Was it his choice of drugs? Some drug users are more equal than others?
Staley was the voice of AIC and contributed greatly to the music development. They never would of booted him from the band. He did drugs, but he always pulled it off when performing on stage.
As for Mike Starr, he didn’t write any of the songs, and by the time they started touring for Dirt album, he was soo wasted all the time that he was making all kinds of mistakes during live shows. That’s why they kicked him out, even when this was at a time when the band was at it’s most popular.
So they went out and got Mike Inez who was a very good bass player who had toured with Ozzy. He’s been with them ever since and contributed to a lot of their new material.
The new AIC album that came out last year was easily one of the most underated albums of 2010. I saw them live last year and they were very good.