Mark Lanegan: August 1995

Mark Lanegan is the gravely, desperate voice of Screaming Trees. Aside from that, he’s done two solo albums for Sub Pop and recorded vocals for various artist such as Mike Watt and cutting edge bands like Mad Season. We haven’t heard from the Screaming Trees recently, so with Sub Pop’s help, I decided to call Mr. Lanegan and find out what’s up.

SLUG: So what have you been up to lately, as far as music goes? I know that you did some vocal tracks for Mad Season and you did a thing for Mike Watt. What else have you been doing? Have you been doing anything with Screaming Trees? 

Lanegan: Yeah. In fact we’re going to start recording our new record in the first week of August. We just got done doing a couple weeks of preproducti00 of that. The producer came up and all. Then I have a couple of solo shows at the end of July opening for Johnny Cash here and in Portland. 

SLUG: Are you pretty stoked about opening for Johnny Cash? 

Lanegan: Yea 

SLUG: Sweet Oblivion was out, what, three years ago? 

Lanegan: Yeah, I believe so and we spent about the next two years after that on the road and took about a year off to write and mess around. In that time, I put out the second solo record and we’re just getting ready to do it again. Do it all over again. 

SLUG: Are you excited? Are you ready for it?

Lanegan: Yeah, ready to get back to work in January and February. We toured Australia and we hadn’t done a show in almost a year, so it was nice to get to be doing some bigger shows there and getting back into the groove, which, of course, led to getting together for writing and rehearsing again. 

SLUG: Had you been to Australia before? 

Lanegan: No, it was the first time. 

SLUG: How was the reaction with the crowd? 

Lanegan: Oh it was real good. We did this thing called the Big Day Out down there, which is kind of their version of Lollapalooza. It does all the main cities in the country. It’s a real easy gig, real fun, and it was summertime there. So we got out of here in the middle of winter for a month. It was nice. 

SLUG: And you got paid for it, that’s great. 

Lanegan: Yeah, its a nice vacation. 

SLUG: When did Screaming Trees actually form? Do you remember the year?

Lanegan: Fuck, I’m pretty sure I do. About early ’85 or late ‘84. I think late ’84 actually first rehearsed. 

SLUG: Is Barrett Martin your solid drummer now?

Lanegan: Yeah. He’s been in the band longer than Mark Pickerel was at this point, 

SLUG: Was Mark kind of…was he always a full member? Did he kind of just come and go? 

Lanegan: Well, no, in theory he was a full member. They had bands together for years, Mark Pickerel and the Conner brothers, before I ever joined up with them. So, they had this history already and then I started playing with them. When we actually started he was the singer, one was the drummer and the brothers were switched on instruments. Van played guitar and Lee played bass. And then we all switched instruments and made our first recordings. He was a full time member, it’s just that he was young and in high school when we started and made our first record. He was like 17 and still had a year left of high school. We toured around that and he was with us for our first four or five records, I think, and then tours like late ’89 early ’90 when we first signed with Epic. He made that record but before hand he decided he wanted to take a tour off that we wanted to do so we got a replacement drummer for that tour, it was a European tour. 

Then so, you know, we still considered Mark being part of the band. We came back and made the word and it was time to tour again and that’s when he decided he didn’t want to do that tour again and we used the same drummer that we had used on the previous tour for that next tour. Then the band pretty much fell apart for a while. Before Uncle Anesthesia came out, it was basically just me and Lee left because Van had joined Dinosaur Jr. and Pickerel had quit. So we didn’t really have a band and our first major label record was about to come out. Then Van decided to come back to the band and Dan Peterson of Mudhoney called and he said that he had heard that we were looking for a drummer and they were on hiatus. So he joined up for a while and he did all the touring for Uncle Anesthesia with us. Then it came time to make Sweet Oblivion and Mudhoney decided they were going to start making records again. So he kind of had to make his decision there. Of course he went with Mudhoney because that was his thing. That’s when we got Barrett. And at this point, like I said, he’s been in the band longer than any of the other guys. He’s our fourth drummer, but he’s been our drummer for the longest amount of time, even though he’s only played on the one album and all the one-off type stuff we’ve done since then. I’m sure he’s our last drummer as well. 

