Formed in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1980s before a musical movement even existed there, Screaming Trees embodied the post-punk and psychedelic elements that later bands would commercialise.
Screaming Trees’ 1985 debut EP, Other Worlds, was released on Velvetone and later reissued by SST. They signed to Epic in 1990 and released the EP Something About Today.
Sweet Oblivion was released in 1992.
Honing a hard-edged sound that mixed psychedelia, punk and rootsy rock, Screaming Trees made seven albums before breaking up in 2000, following years of drug-and-alcohol-fuelled acrimony between frontman Mark Lanegan and his bandmates.
By then, Lanegan had also established himself as a brooding, darkly poetic solo artist, recording a dozen solo albums including The Winding Sheet (1990) and Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (1994). He joined Queens of the Stone Age as a guest singer for several records, formed The Gutter Twins, recorded with rock “supergroup” Mad Season and made three albums with former Belle and Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell.
Mark Lanegan died at his home in Killarney, Ireland, on 22 February 2022, aged 57. He had spent several months of 2021 in a medically-induced coma in hospital after contracting Covid.
Mark Lanegan
Vocals
Gary Lee Conner
Guitar
Van Conner
Bass
Barrett Martin
Drums
Mark Pickerel
Drums