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Mark Lanegan, frontman for Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age, dead at 57

By Kelli Dugan, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
By Kelli Dugan, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Grunge pioneer Mark Lanegan has died at the age of 57, according to a tweet from his personal Twitter account.

Lanegan, whose 1985-formed Screaming Trees – along with The Melvins, Mudhoney, Soundgarden and others – laid the foundation for Seattle’s grunge movement of the 1990s, died at his home in Killarney, Ireland, KIRO-TV reported.

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The Screaming Trees released seven albums, five EPs and three compilation albums throughout their career, growing in prominence alongside Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Nirvana, the TV station reported.

According to Variety, Lanegan followed his stint as the Screaming Trees lead vocalist with a prolific solo career, featuring repeated collaborations with Queens of the Stone Age and others.

Lanegan’s cause of death has not been released publicly, although 2021 reports indicated that he suffered from both COVID-19 and kidney disease, the entertainment news outlet reported.

“I wanted excitement, adventure, decadence, depravity, anything, everything,” he wrote in his 2020 memoir, “Sing Backwards and Weep.”

“I would never find any of it in this dusty, isolated cow town. If the band could get me out, could get me into that life I so craved, it was worth any indignity, any hardship, any torture,” the Ellensburg, Washington, native wrote.

He certainly got his wish.

The Screaming Trees’ 1990 debut album for Epic Records, co-produced by the late Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, yielded the single “Nearly Lost You,” which was featured prominently in Cameron Crowe’s seminal tribute to the Seattle grunge scene, “Singles,” catapulting the track to alternative-radio fame. In turn, the Trees’ follow-up album, “Sweet Oblivion,” propelled the band to national prominence, Variety reported.

Meanwhile, Lanegan spent five years with Queens of the Stone Age, parting ways with the rock band in 2005. He also released 12 solo albums, the most recent of which, “Straight Songs of Sorrow,” dropped in 2020, KIRO-TV reported.

He is survived by his second wife, Shelley Brien, Variety reported.

©2022 Cox Media Group

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