Cobain and Staley were like my brothers. I outlived them... I never thought that would happen
FORMER SCREAMING TREES FRONTMAN MARK LANEGAN DISCUSSES HIS LIFE AS A ROCK AND ROLL SURVIVOR WITH KIERAN SOUTHERN
MARK LANEGAN, former vocalist of grunge band Screaming Trees, is back with new music and a “no holds barred” memoir called Sing Backwards And Weep. Even in the drug-filled, debauched annals of the rock and roll memoir, his book stands out.
His chronicle of despair and addiction, grief and regret manages to be both gripping and repellent, such are the depths he sinks to.
Readers may well walk away asking in disbelief just how Mark, now 55, survived.
But survive he has, through teenage alcoholism in Ellensburg, Washington, to years of wild partying as the frontman of psychedelic grunge band Screaming Trees and then a well-publicised addiction to heroin.
Somehow, Mark emerged from the other side to achieve a successful solo career and fulfilling work with Queens Of The Stone Age.
The book – like speaking to the man himself – can be dark one minute, and laugh out loud funny the next. Mark’s signature baritone singing voice is no less mesmerising in conversation and he is enthralling company.
His genial manner occasionally gives way to a wickedly sharp tongue.
On social media, a major takeaway from his book has been his withering assessment of Liam Gallagher, the former Oasis star who, after a string of clashes during a joint 1996 US tour, Mark describes as a “bully”. Mark, however, has extended an olive branch of sorts to Gallagher, who responded to the book’s claims on Twitter, calling Mark an “uptight junkie” and “another bull****ter trying to sell a book”.
The rock star has attempted to explain the comments in his memoir and said Liam is “not a bad person”. He says: “That’s written from the viewpoint of a guy, 24 years ago, and that doesn’t reflect how I actually feel about him now. I see his clips on Twitter now and it makes me laugh. He’s kind of an eccentric old uncle. Also, I’m aware he does some good deeds in the community and he’s not a bad person.
“I wrote that from a standpoint of how he came upon me 24 years ago, like he was some tough guy trying to intimidate me.”
Other celebrities he turns his ire on include Matt Dillon, who had the audacity to star in the 1992 grungeinspired rom-com Singles, which Mark despised. Not one to let a grudge go easily, he had to wait years for his revenge but got it in a New York City bar, sticking a lit cigarette in Dillon’s suit jacket, setting it on fire.
At the core of the book is the writer’s all-consuming heroin addiction, which turned him from an imposing, 6ft 2in underground rock star to a wafer-thin, homeless man with rotten teeth.
Screaming Trees formed in 1985, their commercial breakthrough came with the release of 1992’s Sweet Oblivion, which was buoyed by the popularity of grunge bedfellows such as Nirvana.
The album birthed their biggest single, the soaring Nearly Lost You.
When they disbanded in 2000 amid creative differences, Mark went on to establish himself as a successful solo artist, working under numerous aliases and with artists including English multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood and cellist Isobel Campbell.
Mark believes he was always destined for a life of addiction – “I came out of the box that way”
“I was an alcoholic at age 12. And by the time I was 18 I got a prison sentence because of my drinking.
“So I was a pretty severe alcoholic at a young age and it was heroin – and I know this is not a PC thing to say and I’m certainly not promoting this as a way to stop alcoholism – but for me, it was a way I stopped drinking. It quickly became its own problem and just as big a problem but in a different way.”
It is remarkable Mark lived to tell the tale. Others were not so lucky and another notable theme from the book is how many of his friends and acquaintances are no longer here.
For many casual fans, the main draw of the memoir may be Mark’s proximity to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who took his own life at the age of 27 after his own struggles with heroin. The pair were close friends. In fact, Mark used to supply him with drugs, a major source of regret. He also saw up close the corrosive effect of fame once Cobain became one of the world’s biggest stars.
Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley was another of Mark’s close friends who succumbed to addiction. He says: “They were like my brothers and I outlived them by quite a few years, which I’m sure they never thought would happen. But I think about them a lot. And the book actually restarted that thought process all over again.
“I kind of made peace with a lot of that stuff, but it doesn’t mean you stop thinking about those guys or stop loving them. It’s sort of ripped open the aching place again.”
In the late 1990s, and with the help of Cobain’s wife Courtney Love, Mark entered rehab and got clean, leading to his second act as a successful solo artist. His most recent album, Straight Songs Of Sorrow, arrived earlier this month to critical acclaim.
So, does one of rock’s great survivors have any regrets?
“We can’t help but regret unless we’re unfeeling s***heads,” he growls.
“It’s learning to live with the pain, that’s the trick.”
■ Mark Lanegan’s memoir Sing Backwards And Weep and his latest album Straight Songs Of Sorrow
He’s kind of an eccentric old uncle. Mark on his Twitter argument with Liam Gallagher