The raspy baritone of ‘Dark’ Mark was recognizable from thousands

It became difficult to keep count, but Mark Lanegan must have had nine lives. The singer with the lowest voice from the grunge had devils on his shoulder all his life, but time and again there was an angel who managed to save him in the nick of time. Till Tuesday. Then his loved ones left via Twitter know that the musician has died at the age of 57, the cause was not disclosed.

Mark William Lanegan was born in 1964 in Ellensburg, Washington, a “cow-dung stinking, dead-end town full of rednecks and white thrash.” There he managed to escape death for the first time, during the pea harvest. When he fell from a tractor as a farmhand and was almost run over, he was able to turn his body just in time. His legs were run over.

The accident put an end to his planned escape to Las Vegas. Believing that he would “never leave his hated hometown alive,” he decided to turn to music. With the brothers Van and Lee O’Connor and drummer Mark Pickerel, whom he knew from school and with whom he shared a love for obscure punk and garage rock, he founded Screaming Trees.

The foursome only broke through after eight years, thanks in part to a befriended band: Nirvana. After the explosion of grunge, the Trees were able to hook up effortlessly with their sixth album Sweet Oblivion (1992) of which ‘Nearly Lost You’ became the biggest hit.

jet black soul

As a red-haired Jim Morrison look-a-like, the singer was already a standout, but his raspy baritone stood out from the crowd. ‘Dark’ Mark Lanegan sounded so lived-in that he seemed to be gargling his throat daily with shards of glass. His sound—a combination of crooning croons, hoarse growls, and sliding pants—seemed to rise straight from his pitch-black soul. It suited the mystique that surrounded him as he stood motionless on stage: seemingly calm, but deep down dangerous and unpredictable.

He was hot-tempered too. As languid as his vocal cords sounded, so fiercely did he let his fists speak. He didn’t shy away from attacking technicians, fans or other musicians. Even his own bandmates weren’t safe: if Lee O’Connor again whined a little too exuberantly or flung his guitar wildly and accidentally tapped the singer, he could expect a microphone stand on his neck.

An American tour with Oasis was even canceled halfway through because Liam Gallagher – not the easiest herself – would be afraid of a beating, Lanegan claimed. Reason for the announced fight that Gallagher managed to avoid: he had mockingly called Screaming Trees ‘Howling Branches’.

Kurt Cobain

With the success of the band, the number of near-death experiences also grew. Once settled in Seattle, the epicenter of grunge, Lanegan, an avid drug user and allegedly addicted to alcohol from the age of 12, became best friends with two notorious heavy users: Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. However deep he sank, unlike the Nirvana and Alice in Chains singers, he would survive the hype and heroin, although an eternal guilt continued to haunt him. He had been to Cobain’s home the day of Cobain’s suicide, but forgot to look in the conservatory above the garage…

Also read: Mark Lanegan: ‘Could I have saved my friend Kurt Cobain?

Anyone who still harbors any illusions about the glamor of drugs and rock ‘n’ roll should definitely check out his gripping autobiography Sing Backwards and Weep (2020) to be cured of that for good. It’s a shocking story that reads like an overdose in slow motion. While grunge junkies die one by one, Lanegan keeps crawling through the eye of the needle and finally being left alone.

The book ends when he checks into rehab with the help of Courtney Love, Cobain’s widow. Then the best episode of his life was yet to begin, because once clean, he became more productive than ever. Turned his many, often calmer, solo albums into bubblegum (2004) most impressed. As an occasional band member, he sang on the major albums of desert rock legends Queens of the Stone Age and went on world tours. And he began fruitful collaborations with soul mates as well as opposites. In The Gutter Twins he gloated together with fellow misanthropist Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs, while with dream singer Isobel Campbell he mixed black tar with feather-light down.

A teetotaler, he was enjoying a healthy life in Ireland, when a new devil emerged. In Devil in a Coma (2021) he described how corona completely knocked him out: he was unconscious for months, could no longer walk and became temporarily deaf. Although he had initially had his doubts about the seriousness of the disease and the effectiveness of vaccines, he was eventually cured of those delusions as well. He had learned his lesson, he admitted in one of his last interviews. As soon as he could, he would take a booster.