Songfacts®:

• The story behind this song is tied to the story behind "Rooster," one of Alice in Chains' biggest hits. Jerry Cantrell was a founding member and primary songwriter in the group. His father, also named Jerry Cantrell, was a Vietnam veteran. The wartime story of his life is the basis of "Rooster."
  
  In "Brother," we hear the story of the elder Cantrell's divorce when his son was seven, and event triggered by the emotional strain of his military service. Cantrell didn't have much of a childhood relationship with his father because of it. He lived with his mother and grandmother in Tacoma, Washington, with a younger brother named David and a younger sister named Cheri.
  
  The family struggled financially, but Cantrell had a clear vision for his future and a willful determination to make it come true. He was still a young kid when, in response to a prompt in the Dr. Seuss book My Book About Me, he wrote that he would be a rock star. His determination paid off but also made him difficult to get along with.
  
  Many musicians found Cantrell too demanding and temperamental to work with. His personality also affected his relationship with David. He could come across as a bully.
  
  His brother David left to live with their biological father, and Jerry didn't see him for several years. Cantrell wrote "Brother" to work through his feelings and create a bridge back to David, just as he later used "Rooster" as a conduit back to his dad.
• In a January 1993 interview, Cantrell told Guitar World that he used songwriting to exorcise his demons. He attributed the deeply personal nature of his songs to Alice in Chains' success. The same observation applies to the rest of the '90s grunge explosion, which changed the music scene through raw sincerity.
• "Brother" was released on Sap, Alice in Chains' second studio EP. Following their double-Platinum debut album Facelift, the EP revealed a different, folkier side to the band. They wanted to show more depth and flexibility. They released the EP with no promotion and let their fans spread the news by word-of-mouth.
• Cantrell's life was marked by ironclad willpower but also loyalty. After earning his first Gold record with Sap, he sent Gold records to his high school choir and drama teachers, two of his earliest supporters. The same loyalty can be seen in "Brother" and "Rooster."
• Jerry Cantrell explained in the the liner notes of the Music Bank box set: "Ours was a divorced family, I was the older brother and we had a sister Cheri in the middle. As you know, when you're a kid there's no way you wanna hang out with your 4-year-younger brother. You'll take care of the guy if someone's trying to kick his ass, but other than that you don't wanna know. I think I was really hard on him, especially without my father around. David had nobody, he split to live with my Dad and we didn't see much of each other for a good 6 or 7 years. That song was about the time we were apart, and like 'Rooster' was my dad, it was a way of trying to build a bridge." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Sean - Pittsburgh, PA
• This is the second song Alice in Chains performed on their April 10, 1996, MTV Unplugged performance. The show was the band's first live performance in over two years.
• Layne Staley didn't perform on "Brother." Cantrell sang lead vocals at Staley's urging. Cantrell sometimes wrote lyrics that Staley didn't feel comfortable singing either because they didn't suit his vocal style or because he couldn't emotionally connect with them. "Brother" was the first Alice in Chains release with Cantrell singing lead.
• Ann Wilson of Heart provides backing vocals. Heart, one of the bigger bands of the '80s ("Magic Man," "Barracuda"), started in Seattle, the same neck of the woods as Alice in Chains. Wilson also sang on "Am I Inside," the fourth track on Sap.
  
  The decision to bring in Wilson was spontaneous. The band was sitting around after recording four Sap songs, and Cantrell suggested they see if they could get some local heavy hitters into the studio. They called Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Mark Arm of Mudhoney, and Wilson. To Cantrell's surprise, they all agreed. To his memory, all three vocalists got there within an hour. Wilson sang on "Brother" and "Am I Inside." Cornell and Arm sang on "Right Turn." Layne Staley returned the favor by singing on Heart's next album, Desire Walks On, released in 1993. He appears on the track "Ring Them Bells," a Bob Dylan cover.
• Speaking with Songfacts, Ann Wilson shared her memories of recording this song. "I went into the studio to record 'Brother' with them, and that was back in the bad old days when everybody was drinking and drugging and all that," she said. "But I hadn't been doing that for years because I'd had kids by that point and I was sober. So, I went into the studio and there were these piles of blow sitting around on the amps and stuff like that. And everybody had 45 beers under their belt. So I felt like, 'Whoa. This is a whole different world from mine.'"
• Cantrell played this with Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart on May 18, 2002, in the Key Arena in Seattle. He dedicated it to Layne Staley, who died a month earlier.