He was the friend of the legend of grunge Kurt Cobain and was himself considered a pioneer of this current born in Seattle: the American musician Mark Lanegan died Tuesday at his home in Ireland, at age 57, announced his relatives on Twitter.
“Our beloved friend Mark Lanegan passed away this morning at his home in Killarney, Ireland. Singer, songwriter and adored musician, he was 57 years old and leaves behind his wife Shelley “Brien”, is it written on the own Twitter account of the disappeared, specifying that “no other information will be available” for the moment by “respect for family intimacy”.
Born in November 1964, near Seattle, Washington, Mark Lanegan was first the singer and leader of the rock and “psychedelic grunge” group Screaming Trees from 1984 to 2000, 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.
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 RollingStoneput online for free on the occasion of his death, Mark Lanegan had wanted to “minimize his place in the dynasty of grunge”, 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 replied to Rolling Stone.