Mark Lanegan was an American singer- songwriter, author and musician. He passed away in February 22, 2022.
Let’s dive into some trivia and facts about his life and career.
- His full name was Mark William Lanegan
- He was born in November 25, 1964
- He died February 22, 2022
- He was an American singer-songwriter, author, and musician
- First becoming prominent as the lead singer for early grunge band Screaming Trees
- He was also known as a member of Queens of the Stone Age and The Gutter Twins
- He released twelve solo studio albums
- As well as three collaboration albums with Isobel Campbell and two with Duke Garwood
- Lanegan was known for his baritone voice
- He voice was described as being “as scratchy as a three-day beard yet as supple and pliable as moccasin leather”
- Lanegan began his musical career in 1984 as the frontman of the psychedelic grunge band Screaming Trees
- With the band he released seven studio albums and five EPs before their disbandment in 2000
- During his time in the band, he also started a solo career
- He released his first solo studio album, The Winding Sheet, in 1990
- He subsequently released a further ten solo albums
- His albums received critical recognition but only moderate commercial succes
- Following the end of Screaming Trees, he became a frequent collaborator of Queens of the Stone Age
- He was featured on their albums Rated R, Songs for the Deaf, Lullabies to Paralyze, Era Vulgaris, and …Like Clockwork
- Lanegan also collaborated with various artists throughout his career
- In the 1990s, he recorded an unreleased album of Lead Belly covers with Kurt Cobain of Nirvana
- He joined Layne Staley of Alice in Chains and Mike McCready of Pearl Jam in the band Mad Season
- He formed the alternative rock group The Gutter Twins with Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs in 2003
- Between 2004 and 2011, he released three critically acclaimed albums of duets with Scottish singer Isobel Campbell of Belle and Sebastian
- He also contributed to releases by Moby, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers, Tinariwen, The Twilight Singers, Manic Street Preachers, and Unkle, among others
- Mark Lanegan struggled with drug addiction and alcoholism throughout his life
- He managed to sustain sobriety for over a decade up until his death
- Encouraged by his friend Anthony Bourdain, Lanegan released his first of two memoirs Sing Backwards and Weep in 2020
- Followed by Devil in a Coma, about his near-death experience with COVID-19, the following year
- Lanegan died in 2022
- Mark William Lanegan was born in Ellensburg, Washington, on November 25, 1964
- During an interview with The Rocket in 1996, he said that he drove a combine harvester when he was younger
- He was of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh descent
- Mark Lanegan said that he developed an alcohol use disorder by age 12
- He began using drugs heavily by the age of 18
- At the age of 18 he had already been arrested and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for drug-related crimes
- Lanegan struggled with alcoholism and heroin addiction during the 1990s and early 2000s
- In his 2020 memoir, he claimed that, at age 12, he was “reviled as the town drunk before I could even legally drink”
- During a Screaming Trees tour in 1992, Lanegan’s arm became so badly infected from heroin use that doctors considered amputation
- After leaving the Screaming Trees, he became homeless for a period
- He entered rehab in 1997
- He credited Courtney Love, who paid for a year of Lanegan’s rehab, with saving his life
- After his first stint in rehab, he entered a halfway house and was given a job looking after Duff McKagan’s house
- He relapsed in 2004 and briefly went into a coma
- After this relapse, he supported himself by painting television sets
- He entered rehab again in 2006
- As of 2020, Lanegan had been sober for over a decade
- Mark Lanegan was a friend of Kurt Cobain
- He had been invited to his home a few hours before his death
- He was also a friend of Anthony Bourdain, who encouraged Lanegan to pursue writing a memoir
- Lanegan wrote an obituary for Bourdain for The Observer
- He had a highly publicized feud with Oasis singer Liam Gallagher
- Mark Lanegan has been married twice
- His second wife was Shelley Brien, whom he was with at the time of his death
- The couple moved from Los Angeles to County Kerry, Ireland, in 2020
- In March 2021, Lanegan was hospitalised with severe COVID-19 and almost died
- The disease had led to him going temporarily deaf, being unable to walk, and slipping in and out of a coma for several months
- In a 2020 interview, Lanegan had described his beliefs in a number of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, including the idea the disease is linked to 5G technology
- He also described paranoia that he and his wife were being surveilled by technological appliances
- However, in 2021 he said he had concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic was a “natural event”
- He also admitted that “I was one of those knuckleheads who was wary of the vaccine. But I learned my lesson. I’ll be the first one to get a booster shot when it’s available in Ireland”
- Lanegan died at his home in Killarney, Ireland, on the morning of February 22, 2022, at the age of 57
- No cause of death was announced
- Numerous artists, including Iggy Pop, Moby, John Cale, Sleaford Mods, Badly Drawn Boy, Anton Newcombe, Peter Hook and Manic Street Preachers paid tribute
- Locals of Killarney, described as a “tightly knit community”, also expressed a sense of loss
- An obituary in The Guardian by Stevie Chick remembered him as “one of his generation’s most soulful singers”.
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