Mark Lanegan, a pioneering vocalist of Seattle’s grunge music scene recognized for helming Screaming Bushes, has died, his household and associates confirmed on his verified Twitter account. He was 57.
A reason behind loss of life was not instantly introduced.
Although he typically downplayed his contributions to indie rock, the gravel-voiced performer helped usher in a brand new period for the style that noticed a lot of his collaborators soar to worldwide fame. He additionally collaborated with Queens of the Stone Age, launched an ingenious solo profession and revealed poetry and two memoirs.
Lanegan co-founded Screaming Bushes within the mid-Eighties, however it wasn’t till their sixth album, 1992’s “Candy Oblivion,” that the group lastly broke by means of nationally.
Screaming Bushes have been an influential a part of the Seattle grunge scene, the place bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Nirvana started their careers.
Lanegan wrote about his friendship with late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain in his 2020 memoir, “Sing Backwards and Weep.” Like Cobain, Lanegan was a recurring drug person. It wasn’t till after Cobain’s loss of life, with prodding from Cobain’s spouse, Courtney Love, that he finally went to rehab within the late ’90s and once more within the aughts, he wrote in his memoir. He had been sober for nearly 20 years when it was revealed, Rolling Stone reported on the time.
Lanegan’s music profession took a distinct path after the Screaming Bushes disbanded in 2000. He continued making solo albums, which he began releasing whereas nonetheless a member of the group. He joined the Queens of the Stone Age for a number of years and in addition collaborated with artists together with Isobel Campbell, previously of Belle and Sebastian.
“To proceed on in music, I needed to distance myself from the entire Seattle factor,” he informed Rolling Stone in 2020. “I needed to maintain it at arm’s size to keep away from being generally known as this ex-grunge, drug-addict singer who by no means made it.”
In August 2020, mid-pandemic, Lanegan moved to Eire along with his spouse, Shelley Brien. The keep was meant to be momentary, he informed Spin final yr, however the “bodily magnificence” of the realm satisfied him to remain.
Final yr, Lanegan turned sick with COVID-19 and almost died, an expertise he documented in one other memoir, “Satan in a Coma,” revealed in December. He was put right into a medically induced coma and spent weeks in an ICU in Eire.
“From the second I used to be introduced out of my chemically induced sleep and was informed what had occurred and the place I had been, I used to be decided to outlive this nightmare, although I had little or no say, truly, no say within the matter, and had zero ammo to combat with,” he wrote.
Fellow musicians and music lovers mourned Lanegan’s loss of life publicly. Peter Hook, co-founder of Pleasure Division and New Order, stated Lanegan was a “pretty man” who “led a wild life that a few of us might solely dream of.”
“He leaves us with implausible phrases and music!” Hook tweeted. “Thank god that by means of all of that he'll dwell endlessly.”
KEXP, a public radio station in Seattle that has lengthy championed various artists, known as Lanegan “a uncommon expertise, a real imaginative and prescient and a pricey buddy of the station.”
The band Rubbish, which got here up a number of years after Lanegan’s Screaming Bushes, praised Lanegan’s distinctive abilities in a tweet.
“A really gifted artist blessed with honey dipped tones, gone far too quickly,” the band stated.
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