Mark Lanegan and Screaming Trees

Who is Mark Lanegan?

Patrick asked the question yesterday, and I couldn't stop myself from writing the answer out for all to ignore. In the extended entry is my answer.

Mark Lanegan was--before he embarked on a solo career and before he became the part-time lead-singer of Queens of the Stone Age--was a member of Screaming Trees.

When grunge broke big, fueled by Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Soundgarden, the Screaming Trees were already the old men of the group. Formed in 1983, their first album, Clairvoyance, was put out in 1985 on SST, and they kept up a steady stream of EPs and albums until they disbanded in 2000.

Where most of their Washington peers (not Seattle--Screaming Trees was a product of Ellensburg) were influenced more by the heavier sounds of Black Sabbath, Screaming Trees found their roots in 60's psychodelia. The band, while never gaining the fame of some of their peers, had a longevity that was surprising given the tension within the band.

Screaming Trees were dominated by brothers Van Conner (bass) and Gary Lee Connor (guitar). The songs and the sound originally grew from their vision. In fact, Mark Lanegan was initially recruited to be the drummer. When that didn't work out, he was shoved into the lead singer position and taught, note for note, to sing the band's songs. The drummers for most of the band's existence were Barrett Martin (one of the finest percussionists in current memory) and Mark Pickerel, an excellent rock drummer in his own right. Later in their history, Josh Homme (the driving force behind the bands Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age) played second guitar during tours.

Over the fifteen years of making music, two things changed Screaming Trees from a marginal band into something special. The first thing was a drift away from the pure, punk inflected psychodelia. Over the course of the band's life, the music turned to embrace a more straight-forward rock touched with blues and country influences. By the time they were signed to Epic for their final three albums, the Trees had developed a strong sonic identity all their own. While other Washington bands worshipped loud and fast music, the Trees wrote the best hooks and tunes to be found in the scene.

The second change for the Trees was the dominance of Mark Lanegan's voice. Listening to songs from Clairvoyance, it's almost impossible to make the connection to the singer of the songs on their final album, Dust. Lanegan's voice became the main attraction. Blessed with a voice that carries honest emotion. His is not a histrionic sound, but more measured and straight-forward. His voice is, by turns, gravelly, menacing, seductive, and powerful. Low and versatile, Mudhoney's Mark Arm once wrote in a review of Lanegan's album Field Songs that his jealousy of Lanegan's voice was so complete that he wished he could find a way to steal the voice for his own use.

Truly, the musical growth of the band between 1985 and 2000 was remarkable. Just as remarkable are the stories of drug abuse, alcohol intake, and violence between the members of the band. For their longevity, they were rewarded with a minor hit from their Sweet Oblivion album, "Nearly Lost You."

Featured on the soundtrack (and just barely in the movie), Singles, the Trees found themselves playing Lolapalooza and touring internationally. They never repeated the feat, though, and ended up with a wonderful back catalog of music and a fan base as loyal as you could imagine.

Before Screaming Trees called it quits, Lanegan had started in on his own solo career. In 1990, Lanegan put out a CD on the infamous Sub Pop label called The Winding Sheet.

The CD was stripped down to the voice supported by a bare minimum of instrumentation. At times sounding more like a demo tape, the songs are heavily influenced by blues. The sound is not folk, not country, and not rock, but an amalgam of the musical styles that was nothing less that a revelation. Powerful, dark, personal, and raw, this was a shocking album to the Screaming Trees faithful.

That, as a starting point, saw Lanegan release four more full length CDs through 1997. The CDs were very much collaborations between Lanegan and Mike Johnson, two like minds creating mostly acoustic music that hilighted the vocal abilities of Lanegan and the beautiful guitar tunes of Johnson.

Compared at times to Nick Cave and Tom Waits, Lanegan nonetheless managed to create a unique identity of his own. It wasn't all good times, though. Not only did Screaming Trees break up, but Lanegan found himself in legal trouble over his drug use.

His third CD, Scraps at Midnight, was recorded during a short period of time while Lanegan was released from a drug treatment center. It shows. Scraps is an uneven effort that has moments of true beauty, but feels tired and strained at times.

Finally clean and sober, Lanegan then released a CD of obscure covers, I'll Take Care of You. A brilliant CD that takes songs from various artists that Lanegan considered to be influences, and re-interprets them to make them, stylistically, Lanegan's.

Throughout, Lanegan sang for other projects. He sang on a few of the Seattle supergroup Mad Season's songs and was mentioned as a replacement for Layne Staley for the never-recorded second album. One of his best moments was on Willy Nelson tribute album (a heartbreaking version of "She's Not For You"). Aside from that, he can be found on Steve Fisk, The Twilight Singers, Mike Watt, Mondo Generator, Masters of Reality, and, of course, Queens of the Stone Age albums.

Having just released a new EP, Methamphetamine Blues, fans are looking forward to the promised February release of the full album, Bubblegum. Even better, there are rumors of a second EP to go along with the 16 songs that will be on Bubblegum, a European two-CD release of Screaming Trees "hits" and obscure tunes, and a Rekords Rekords release of the fabled Screaming Trees "lost album". If all of this happens as reported, 2004 will turn out to be a good year for Screaming Trees and Lanegan fans.

I, in particular, will be pretty darned jolly.

Posted by zombyboy at December 18, 2003 12:54 AM | TrackBack