In the wake of Mark Lanegan’s death last month at age 57, being a fan of both the singer-songwriter and Screaming Trees, the band in which he got his start, feels problematic. He once suggested that the first six Trees albums are “probably among the six worst records of all time.” His memoir, published in 2020, is mostly scathing toward his former band and bandmates.
Lanegan went to the grave with unresolved bitterness and even embarrassment regarding that part of his musical legacy. But why? How could he possibly be not just so wrong, but so conflicted by music he helped create that endures today?
Put aside the narrative that frames Lanegan’s death as the latest in a depressing lineage of Generation X flames snuffed out early, joining the likes of Chris Cornell, Layne Staley and his close friend Kurt Cobain, in reverse order. It’s more than that.
During his life, Lanegan would arguably cast his net further than any of his contemporaries as an artist, pushing himself far beyond the trappings of grunge, earning the admiration of a wide variety of legendary musicians and transcending, even in death, his own inner demons.
And yet, as a devout Trees fan I cannot help but wince. So here is my attempt to reconcile the cognitive dissonance draped all over Lanegan’s passing.
Killer hooks
I don’t exactly remember how exactly I discovered the Screaming Trees or where first heard them. I was starting college, underground music was blowing up, and I was taking in a lot of live music. The Trees naturally appealed to me because I go equally hard for punk and psychedelia. Plus, they wrote songs with killer hooks, and Mark Lanegan is a goddamned force of nature as a singer.
As a live act, Screaming Trees could go either way, owing to drugs, booze, the personal animosities between the members or any combination thereof. But I saw them live twice at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit, and they were fantastic both nights. I remember the tone of Gary Lee Conner’s guitar, like a crystal-sharp buzz saw slashing through a wall of sound, and the way he thrashed around the stage, all 300-plus pounds of him, along with his equally hefty brother, bassist Van Conner. Lanegan always gave it his all, however bombed he may have been, and he sounded incredible. He made no acknowledgement of the crowd and said nothing through the whole performance, scarcely leaving the mic stand and or relaxing his grip on it, as if it steadied him. The band played for an hour and then that was it, no encores, as I remember. It was efficient and businesslike, but effective. Deafeningly loud.
There’s a sordid backstage story from one of those shows in his memoir, “Sing Backwards and Weep,” and Lanegan at one point in the book trashes Lee’s guitar tone — the same one I so distinctly remember from hearing them live. Which will always make me wonder: What was he listening to? What exactly was he hearing that I wasn’t? What did he hate so much about the band to which he added so much?
How could these two diametric opposites coexist in my brain?
His “worst six albums” comment is a heartbreaking thing to read. Sure, the Trees, a quintessential DIY band, sounded amateurish at first and had their share of clunkers. Those first six albums are inconsistent. But they’re also rife with brilliant nuggets — in fact, the song “Transfiguration” appears on the venerable Children of Nuggets compilation box set of garage psych-rock revivalists. I get it that Lee’s brand of overheated guitar-driven psychedelia wasn’t his cup of tea, but come on.
If only Lanegan’s scorn was unassailable.
A grudging debt
Reading his bleak but captivating memoir last summer (during a family vacation at the beach, no less, which maybe says something about me), I was struck by the difference between his dismal appraisal of the band and a genuine affection for Van Conner, at least, even if it was when they were both liquored to their pants backstage. I also couldn’t help but pick up on a grudging respect for Lee. As the Trees’ main songwriter, he was the primary force keeping the whole project in motion. I think Lanegan knew deep down that, whatever else he felt about the man, he owed Lee a debt of gratitude for at least getting him out of Ellensburg and giving him some kind of purpose in life.
“Sing Backwards” isn’t an easy read, and it’s filled with contradictions. An excellent example: Despite all the cruel and crushing things Lanegan says about him in the book, he thanks Gary Lee Conner along with the rest of his former band mates in the acknowledgments section.
Finally, I’d note that the last time I saw Lanegan perform, in 2016, he performed stripped-down versions of two Trees songs: “Where the Twain Shall Meet” and “Halo of Ashes.” Both were wholly unprompted by the audience but earned its hearty applause — this despite swearing in interviews that as a solo artist, he would never brook requests for Screaming Trees songs from audience members. (Apparently, “Twain” was a regular part of his set over the years, to see the kind of shitty smartphone videos posted to YouTube that people insist on recording at live events, to my everlasting annoyance.)
