The grunge scene, this musical movement born in Seattle and which exploded worldwide in the early 1990s, has just lost one of its pioneers: American musician Mark Lanegan died on Tuesday February 22 at his home in Ireland, at 57. years, announced his relatives.
“Our beloved friend Mark Lanegan passed away this morning at his home in Killarney, Ireland. A beloved singer, songwriter and musician, he was 57 and leaves behind his wife Shelley. Brien, is it written on the own twitter account of the disappeared, stating that“no further information will be available” for now by “respect for family intimacy”.
Born in November 1964, near Seattle in the State of Washington (northwest), in the United States, Mark Lanegan was first the singer and leader of the rock group Screaming Trees from 1984 to 2000. His song Nearly Lost You appears on the film’s soundtrack Singles (1992) whose story takes place in the city of grunge. He was then a member of the formation Queens of the Stone Age until 2014.
Having also led a solo career and collaborated with other artists, he can boast about fifteen studio albums. In addition to his talents as a musician (guitar, keyboards), he was renowned for his baritone voice.
plagued by many addictions
Mark Lanegan was the friend of Kurt Cobain, of the mythical group Nirvana, who committed suicide in 1994 at the age of 27, as well as the American chef and writer Anthony Bourdain, who also killed himself by hanging in Alsace ( East of France) in 2018.
The musician has never made a mystery in his autobiography of his addictions to alcohol and heroin and recounted having been close to death in March 2021 because of the Covid-19, a disease for which he believed for a time in certain conspiracy theories, before making his self-criticism and advocating vaccination.
In a 2020 interview with the French edition of the magazine RollingStone, put online for free on the occasion of his deathMark Lanegan had wanted “minimizing his place in the grunge dynasty”according to the newspaper.
“To keep making music, I had to distance myself from the whole Seattle thing. I had to keep my distance to avoid being known as an ex-grunge drug addict who never made it”he explained to the media.