Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin would tell Rolling Stone in 1996 “This is not an
easy band to be in,” “It’s like there’s this fine line between healthy creative tension,
and total misery and self-destruction. We’ve definitely seen both” he'd say.
Screaming Trees should have been a much bigger band than they were, but bad timing,
infighting and drugs cannibalized the band as Singer Mark Lanegan looked
back at his complicated relationship with his bandmates telling Loudersound
“We didn’t have a damn thing in common except insanity. So we fought a lot he'd say.”
Today, let’s talk about the rise and fall of Screaming Trees.
Growing up in a ranching town named Ellensberg, which is about 100 miles from Seattle, brothers
Gary Lee and Van Connor were outcasts in school being painfully shy and getting into trouble
with their parents and teachers by boozing. Soon enough, the brothers got drawn into punk music,
more specifically the band black flag Also growing up in Ellensberg around this time was future
bandmate Mark Lanegan whose towering stature made him the star quarterback in high school.
But Lanegan, also had a troubled childhood and by the time he became a legal adult he had already
been arrested for a variety of offenses including public drunkenness, shoplifting and – drug
possession. Like the Connor brothers Lanegan would find punk rock in his early teens when he saw a
picture of a shirtless iggy pop on the front cover of an issue of Creem Magazine at a record store.
Lanegan would eventually meet Van Connor in journalism class and the pair bonded over their
love of punk rock. Van’s older brother Lee, five years his senior, was writing and recording songs
on a four-track recorder. Lee played his material for Lanegan who saw potential in it. Adding
drummer Mark Pickerel to round out the lineup, Soon enough Screaming Trees were born. They
would take their name from an old effects pedal. The band would rehearse at the Connor brothers
parents video rental store, but even from the start things were difficult for the band.
Between the Connor brothers constant bickering and fighting, Ellensberg didn’t offer a lot of
places for bands to play. Van Connor would reveal to author Greg Prato in the book Grunge is Dead
that the Screaming Trees first gig was at a group home for people who were mentally challenged.
The band would go on to release their 1985 demo titled Other Worlds through local label Velvetone.
And while many people think of Mark Lanegan as one of the best singers to come out of Seattle,
original drummer Mark Pickerel would reveal in the book Grunge is Dead
how the singer was still finding his voice revealing “this was maybe a few months after
lanegan started singing with us so he was still figuring out his strengths and weaknesses.
I remember that there’s this song Pictures in my mind he was self conscious about his voice,
so we ended up speeding up the tape to give his voice a different edge.” The other worlds EP
would get the band noticed in seattle especially by the local newspapers like the Rocket who were
now writing about the band and soon enough their music was being played on college radio.
It would be the Connor brothers parents who who lent the band money to pay for their debut album
1986’s Clairvoyance which was released on Velvetone as well. For a band that people
hadn’t really heard of, it was a surprise to its members when the album sold over 2,500 copies.
Following the band’s debut album Screaming Trees music eventually found it’s way into
the hands of Black flag guitarist and SST Records co-founder Gregg Ginn.
Throughout the rest of the 80’s the band would release a string of albums,
EP’s and solo records for SST including 1987’s Even If And Especially When,
1988’s Invisible Lantern and 1989’s Buzz Factory, But the band almost came close
to calling it quits. Van Connor would tell author Greg Prato that following 1988’s invisible lantern
the band almost quit revealing We all had crap jobs and had no future.
You weren’t making any money in a band like that. We were supporting our band habit by having a job.
I left before 1989’s buzz factory for a while about half a year when i had my first son.
I freaked out i was like i can’t do music anymore. Of course then i realized that
life sucked even worse without so music so i started doing it again" he'd say.
According to a longtime roadie of the band who told Rolling Stone “I think everybody has quit
this band and rejoined at least once,” “I remember someone from [a major label] once said, ‘Well,
if you get rid of one of the fat guys, we’ll sign you,’ and they were just like, ‘Forget this.'”
The band appeared to catch a break though in 1990 when they signed with Sony owned Epic Records.
At this point in time, not a lot of bands from seattle had major label deals with the exception
of soundgarden and alice in chains. Screaming Trees major label debut Uncle Anesthesia in 1991.