The only real explanation for his animus toward his former band is made clear in his book: Lanegan was in an incredibly dark place. He emerged from a broken home as a troubled teen with a growing rap sheet, a drinking problem and an undefined bitterness toward the world. He bathed that pain in drugs and alcohol, and then saved himself from dying from alcoholism, as he has said, by turning to heroin. Later he would add crack to the mix, which he began manufacturing and selling out of his Seattle apartment.
He also wasn’t a particularly nice guy during those years, by his own admission. As he told AllMusic:
“You may notice that the stories (in the book) are all me shitting on somebody or somebody shitting on me. I have a tendency to remember the pain that I’ve caused myself and the pain that I’ve caused others, and it’s something I don’t forget very easily. Especially the pain I’ve caused myself, and there’s plenty of that.”
He had said of his time with the Trees that he rarely if ever spoke with any fans; years later after a solo performance, I saw him signing autographs and posing for photos with members of the audience. If you want a sense of where he was mentally back during his time with the Trees, watch his 120 Minutes appearance with Van Conner in 1992, for example. He’s wasted and clearly has no interest in doing press. He comes off as a pompous asshole. It’s all a ruse. He hates himself. It’s a terrible, difficult interview to watch.
As for the music he made with Screaming Trees, then, this is exactly how he remembered that time of his life, viewing it as a black morass of a life going to waste. While he probably wasn’t yet ready or disciplined enough to go solo, he was also frustrated by having to follows someone else’s lead. Something was stirring inside. He was slowly finding his muse and his drive. A reason to get out of bed, no matter what time of day, and keep surviving, however grimly.
Lanegan’s drive and dedication to his craft met started inauspiciously, but it was nurtured by Lee’s guitar histrionics and lysergic lyrics, and by a powerful rhythm section in Van on bass and Mark Pickerel on drums. I once read a review of a Screaming Trees album in which the writer said their secret sauce was the ability to milk a run-of-the-mill guitar riff for something greater, and there’s some merit in that. And sure, sometimes the lyrics were goofy. But you can’t deny Lee’s ear for a hook and melody. Check out his accoustic version of “Caught Between.” It recasts it a wistful psychedelic pop song, and even suggests that sometimes, Lanegan overdid it on the vocals.
The process of weeding out
As he matured, got clean and grew less outwardly angry, Lanegan would learn to embrace quieter, gentler vocals, creating room in his songs for the pain and heartache that always lurked underneath his considerable ability to belt it out. For the Trees, Lanegan finally started contributing his own songwriting for 1992’s “Sweet Oblivion,” and the band shifted into a more rootsy direction while losing none of its stomp. It would be the band’s most commercially successful and critically acclaimed period.
Unfortunately, Lanegan was by then in the grips of an all-consuming heroin addiction that likely sealed the band’s fate. There was an aborted attempt to cut an album in 1994 — there is much chatter about Lee eventually acquiring the masters to finally release it — and then the label brought the band back for another shot, resulting in the excellent “Dust” in 1996. Then Epic Records promptly dropped the band.
Screaming Trees broke up in 2000, with no expectations for any further material until Barrett Martin, who had replaced Pickerel two albums back, in 2011 released “Last Words,” an album’s worth of material the band had quietly recorded between 1998 and 1999. It had failed to land them a deal from any of the labels, which had come to view the Trees as a liability not worth the comparatively modest return on investment.
Lanegan’s solo catalog, beginning with 1991’s “The Winding Sheet” and gaining full wing on 1994’s stunning “Whiskey For the Holy Ghost,” is stunning in its breadth, consistency and the sonic distances it travels from both the Trees and the peak grunge-era Seattle sound. Getting clean helped his output and work ethic and probably his confidence, and he began recording prolifically, both on his own but also by lending his gravelly baritone to other projects, like Queens of the Stone Age, Soulsavers and Isobell Campbell, the waif-like half of Belle and Sebastian with whom he released three excellent full-length albums. Listening to his catalog chronologically is the sound of a man slowly growing into his own skin and learning to make peace with the world around him.
Over time, he appeared to grow more gracious and patient, both with himself and with others. Where he was once standoffish and glib with journalists, he began granting interviews in which he was reflective and contrite. He started meeting fans at his shows and listening, in shock, as they described what his music meant to them.
That sense of perspective, of figurative distances traveled, saturates his music, with its pathos and hard-bitten tales and moments of transcendent release. As his memoir makes plain, he was an artist, however flawed, who struggled early on to understand that about himself and barely survived the tortured path getting there. But his creative fire is what carried him through, even if, by the end, he was using a cane to walk, had some gruesome dental issues and reportedly became comatose and deaf after contracting COVID-19. His music was his salvation and his light, and through it, I think he mostly learned to forgive himself and make amends with others.
