegiance + Alice In Chains

“It’s one of those things that kind of came out of the blue for me. I just sort of got this call and it was a pleasant surprise.”

On Tuesday (Jan. 13), William DuVall joined Loudwire Nights to dive into how he ended up singing on Metal Allegiance‘s new song, “Black Horizon,” their first new song in eight years.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

“They sent the music and I really dug it,” he told Loudwire Nights host Chuck Armstrong.

“And then the challenge became what to say over this. That’s one of those pieces of music, it’s got a lot of shifts in mood and tone and pacing and all of that, so it kind of brought me back to my GTO days, you know, Giraffe Tongue Orchestra.”

Though he sat with it and spent time thinking through the lyrics, he shared that there were a couple things that were immediately clear.

“The title came to me almost instantly,” DuVall said.

“And then the concept, the narrative thread of that lyric, the kind of direction came instantly.”

From there, he needed to finish the rest of the song.

“[It was] trying to figure out each section and kind of making it, just trying to maximize each section,” he explained.

“The initial idea came rather quickly, but then fleshing it out took a bit of time. But I’m really pleased with the outcome.”

William DuVall Reflects on His 20 Years in Alice In Chains

When Chuck brought up the fact that 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of when DuVall first sang with Alice In Chains, the singer and guitarist seemed to be kind of floored by the passage of two decades.

“That’s a bit of time, isn’t it,” he said.

“In some ways, it seems like it’s been a few months and in other ways, it seems like it’s been 40 years. Time is strange like that. It’s like two minutes and then it’s also five lifetimes. And I don’t really know how to reconcile that.”

As he wrestled with the idea of 20 years passing by, DuVall was clear in his gratitude for what he and Alice In Chains have done.

“It makes so many people happy,” DuVall shared.

“I mean, it might sound corny or trite to say, but that’s actually something I don’t take lightly at all, that we’ve been able to go around and bring so much happiness and catharsis and maybe a sense of togetherness — letting people kind of feel a little less isolated in whatever they’re going through. That’s a huge honor to me that we’ve been able to do that for this long.”

Though he wasn’t speaking for his bandmates, he admitted this journey of Alice In Chains is something they’ll be thinking about for a long time.

“In some ways, we’ll be kind of processing this whole thing for the rest of our lives,” he said.

“It’s been crazy, man. The tall order that it was, the fact that we filled it or had the gumption to say we were going to fill it. But here we are. I’m glad about it. I really am. I’m glad everybody’s still here. I’m glad the folks have stuck with us.”

What Else Did Alice In Chains’ William DuVall Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

What the future of Alice In Chains’ music looks like: “I don’t know. I mean, we’ll have to, we’ll just have to see, you know? We’ll get together at some point I’m sure and see what’s going on.”
What it was like being part of Back to the Beginning and paying tribute to Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne: “An amazing, unique experience. I know we’re never going to see anything like that again because it brought together so many different eras on one stage for one reason … And the fact that you had so many bands there that are so used to kind of controlling our own environments and yet, there wasn’t one flash of that kind of showboating or ego or backstage power play stuff — we were all just fans … Up there on the raised platform on the side of the stage, watching the original four of Black Sabbath for the last time — I’m standing there side by side with James Hetfield and then Maynard [James Keenan] to the right of me and Phil Anselmo is over here and we’re all just crowded together up there, screaming like we’re 12, 13 years old at our first gig. There’s not many circumstances that are going to bring that out of us, out of people who’ve been doing this for so long.”
Working with Chained Saint: “I think at some point sooner than later, it’ll be time for us to get together again and see where they are. They’re in that early stage, blooming phase and they’re really trying to learn how to do this, how to be a band, how to deliver under pressure, how to be songwriters, how to be professionals on stage … This is a rapid growth period.”