Produced by terry date and soundarden’s Chris Cornell, whose wife managed Screaming Trees,
the album did little to expand the group’s fan base. The song bed of roses charted
on the mainstream rock charts but it wasn’t enough. Drummer Mark Pickeral would tell author
greg prato “there was a sort of a self imposed pressure to produce a record that was exciting,
but also radio friendly. I don’t think terry date had really experienced what made the screaming
trees great outside of that experience not had he followed us as a fan. But Van Conner had a much
different view on things revealing in the same book that Pickerel didn’t want to sign to a major
label as it would create too much pressure on the band.Following the release of Uncle
Anesthesia Pickerel would leave the group. The band would soon enough enlist Skin Yard
drummer Barrett Martin and Screaming Trees thought they only had one more chance to prove themselves,
otherwise they would lose their recording contract. They would release their follow up
album Sweet Oblivion in 1992. Ad Luckily for the band at this point in time,
the Seattle music scene had exploded. Lee Connor would tell Rolling Stone in
1996 “When we went into the studio, [Epic] didn’t know what the hell to do with us,”
“then suddenly we came out, and Pearl Jam was making it big, and Nirvana was huge. All of a
sudden there was a market for our kind of music. Their big single from Sweet Oblivioun nearly
lost you was used in the 1992 cameron crowe film Singles and the band toured extensively behind the
album playing spin doctors and soul asylum that summer. Sweet Oblivion would end up selling almost
half a million copies and Gary Lee conner recalled the writing process for the album telling kerrang
​“We never knew what Lanegan was going to do with songs. Sometimes he’d come with ideas,
and sometimes he’d do things in the spur of the moment. At one point half of the songs didn’t
have lyrics, or even titles. He disappeared for three days, and when he came back he was
hungover after being on a binge. Not only did he have all the lyrics, he sang everything,
too. I don’t know how he did that – whether it was an epiphany or he had it planned all along.”
In the fall of 1992 their label Epic Records strong armed Screaming Trees to hit the road
with Alice in Chains who were also signed to Sony. The tour was full of debauchery and it
introduced perhaps one of the greatest villains to the story of screaming trees, which was the
drug heroin. It was reported by author david de sola in the book alice in chains the untold story
that the tour with Alice in Chains represented the first time frontman Mark Lanegan used the drug.
He would end up in a hospital in Montreal after suffering blood poisoning and In fact
layne staley would end up filling in for Mark during the tour’s stop in Montreal.
But wanting to capitalize off the popularity of grunge music and their album sweet oblivion, the
Screaming Trees planned on heading back into the studio in 1993 to write their follow up record,
but the wheels came off. The band was burned out from their grueling tours and opted to take
some time off while at the same time Lanegan was stuck in the throws of drug addiction. Lee Conner
summarized the period of 1993-1995 telling author mark yarm “that was the worst period of my life.
I rented a room in the bottom part of a house in Ballard and sat there for two damn years writing
songs. And at first i was like okay mark and van are going to come over and we’re going to work
together. And unfortunately the first few times we tried that Mark was asleep on the bed. I literally
wrote over 200 songs during that period of time and they were most of the time utter crap” while
his brother would recall recall in the same book “I don’t want to blame anybody but i was probably
caring more about drinking then. Lee would have blowups if we were fing around maybe i’d be
drunk of mark would disappear for a few days but through it all Lee kept plugging away" he'd say.
The resulting record would be 1996’s Dust, which was more influenced by folk and blues music,
compared to their previous albums which were more psychedelic and punk influenced. The album won a
lot of praise from critics even making some year end lists, but it only sold half of what Sweet
Oblivion did. By The Connor brothers own admission had the album been released in 1993 or 1994,
it likely would have sold a lot better. It would also represent the last studio recording from
the Screaming Trees during the time the band was together. When the band hit the road to support
the record, they added second guitarist Josh Homme whose prior brand Kyuss had just imploded.
The band members by their own admission loved having some new blood in the group,
but it did little to keep the band members, more specifically Lanegan out of trouble.
The brothers would admit that being on the road for the Dust album was no fun
as Lanegan was always trying to score. One of the lighter moments during the
tour was that the band got a strange touring spot opening for Oasis. It turned out that both bands
shared the same label in America and it was a business decision to pair the two acts together.