So what to make of the bitter divide between Lanegan and the beloved band he fronted? In the end, he wanted to be great like his idols (Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Nick Cave) and couldn’t appreciate being merely good. Meanwhile, he misplaced blame for the yawning sadness that gnawed at him to his former band. His years with Screaming Trees were hell, even if the band mostly wasn’t the cause of it. It was a time blurred by drinking and drugs and nods and sickness and scrapes with death. Even if the Conner brothers brought plenty of their own personal and familial dysfunction to the mix, Lanegan was unpredictable and unreliable. Probably the combustible mix of personalities in the band was doomed from the start, no matter what would have happened. Gary Lee Conner may well have been a prick; he and his brother certainly had their share of very public fights. But when you’re a fuckup dying to get out of Ellensburg, you don’t have a lot of choices.
These four misfits found each other through shared musical interests, got Greg Ginn’s ear at SST Records, received some financial and moral support from the Conner parents, and had an earnest go at rock-and-roll stardom. They never got there, exactly — not like others in their cohort did — but they made a lot of believers in the process.
Much of Lanegan’s life was brutish and ugly, and he clearly wasn’t able to let go of all of his grievances. His tortured path makes for a very American story, and it will be forever fascinating, if saddening, to listen to Screaming Trees knowing how Lanegan felt about the music he helped create. Perhaps he simply needed more time to let go of the pain and resentment he associated with his former band. I’d like to think he would’ve eventually gotten there.
Since his death, I often think about how easy it would be to make a mix tape commemorating the gifts Mark Lanegan gave us. Considering the emotional palette he worked with, it seems almost too easy. Every song sounds like an elegy. Here comes that weird chill.
Postscript, Aug. 15, 2023
A reader of this post drew my attention to a fan forum where a member shared a screenshot, reportedly since deleted, and the text of a private conversation that Lanegan and Lee had on Twitter in 2020. In it, Lanegan apologizes for the way he treated Lee and discusses his desire to record a couple of old Trees demos, adding “you and I had real power and were a talented team despite my obvious problems.”
Excellent read and hits many of the same points that made Lanegan’s book so difficult to take at face value. As was the assertion made in many of the obits that he had been clean for XX number of years….maybe, but probably not is my estimate. Still a supreme talent – it’s a shame his fire has been extinguished.
Thanks for the comment. It’s hard to pin down any reliable information about his post-rehab life, including the timeline. I’ve seen at least one reference to him having relapsed briefly at some point.
I for one love Screaming trees and his solo music. I too think that a lot of his feelings about their music was maybe because of his actions during that time period. The book was the craziest and hard to imagine. His voice is like a master piece, like a fine painting. One of my favorites of all time. I think his troubled life during those days must have played a big role in his feeling about the music and probably a ton of gilt. I think he was brilliant. His voice and music is a true gift in my eyes. one of a kind for sure. The book was the craziest thing I’ve read and hard to fathom. My heart broke for him and the cards he was dealt. I cried at the end of the book. I would have loved to hug him and never let go. He was a true treasure in my eyes. I’m glad that he found a loving and lasting relationship with Shelley. Amazing story of an amazing man…
Hey, just finished Mark ready the audio book to Sing Backwards…and am listening to a lot of Mark’s music. Having first listened to Screaming Trees in 1992 and counting Longe Gone Day as one of my top 4 or 5 songs of all time by any artist, I too found it very sad and strange to listen to Mark rail against Lee Connor and the Trees. I can understand the self-hatred, arrogance and interpersonal conflicts making him feel so strongly about that back then. But it seems extremely strange and short sighted not to have some perspective and see that the Connors helped give him a life in music, and not in jail, dead at an early(ier) age, or working at shitty job. Maybe he overdramatized it (shocking, I know!) to sell books, or maybe Mark a bad, bad dude. Somewhere in between I guess. Horrible that he won’t have a chance to see what the future held, and horrible for us that his voice is gone. Thank you for the write-up.
Really great article. I also have had a hard time reconciling how much Lanegan hated the Trees but how instrumental he was to this great band that rocked. I’ve read some really trashy insults he made towards Lee and the band and thought he carries some real demons that have little to do with the Trees. No matter how much they didn’t like each other, you would think after some time they grow up and let go of the past. Lee and Van did and have spoken very highly of Mark since the breakup, but he just couldn’t let go. Supposedly he wrote Lee before his death and apologized. Sad story.
Thanks for the comment!
