[10] During an interview on Steve Jones' radio show, Jonesy's Jukebox, on August 10, 2018, vocalist and guitarist Jerry Cantrell said that he initially didn't think "Never Fade" was an Alice in Chains song.
Cantrell had written the music and the chorus, but he didn't have a good verse and was intending to write it throughout the recording process of Rainier Fog, or maybe for something that he would do later, like a soundtrack.
[11] DuVall's grandmother, described by him as a pillar in his life, died at the age of 105 while the band was recording the album, and he wrote the lyrics to "Never Fade" thinking about his grandmother and the late Soundgarden lead vocalist Chris Cornell, who died a month before the band started recording the album, among others.
[9] Cantrell told Premier Guitar that the chorus he wrote is about something totally different than the verses written by DuVall.
wrote that Never Fade "offers everything Alice in Chains fans are likely looking for, pairing plenty of beefy guitars with even more meaty vocals.
[21] A music video directed by Adam Mason was released on Alice in Chains' official YouTube channel on November 1, 2018.
It continues the storyline from the previous music video for the single "The One You Know", and features actors Paul Sloan, Viktoriya Dov, Eric Michael Cole, Mike Hatton, Jerry Raines Jr., and Darri Ingolfsson in clips from the upcoming sci-fi film Black Antenna, also directed by Mason.
[22][23] On June 27, 2019, a new version of the music video was released on YouTube as the ninth episode from the miniseries Black Antenna, also directed by Mason and starring the same actors.