SLUG: Good: I think he integrates well with the band. I listened to Sweet Oblivion compared to your older stuff and I think he does a great job.

 Lanegan: He fits in much better than anybody else ever did as far as his style of playing. He’s the kind of drummer that I always wanted and never had. 

SLUG: Really. I really liked how Uncle Anesthesia turned out though, because I think Mark did some really cool stuff on that. 

Lanegan: Yeah, he had a really unique style. It was just more or less a clash of personality for years. He grew up in the band. It was just a lot easier without him. He, I think, never really had a feel for what we were doing and always, as opposed to being excited about the material, always had a complaint about the material. It’s a completely different thing with Barrett. He just throws himself into everything with great enthusiasm and tries to figure out what he can do that’s best for the band. In that way it works out better and plus he’s just more of a straight-ahead power type of player, Mark was…he had his thing … he was great live. He put on a pretty good show.

SLUG: I saw your Uncle Anesthesia tour at the Bar & Grill. 

Lanegan: I remember that show really well, because the very next day I was in a very bad accident in Wyoming. Two crew guys both got injured pretty bad. P got a concussion. That was the very next day after that Bar & Grill show. So I remember that show well. 

SLUG: Well, tell me, do you plan on releasing anymore solo albums? 

Lanegan: Someday. 

SLUG: Someday, but not anytime soon? 

Lanegan: No, I mean I committed to this Tree thing. and you know whenever you go into that project once it’s out, it’s finished. We’ll be on the road indefinitely. Making those kinds of plans … I really can’t at this point. 

SLUG: It must be an odd circle. I mean, you hang out with these guys long before anyone is popular up in Seattle. And is it kind of strange to not only pal around together but to see your own face on magazine covers or your friends’ faces on magazine covers or anything like that. Is that kind of strange? 

Lanegan: Well, for me, I have been at it—actually making records and being on the road for almost twelve years. The strange thing, was when Nirvana went from sleeping on my floor—which none of us would walk on without our shoes because of the rats, you know—those guys went from sleeping on the floor to being everywhere within a span of a month. That was kind of weird. 

SLUG: Have people out there, photographers, recognized you downtown? 

Lanegan: I’m lucky I live in pretty much anonymity and when people do recognize me around here they leave me alone because they think I’m going to punch them out. 

SLUG: Do they really?

Lanegan: No, I’m kidding. 

SLUG: I don’t think you are. 

Lanegan: I think in Seattle people are used to seeing people that they recognize and most of the time they just kind of whisper and point at you but they don’t always come up to you, because there’s just so many bands from this town that have become big; it’s something people are used to and it’s a pretty small town when you get down to it. 

SLUG: Especially the musical community, I bet. 

Lanegan: Exactly, everybody knows everybody. It’s a big cluster fuck, Peyton Place.

SLUG: No, this is Peyton Place. 

Lanegan: I like SLC man, it’s one of my all time favorite places to play. Some of the best crowds there. People get more excited. It seems like one of the first times I was in Salt Lake City, a cop told me I couldn’t stand on the sidewalk. I could be inside my vehicle or I could be inside of a building but I could not stand on the sidewalk between the two. And in a place like that, where there’s such a hardcore right, there’s got to be a real thriving underground to balance it. Salt Lake City is one of those places. It’s cool. It’s the kind of people that music means a lot to them and that’s the kind of people we’re making music for. 

SLUG: Well a lot of the bands I talk to always mention how much they like Salt Lake because the crowds are really good here for them to play. They do get excited about it, they get into it, they have a good time and they know a lot of the music that’s out there. 

Lanegan: Yeah, its fun. And that’s no bullshit. There’s places that we hate to play and Salt Lake City is one of the places that we love to play. 

Watch for the Screaming Trees new album out sometime in early ‘96. After that, they will be heading out on tour again. Last time they put on a good show and they sound great live.

Read more from the SLUG archives here:
The Psyclone Rangers: May 1995
Record Reviews: September 1994