No. 26 - Remembering Mark Lanegan
The Screaming Trees & Queens of the Stone Age singer died earlier this week
Photo courtesy of Mark Lanegan
Mark Lanegan passed away earlier this week. He was 57 years old.
Though he was best known for fronting the Seattle group Screaming Trees in the 80s and 90s, he leaves behind a legacy of wildly divergent collaborations which speaks to the respect in which he was held by his peers including (but by no means limited to) Isobel Campbell, Josh Homme, Greg Dulli and Dave Gahan.
I was lucky enough to interview Mark Lanegan back in 2012 while he was touring his solo album Blues Funeral. He was an intimidating figure and I felt out of my depth, but he seemed genuinely appreciative of people’s continued interest in his career. The interview was for Spinner, AOL’s defunct music blog. It’s no longer online so I thought I’d re-post it here since we talked a lot about his pretty extraordinary career as a whole.
It’s been eight years since Mark Lanegan’s last solo outing, 2004’s Bubblegum (credited to the Mark Lanegan Band). But that’s not to say that the former Screaming Trees signer has been sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Far from it. The ensuing years have found Lanegan busier than ever, collaborating with a diverse range of musicians from former Afghan Wigs singer Greg Dulli, to electronic rockers Soulsavers to former Belle & Sebastian member Isobel Campbell. “I’m like the Michael Caine of rock without the talent,” says Lanegan. “I’ll take any job.” Yet many of those collaborators repaid the favour, popping up to contribute to the singer’s latest, Blues Funeral, which came out earlier this year.
You’ve credited producer Alain Johannes with being a big part of this record coming together. What exactly did he bring to the project?
I did about half of my previous record with Al. More than anybody that I’ve ever worked with, he gets what I’m trying to do and can make it happen. He brings tons of enthusiasm and creativity to the job.
Were you planning on making a solo record and you came to him or was he pushing you to put out a record under your own name?
After the previous one, I always thought that when I made another one it would be with him. I got hired to do a song for a video game. Once I did that with him I realized that I didn’t have anything going in that year – this was last year – except for a few tours so I started writing songs.
There’s more electronic percussion on the album. Whose idea was that?
I wrote some of these songs starting with a drum machine and a couple with a keyboard and a couple with a synthesizer. They were things I had acquired in the years between the last record and this one. So that sort of dictated the way that it would sound. I started messing around with that stuff to change it up and make it interesting for myself.
Did you pick up an ear for that kind of equipment working with Soulsavers?
Yeah. And also I did a fair amount of stuff on previous records but in a different way. I’d use it for noisy background texture, but with this one, since it started at the basis, it got moved to the forefront. Soulsavers, I was initially into working with those guys because of the electronic elements. But then they revealed themselves to be wannabe rockers quickly. But they’re fantastic.
You said the record came about because you had nothing going on. Do you get restless when you don’t?
I’m like the Michael Caine of rock without the talent. I’ll take any job. I enjoy playing music because it doesn’t feel like a job. After all these years it’s still what I enjoy doing. I’m always trying to be creative and have an outlet for that creativity. Between the last record and this one, I did a lot of touring with other projects, did multiple records. I was enjoying all of it, but I never intended for it to take so long between records. I just got busy doing that stuff.
And you invited a lot of those people to work with you on this record too.
Yeah. When I’m making a record I don’t need to look beyond my own circle of friends, guys that are not only great musicians but my friends. It’s tough for them to say no. They work a bit cheaper than they normally would.
The projects you’ve been involved with are incredibly varied. Do you have a favourite album or collaboration?
There are some records that I play more of the song in the live setting, and there are some that I think are better than others. But it has to do with the experience of making it more than the result. I can’t really say what the result is and I haven’t listened to any of them in their entirety for so long. If I’m getting ready to tour and I haven’t heard a song for a while I might listen to the recording to familiarize myself with it. But I haven’t listened to any of those records since they were made. So I can’t really say. It’s the memory of the experience that makes me like it. And this one was actually the most fun I’ve had making a record. It was also the most relaxed atmosphere. It just really wasn’t hard in any way shape or form.
Is it strange to listen to those songs and think about where you were 10 years ago?
It’s only weird if I suddenly thought it might be a good idea to do a song that when I hear it I realize I don’t want to do that song cause it sucks. I guess I’ve reconciled myself with hearing my voice after all these years. But for a long time, it was always weird. It never sounded the way I would have liked it to.
Over the course of your career, you’ve incorporated a lot of different types of music into your work, but the blues seem to have been a constant throughout. How did you first start listening to the blues?
My father gave me a couple of records when I was pretty young. He was a schoolteacher and he found a box of records and there was a Lightning Hopkins and a Leadbelly record so I’d heard that stuff. But it wasn’t until I heard the Gun Club’s first record that I really connected with that. It sounds strange now - it’s a great, great record - but it’s jagged serial killer music. I don’t know what that says about me. Jeffrey Lee Pierce was doing some old blues songs and when I realized they were really old songs I went back and found the source.
It wasn’t as evident in your work with Screaming Trees. Was that something you purposefully kept on the side?
Well, all the Screaming Trees music that I made in the 80s and up until the last couple of records I was primarily singing songs written by somebody else. I didn’t have a lot of creative input there. The guys generating the music were coming from a certain place. And also to make something with a rock band that incorporates blues music is tricky – bar band, generic sounding crap. When I started making solo records it was with the intent that they would have the spirit of that kind of music.
You were making solo records in between Screaming Trees releases. Were you trepidatious about striking out on your own at first?
Well yeah. I made the first one because somebody suggested it. The record company offered me what at that time was so much more money than I had ever been given to make a record. I was able to pocket some of it. So that made me start to learn some chords on guitar and write some songs. Then I had Mike Johnson come in and put intros and middle sections on them and that’s how I recorded the first one. I never planned on ever playing that music live. I felt completely uncomfortable doing it. But after a couple of those records, I finally played some shows. But it wasn’t until maybe 1998 that I actually did a tour and I made the first record in 1989. Essentially since I didn’t have much going on with the Trees at the time, I made the transition to this other thing. Now I really actually enjoy it.
Did you not play guitar before that first solo album?
No. I got a chord book. I was working in a warehouse, a record distributor. Towards the end of the day, I’d get a melody in my head and I’d get home and fumble with the chords in this book. Oddly enough they always ended up being the same three chords. It was just out of necessity. As I started doing it I started to realize the extent to my – I don’t know if frustration is the right word – but I was never really was that excited about being the singer in the Screaming Trees. It wasn’t easy. It gave me a headache singing songs way out of my range. I had no clue as to how to transpose keys. I was completely ignorant and so were the guys I was making music with except they knew how to write songs. But that was about the extent of that. But I was the worst offended because I had no background in music.
Based on that genesis are you surprised that you’ve been able to sustain such a successful solo career?
Sometimes I think about the guys that were doing it when I started, the first label that I was on; there aren’t a lot of them around doing it anymore. So I just think I’ve been really lucky. I’ve not been able to do anything else besides this. I don’t know why things panned out that way – I’m glad it has. Like I said, I really enjoy doing this. It’s a blessing.
Ian Gormely is a freelance music journalist based in Toronto.
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