Mark didn’t do go the grave w bitterness and embarrassment about his days in ST. He messaged Gary Lee Conner deeply apologizing for what he said in the book – said he listened to early ST and it brought tears to his eyes – wanted to collaborate in the future, etc. The message has been shared online. Gives insight into his coming to terms with and embracing that era at the end.
Interesting, thanks for the comment!
I’ve been a huge and obsessed Screaming Trees fan since Uncle Anaesthesia in 1991. I saw them perform live during their horrifying MTV Alternative Nation tour in the summer of 1993, where they were forced to open for Soul Asylum and the silly and mind-numbing Spin Doctors. I went to see the Trees that night, and only them, but my then-wife made us stay so she could hear “Two Princes” by Spin Doctors, whom I loathed. We got divorced shortly thereafter. I’ve said it time and time again over the years to anyone who would listen: Screaming Trees were the best band to come out of Seattle’s grunge movement, period. One of the best bands I ever heard from anywhere, frankly.
Now, having said that, I was left feeling pissed off and disgusted by Lanegan’s book. I’ve also read Barrett Martin’s new book about the Trees, which was much more decent, kind, respectful, and normal. However, Lanegan’s book is nothing but petulant and infantile vitriol. The way he tears Gary Lee Conner to pieces, after all that time, 25 or 30 years later, is just disgusting, and I don’t care if Lanegan apologized before he died. Apology or not, the book is still out there. In his book, according to Lanegan, Gary Lee can’t play guitar, he can’t sing, his songs suck, he’s overweight, he has no friends, no girls, no nothing. It’s really, really humiliating and serves no purpose except to have Lanegan narcissistically vaildate his own sense of wonderfulness. Lanegan is obviously envious of Gary lee’s talent. Gary Lee Conner is a great guitarist, with a totally unique sound, he writes fantastic songs, and face it, folks: he made Lanegan’s life. Without Gary Lee’s songs, and his influence and vision, Lanegan would have ended up driving a box truck delivering furniture in Ellensburg. Lanegan ain’t that special. I mean, the world is full of people with great voices who never went anywhere. Without the Trees, in all probability, Lanegan would have been nothing. Personally, I, as a fan, resent his crybaby arrogance, and his attitude is similar to a child who feels bitter and angry because he didn’t get as much ice cream as the rest of the band when they went out for dinner. Lanegan was a junkie loudmouth and a nutcase, with a nice baritone voice, admittedly. But he also was obviously just plain hateful, mean, and aggressive. His hatred of the Trees, saying later that “they were lucky to have me”, makes me laugh. Lanegan actually makes me see Liam Gallagher’s point of view, and I can’t stand him or Oasis.
A lot of people have troubled upbringings and childhoods. However, what you learn as time goes by, and what Lanegan apparently didn’t, is that you carry your own water in life. You don’t dump it on everyone around you, crying like a wuss about every little slight, and viciously assaulting and blaming the people who made you famous. Lanegan doesn’t even mention in his book that Barrett Martin let Lanegan move into his house for months after Lanegan went through his first rehab. Martin took him in and gave him a place to live. No mention of it, and Lanegan just goes right to Duff McKagan letting him use his house. Also, notice in the book that Gary Lee Conner is the very last person named in the acknowledgements. It’s just baby crap nonsense.
Just my opinion. Sorry for the length of the screed.
Thanks for commenting. I read Lanegan’s book and saw it as an attempt to exorcise some demons. It was clear he was still holding on to a lot of negativity and self-hatred at the time he wrote it and hadn’t yet come to terms with what he had done in his life. I think he got close by the end — at least I’d like to think so.
Stumbled upon your article by randomly googling Screaming Trees photos. Very well written and an interesting read. I love Screaming Trees and these guys deserve more recognition for their music as they wrote tons of beautiful songs. They’re mostly overlooked for some reason, which is a shame. But well, people who know them, know they were brilliant and cherish their music, that’s the most important. Greetings from Belgium.
Thank you
Amazing, the buzz gaining momentum about the trees in the last few years gives me hope that Gary Lee Connor will be really recognized as the master songwriter he really is. Even now he is putting out live versions of songs on you tube. Check out his live version of Door into Summer on you tube it is REALLY GREAT. I really hope a solid label (it could be Rhino for all i care) wants to put out a Box Set that includes the aborted don fleming record and the other half of the Buzz Factory record. Looks like a live steve fisk era record and demo sessions are out(and sold out). One thing marks book DID do was rip open the door to a VERY curious public to the Magic of the Trees and sent many to discover /Re discover the trees music and find that it is more relevant and listenable now then the BIG Grunge bands of the 90s that lets face it sound depressing now.