More about: Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan (1964-2022), musician and miracle of life, passed away on Tuesday (22 February) at his home in Killarney, Ireland at the age of 57. A unique voice who somehow survived the west coast grunge scene of the late '80s and early '90s, he later transformed himself into something of a crooner.

...a crooner of the apocalypse, dripping whiskey and cigar tarnished vocals, second only to the levitating wave of synth that defined his later tunes. Darkness ensnared in hope became his preferred sound as he moved away from the bittersweet aggression of his earlier work.

A man never afraid to experiment and reinvent himself, he travelled far from the Screaming Trees with whom he made his name on now iconic albums of the era like Uncle Anethesia and singles like 'Nearly Lost You' and 'All I Know'. He had one of the most fluid yet monumental voices in alternative rock and was able to somehow seem both a separate element and completely embedded within every track he laid down. You could always immediately identify the sneering werewolf howl of Mark Lanegan, but he never seemed to overwhelm his collaborator or steal the limelight that was rightfully his.

It was only relatively recently that he founded the Mark Lanegan Band under its current guise—with whom he toured for most of the past decade—but his solo output commenced with 1990’s The Winding Sheet. The album represented a departure from his previous sound and was the first time Lanegan risked going it alone in scribing the lyrics. He wrote in his book, I Am The Wolf: Lyrics and Writings, that the songs were "born of sadness and uncertainty with my circumstances at the time: relationships, money problems, alcohol, depression, addiction, and so on.”

These ravens haunted Lanegan throughout his career and inspired some of his finest work. While friends Cobain and Novoselic contributed to that first solo outing, the long list of musicians Lanegan has worked with provides an entry point into the modern history of rock over the past thirty-five years or so. 2004’s Bubblegum is testament to Lanegan’s genius, pulling a listener back and forth through the sewage of a Manhattan late night before the optimistic dawn of the totemic 'One Hundred Days' and closer, 'Out of Nowhere'.

It was his curatorial ability that shone through in Lanegan's solo work, pulling together disparate individuals like Josh Homme and PJ Harvey to Duff McKagan and Izzy Stradlin of Guns N’ Roses on Bubblegum alone. It is this desire for collaboration that distinguishes his career. Many were introduced to Lanegan in his adrenaline-tarred vocals for Queens of the Stone Age tracks 'In the Fade' and 'Song for the Dead'. Watching him come onstage and loom over the microphone at a teatime Glastonbury slot with the likes of Homme, Grohl and Oliveri in 2002 was one of the greatest pleasures of twenty-first century live music. 

But show me another musician who could delve the hedonistic depths with QOTSA and simultaneously lilt along with Isobel Campbell of Belle and Sebastian fame releasing three albums with the Scottish singer and cellist. But to define Lanegan by his collaborations is to do the legacy of the man a gross disservice. While he is the face of survival and the desire to evolve through exposure to other musicians, at root, he owns his own legacy.

Later, Mark Lanegan Band records like Blues Funeral and Gargoyle once again moved away from his previous work and into the Joy Division atmosphere of synth and melancholy which he made his own. The Lanegan who left this world yesterday and passed into the darkness leaves behind many legacies that are rightfully Mark’s. We will all miss him greatly. 

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More about: Mark Lanegan