Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan biography

Mark Lanegan (born November 25, 1964) is an American alternative rock musician and singer-songwriter. Born and raised in Ellensburg, Washington, Lanegan began his musical career in 1985, forming the grunge band Screaming Trees with Gary Lee Conner, Van Conner and Mark Pickerel. During his time in the band, Lanegan also started a low-key solo career and released his first solo studio album, The Winding Sheet, in 1990. Since 1990, he has released a further six studio albums and has received critical recognition and moderate commercial success.

Lanegan has also collaborated with various artists and bands throughout his career. Following the dissolution of The Screaming Trees in 2000, he became a member of Queens of the Stone Age and is featured on three of the band's albums-Rated R (2000), Songs for the Deaf (2002) and Lullabies to Paralyze (2005). Lanegan also formed The Gutter Twins with Greg Dulli in 2003, released three collaboration albums with former Belle and Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell, and contributed to releases by Melissa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley Bird, Creature with the Atom Brain, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers and Mad Season.

Lanegan has a distinctive baritone voice that has been described "as scratchy as a three-day beard yet as supple and pliable as moccasin leather" and compared to Tom Waits.

Biography

Early life

In 1996, during an interview for Pacific Northwest periodical "The Rocket", he said that he drove a combine. It is known that he came from a 'dysfunctional' family that he tried to avoid, and was heavily into drugs by the age of 18, having already been arrested and sentenced to one year's imprisonment for drug-related crimes. He managed to get out of jail by taking a year-long rehab course. Around this time he met and befriended Van Conner with whom he would eventually form the Screaming Trees. At this point his relationship with the Conner brothers was restricted to talking about music and working for their parents' electronics hardware store.

Musical career

Screaming Trees (1985-2000)

Along with Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Nirvana, Screaming Trees were part of Seattle's emerging grunge scene in the early 1990s. The band was formed in 1985 by Mark Lanegan, guitarist Gary Lee Conner, bassist Van Conner and Mark Pickerel. Mark Pickerel would later be replaced with Barrett Martin. Lanegan said "I was such a shitty drummer that they made me sing." The band signed to Sub Pop, releasing the Other Worlds EP in 1985 (Originally available only in a cassette format, the album was re-released on CD and LP by SST Records in 1987). Though the band was being courted by major labels, in 1985 they signed to Velvetone records to release their debut album, Clairvoyance. Musically the album is a combination of psychedelic music and hard rock, while it bears many similarities to early grunge.

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