American musician Mark Lanigan, the former singer of the band The Screaming Trees and a longtime solo career, passed away today at the age of 57.
The news was spread on the singer’s social media, revealing that Lanigan had died in Killarney, Ireland, where he was living, leaving his widow Shelley.
Born in the US state of Washington in 1964, Mark Lanigan was a violent young man with alcoholism, situations that were detailed in his first autobiography, Sing Back and Weep. Musically, he began to emerge as the lead singer of the Seattle Screaming Trees and also ended up releasing several solo albums, the first of which, “The Winding Sheet”, released in 1990, by Sub Pop.
Known for his baritone voice and unexpected temperament, Mark Lanigan was a close friend of Kurt Cobain, who was his idol. In his autobiography, Lanigan shows his regret at not having helped Cobain in the lead up to his death; Before he committed suicide, he was contacted by a Nirvana leader, unable to reach his friend. In the same book, Lanigan says that years later, Courtney Love, the widow of Kurt Cobain, saved his life by paying for a detoxing treatment. At the time, Love made it clear that she did so out of respect for the friendship and admiration her late husband had for him.
From Mark Lanigan’s long list of collaborations with Stone Age Queens; Greg Dooley, right-wing Afghan (on the Gutter Twins and Twilight Singers project), with ex-Belle and Sebastian Isobel Campbell and – among others – from The Portugal Dead Combo.
In 2018, the American participated in the latest Dead Combo album titled Odeon Hotel, and later joined several concerts of Tó Trips and Pedro Gonçalves in Portugal, such as the show at the Paredes de Coura Festival, in 2019.
Recently, Tó Trips said, on the BLITZ podcast, Posto EmmissorMark Lanigan even considered living in Portugal, then chose to move to Ireland, where his ancestors were of origin.
In Ireland, Mark Lanigan contracted Covid-19, a disease that severely weakened him. He recounted this process in another book called “The Devil in a Coma” released in 2021. In this work, the artist told how the disease left him partially deaf and unable to walk for a long period of time.
In “Sing Back and Weep,” the biography that his now-lost friend Anthony Bourdain convinced him to write, Mark Lanigan shares some of the dirtiest stories about his heroin addiction, which nearly cost him an arm amputation, and sex.
Mark Lanigan sang on several occasions in Portugal, having passed through Porto, Lisbon, Braga and Paredes de Cura.
“Infuriatingly humble analyst. Bacon maven. Proud food specialist. Certified reader. Avid writer. Zombie advocate. Incurable problem solver.”