Chris DeGarmo

DeGarmo was a member of Jerry Cantrell's band during his 1998 solo tour, and also contributed to his 2002 album, Degradation Trip.

[2] Since 2009, he has been making music with his daughter Rylie DeGarmo under the name The Rue,[2] and collaborated with Alice in Chains on their 2018 album, Rainier Fog.

The song describes DeGarmo's cherished relationship with his grandfather, and the emotional experience of his biological father trying to make amends after years of absence.

[9] After he was kicked out of Joker to be replaced with a guitarist who could afford more expensive equipment,[6] DeGarmo formed the band "Tempest" with singer and bass player Mark Hovland and drummer Kevin Hodges on drums, who later moved on, and was replaced by Mark Welling, after which the band was renamed to D-H-W (DeGarmo-Hovland-Welling).

In 1982, they switched from playing cover songs to writing original material, and recruited Geoff Tate as their vocalist.

As their primary songwriter,[1] DeGarmo was largely responsible for writing the band's intricate compositions together with Wilton and Tate.

DeGarmo was the sole writer for the band's 1991 hit "Silent Lucidity", which reached the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, was Grammy nominated in two categories (Best Rock Song, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal) at the 1992 awards,[3][5] as well as five VMA nominations and one win,[12] and which earned the guitarist a BMI songwriter's award.

[14] Reflecting on Queensryche's Promised Land era, DeGarmo revealed that he had already considered leaving the band: I was questioning the long term stability of the group by that point.

Apparently, no one else was paying attention, or bothered to compare the successful elements and priorities of our past to our current trajectory.

[15]His remarks appear to be in line with later statements from other band members that burnout and a desire to pursue interests outside of Queensrÿche were the reasons for his departure.

[20] With an impending deadline to deliver their next album, and the band's strained internal relationships leaving them short on material, a call was placed to DeGarmo to see if he would be interested in contributing songs to the project.

[21] DeGarmo had also written both the music and lyrics to the song "Justified", but it was not included on the album since he prematurely left the recording sessions.

The most profound line-up change for Queensrÿche since DeGarmo's departure in 1997, was when remaining founding members Rockenfield, Wilton and Jackson fired Tate in June 2012,[26] leading to a court case that has temporarily allowed both parties to use the band's name[27] and has caused a division among the fans.

[29] DeGarmo's post-Queensrÿche musical career includes collaborations with guitarist Jerry Cantrell (as a touring guitarist in 1998,[30] and an appearance on the 2002 Degradation Trip studio album playing slide guitar on the track Anger Rising),[31] and with singer Vinnie Dombroski from Sponge, Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney in the short-lived project Spys4Darwin, which DeGarmo co-founded with Kinney in 1999 after they toured as part of Jerry Cantrell's band on his Boggy Depot tour.

[34] On February 18, 2005, DeGarmo joined the remaining members of the popular rock band Alice in Chains and other Seattle area artists for the Tsunami Continued Care Relief Concert.

[39][2] In 2018, DeGarmo played acoustic guitar on the track "Drone" from Alice in Chains' sixth album, Rainier Fog.

While the band was recording at Studio X in the summer of 2017, Jerry Cantrell was struggling with the acoustic part that he described as a "spider-chord, weird plucking thing".

[40] In 2020, DeGarmo accompanied Lily Cornell Silver on a rendition of Black Gives Way to Blue as part of a tribute made by various artists to Alice in Chains, as they were the receivers of that year's Founders Award by the Museum of Pop Culture.