And it wasn’t a good pairing as Liam Gallagher reportedly insulted Screaming Trees to their face
calling them the Howling Branches. Lanegan claimed in his autobiography sing backwards and weep that
he challenged gallagher to a fight but the singe reportedly chickened out and bailed on the tour.
I’ve done a much more detailed video on this feud. It's listed below in the description box,
make sure you guys go check it out. While on tour playing club dates in
San Francisco for the Dust album, Lanegan was arrested for drug possession charges. The band’s
tour would be interrupted as Lanegan spent almost a year in rehab. And Drummer Barrett Martin would
tell Loudersound “Lanegan’s one of the greatest singers of my generation,” says Martin. “And
in hindsight it’s better that the Trees missed that world tour, because
everyone in the band is still around. If we had stayed on the road, that might not be the case.”
Following the tour to support Dust, the band left Epic Records and turned their attention to
their next album. In reality though, the band was finished, it would just be a slow drawn out death.
Screaming Trees would come up with new material but it wasn’t enough to land them a record deal.
Almost half a decade had passed since Seattle was the new epicentre of rock music
and times had changed. Labels were not pushing nu-metal and pop rock
and the band's new material would sit on the shelf and collect dustIt was around this time
Lanegan was able to get sober with the help of friend Courtney Love and the band would play their
final show together in 2000 and to everyone's surprise except Lanegan it would be the end
of the group. Lee Conner would tell Kerrang what the end of the band was like revealing
“Lanegan made most of the business decisions, and a lot of the creative ones. A lot of the time he
wouldn’t tell us what the decision was. In fact, he didn’t even tell us that the band was breaking
up. I didn’t know until after the last show when someone mentioned it in the dressing room.
He could have told us that. The last years of the ​’90s weren’t a good time for a band to get
signed. Maybe if we’d left it for a few years and come back we’d have got something going" he'd say.
Following the announcement of the band disbanding, Lanegan talked to MTV revealing
“The other guys have families and other projects to work on, And I'm working on
my fifth solo record. We've only played, like, five shows in the last three years" he'd say.
In the years that followed the members would pursue other musical projects most
notably Lanegan joining Queens of the Stone Age and embark on a pretty successful solo
career and collaborate with other artists.. The band’s scrapped session from 1998-1999
would eventually be released in 2011. Tilted Last Words: The Final Recordings the album
would be released on drummer Barrett Martin’s own label Sunyata Records.
Lee Connor revealed to kerrang that since the band’s breakup he’s only spoken to Lanegan once
and there were some initial talks of doing a reunion six or seven years ago.
He would tell the magazine “ In the times we got together after we made Dust it seemed,
to me, that we’d reconciled. I talked to him in 2012-13, when we’d thought about getting back
together to do shows around the time The Lost Words came out. He called me after we ultimately
decided not to do it and we talked for half an hour about what we were doing, life-wise.
It was a nice conversation. After he broke the band up he kept calling me wanting to record,
but I guess that’s when he hooked up with Queens Of The Stone Age.”
But even by 2019 it seemed like there existed a lot of bad blood at least on Lanegans side.
The singer would react pretty angrily to a fan on twitter who said the frontman was ready for
a screaming trees reunion saying the following how do you get the nerve to make a statement like
that dude? I don't know how many different ways I can say it but any Screaming Trees reunion,
show, rehearsal, lunch or fistfight will not include me. Please keep your shitty comments
to yourself. Don't put words in my mouth man. In 2020 Mark Lanegan released a book titled
Sing backwards and weep. The book of course talked about his time in screaming trees
and he had some pretty harsh things to say about his former bandmates
with Lee Connor revealing he could only make it through a few pages of the book because and i
quote “While many of the facts may be accurate, it is delivered with a venom that is perplexing.
I moved far, far past all my problems and confrontations with Mark many years ago
and airing all this now, after half a lifetime, in a very public forum,
seems vicious and petty" he'd say. That concludes today's story guys thanks for watching. Let
me know in the comments section, where do the Screaming Trees rank for you out of all the bands
who came out of Seattle and do you think they should have been much bigger than they were and do
you guys think we'll see a reunion. We'll see you next time on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.