Mark Lanegan

Since emerging as an angsty, long-haired teen back in 1984 as part of Screaming Trees, Lanegan has traversed a myriad of genres, styles and collaborators through a prolific and critically acclaimed career. Of course, there are still songs of Lanegan’s that have been recorded but are yet to see the light of day – and who knows if they ever will?

“A few years ago, somebody started putting together a box set of my work,” says Lanegan, alluding to One Way Street: The Sub Pop Albums, which was finally released last year. “One of the discs was dedicated to previously unreleased stuff, so that took care of most of what I had in the archive. There’s probably plenty more in there, y’know, for all I know. I used to record a lot of songs, and of course not all of them were going to make it onto the record. That’s not really how I do things anymore – those extra songs usually end up as B-sides to a seven-inch, or maybe I’ll put them on an EP. Those older songs, though, they’re all still out there somewhere, I’m sure.”

The unearthing continued into Lanegan’s most recent release, last August’s Houston (Publishing Demos 2002). As the title suggests, the album is a collection of songs recorded by Lanegan and some close friends back in 2002. Some 13 years later, fans were able to hear that session in its entirety thanks to the project’s producer, Alain Johannes.

“Alain has remained a good friend of mine throughout the years,” says Lanegan. “We’d talked about putting it out for a few years now, but every time he had brought it up in the past I already had a new project or a new record that I was looking to put out at the same time. There was never an appropriate slot for it to work its way into a release schedule, and after a while I just forgot about it. Sometime at the start of last year, Alain sent the songs over again. To my surprise, everything sounded really great and the songs were fine. I had some time, so I just figured ‘Why not?’ It wasn’t all that mysterious, really.”

While he is best known for performing under his own name, Lanegan has also forged his way as a noted musical collaborator. He was a key part of the first few lineups of Queens of the Stone Age, has recorded under the name The Gutter Twins (alongside Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs and The Twilight Singers), and has released three albums with Isobel Campbell and another, Black Pudding, with multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood. So, what draws Lanegan to working with another performer?

“First and foremost, it’s the music,” he replies. “More specifically, it’s the music that they make without me – it’s something that I have to enjoy. The people themselves, too, are very important to the operation. Almost always, it’s someone that I’m well-acquainted with. If that’s not the case initially, it certainly is by the time the work is done and the project is finished. It has to be something that I can see my part in. There are rare occasions where a collaboration hasn’t worked out for that very reason – I think I can handle something, and then we’ll get further into the piece and it will become clearer that it’s simply not the case.”

It’s worth noting that, at a time when everyone from At The Drive-In to LCD Soundsystem is back from the dead, Lanegan personally expresses no interest in nostalgia. He is adamant that there will never be a Screaming Trees reunion – although he clarifies he’s not against the idea of reunions on a grander scale.

“I completely appreciate that people want to continue to make music with their band – I mean, The Rolling Stones are still doing it,” he says.“There’s no reason that The Afghan Whigs or Alice In Chains or Soundgarden shouldn’t be doing it. It’s their band. I’m 100 per cent behind that. With that being said, to be completely honest with you, no-one has ever been knocking down the door for a Screaming Trees reunion. We were never the kind of band that was as popular as those bands I just mentioned. We just kind of had our little corner and we did our thing for a little while. There was never a huge market for it. We’ve all moved on to our own things, and I’m completely fine with that.”

This July, the Mark Lanegan Band are headed to Australia to perform at Splendour In The Grass. It will be Lanegan’s third outing as part of the festival, having previously visited in 2009 with The Gutter Twins and in 2013 alongside Isobel Campbell. It’s suggested that he may well be seen as the outlier of the Splendour lineup, an odd-one-out inclusion among more hip and trendy acts.

“Maybe I’m delusional, but I don’t think about it in those terms,” Lanegan shoots back with a snigger. “It’s just another show. I turn up, I play, I leave. If there’s a friend of mine on the bill, I see them too. Naturally, I enjoy a more intimate setting, but I also get something out of the scale of festivals. I’m bringing my band, too, so it will be more fitting to the climate.”

[Mark Lanegan photo by Steve Gullick]