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

Mark Lanegan, the lead singer of Seattle’s Screaming Trees and a former member of Queens of the Stone Age, has died, according to a tweet from his personal Twitter account. He was 57.

Born in Ellensburg, Lanegan said he was abusing alcohol by the age of 12 and was using drugs by the age of 18.

According to an interview in The Guardian, Lanegan said he spent much of his teenage years in and out of jail for petty thefts and drug offenses before he nearly died in a road accident involving a tractor. He was 20.

Screaming Trees was formed in Lanegan’s Ellensburg high school in 1985 and is known as one of the pioneers of the Seattle grunge movement in the 90s, along with The Melvins, Mudhoney, Soundgarden and more.

The band grew in prominence along with Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Nirvana, releasing seven albums, five EPs and three compilation albums.

Their single, “Nearly Lost You,” was featured in the movie “Singles” and peaked at #5 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart.

Kurt Cobain personally chose Screaming Trees to appear on the final day of the Reading Festival in the United Kingdom in 1992, which Nirvana headlined.

Lanegan said in his memoir that heroin “kept me from dying from the horrors of my severe alcoholism.”

During a Screaming Trees tour in 1992, Lanegan’s arm became so infected from heroin use that doctors considered amputating it, according to The Guardian.

After playing a show to open the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Screaming Trees broke up in 2000.

Lanegan released 12 solo albums. The latest, Straight Songs of Sorrow, was released in 2020.

Lanegan joined Queens of the Stone Age in 2000, before leaving in 2005.

In 2021, Lanegan was hospitalized with COVID-19 and almost died.

Lanegan died at his home in Killarney, Ireland. He was 57.

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