The Rise And Fall Of Screaming Trees, Through The Eyes Of Gary Lee Conner

Gary Lee Conner relives the rollercoaster journey of Screaming Trees – from their early beginnings to the dissolution of his relationship with Mark Lanegan

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Much has been written about Screaming Trees recently, though not necessarily for reasons befitting their standing among the grunge greats. While not the biggest beneficiaries of the Seattle gold rush of the early ’90s compared to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains, Screaming Trees achieved relative success with 1992’s Sweet Oblivion, and to a lesser extent 1996’s Dust (their sixth and seventh albums), which best distilled their blend of rock, blues and psychedelia. Both displayed a harder edge, which developed when the band signed to Epic, though their momentum was later derailed when they parted ways with the major label.

By 2000, with singer Mark Lanegan increasingly turning his attention to his solo career and sporadic live performances failing to find Screaming Trees a new home, the band split. The music recorded post-Dust, at Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard’s studio, would eventually appear as Last Words: The Final Recordings. It’s perhaps testament to how far the band’s stock had fallen by that point, though, that the record was only released 12 years later, with drummer Barrett Martin taking it upon himself to put it out through his own Sunyata Records label.

The reason Screaming Trees have been on everyone’s lips of late is the release of Sing Backwards And Weep, Mark Lanegan’s unflinching memoir. In it he chronicles his geographically and emotionally isolated childhood, teenage alcoholism and later descent into heroin addiction, while examining his tenure in Screaming Trees, often harshly. He’s frequently scathing about his former bandmates, too, particularly guitarist Gary Lee Conner (or Lee). But while Mark has had his say in the book, and the interviews promoting it, the more reclusive Lee has been quieter, save for a Facebook post acknowledging the two never got along as friends, but that “[Sing Backwards And Weep] is delivered with a level of venom that is perplexing”.

Given these developments, and the increased attention on Screaming Trees, you’d have thought people would be swamping Lee’s email inbox to get in touch with him. Not so according to the man himself, speaking to Kerrang! from his home in San Angelo, Texas, about 250 miles west of Dallas – wind chimes audible in the background. While San Angelo is home to some 100,000 people, its remoteness is similar to that of Ellensburg, the city in Washington State that birthed Screaming Trees in 1985. Lee has lived here for 20 years with his wife, a college professor, raising their daughter and enjoying a quieter pace; he admits the only difference between his life before and during lockdown is Mrs Conner now being home during the day.

A jovial 57-year-old with jet-black hair and Wolverine-like sideburns, Lee admits his anxiety dreams about Screaming Trees only stopped 10 years after their split. Given this sense of closure, and continued focus on music – most recently 2018’s Unicorn Curry album – Lee is more interested in reflecting upon his former band’s story, and ensuring their legacy receives its dues, than settling old scores. “Me and Lanegan didn’t get along, I know that, but we did make some great music together.”

What are your memories of Screaming Trees coming together?
“It was the summer of 1985, and me, my brother Van and [original drummer] Mark Pickerel were doing a weird combo of ’60s stuff, punk rock stuff, metal stuff, and new wave stuff. Van and Mark knew Lanegan because they had some high school classes together. The only time I’d met him before then was when he was 12 years old, this little red-haired kid who’d apparently started to drink. Originally I wasn’t going to be involved. Lanegan came over and sang some songs, with Van playing guitar, and were practicing in my room, so my mom told them they had to have me in the band. They soon discovered I had a four-track and was writing the songs that would end up on [Screaming Trees’ debut EP] Other Worlds.”

The band’s psychedelic leanings are attributed to you – what were your own personal ambitions?
“To be a psychedelic revival band. If you look at the artwork for [1986’s full-length debut album] Clairvoyance, I’ve got a Beatles-y haircut and psychedelic clothes. That’s what I wanted to do and I was writing the songs, but nobody else was really into that, so that tempered it enough that we became something more.”

You’ve been clear you and Mark Lanegan weren’t close, but there must have been something there early on that superseded friendship?
“I get the vibe from what I’ve heard that he just wanted to get out of Ellensburg. That’s not how I saw it at the time. I thought that he thought we were making some pretty good music and getting a little bit of success. We got on to SST Records, which was a total dream come true for everybody.”

How would you describe your creative dynamic?
“When we started we’d write songs in the same room. By the time we got on SST and working on [1987’s] Even If And Especially When, I was writing stuff and getting it to Lanegan. Sometimes he’d change some of the lyrics, sometimes he’d change all of them, and sometimes it was somewhere in-between.”

Was that a harmonious process?
“I don’t remember being that upset about Lanegan changing lyrics. By the early ’90s it was clear he was improving them. What he did was what a really good book editor does: taking material and making it better to present to the public.”

How much was the success of your ‘grunge’ peers, and a desire to be part of that, a factor in the change in direction that began with 1991’s Uncle Anesthesia?
“We didn’t even know about ‘grunge’ until 1991. That was the underground. While we were working on Sweet Oblivion, Nirvana started getting big. I remember their Paramount show that October, and standing out in the lobby with everyone from the other Seattle bands. By that point [Nirvana’s second album] Nevermind had sold like 300,000 copies, so it was clearly the end of the underground. That’s when it became this surreal, giant thing. It wasn’t bad, necessarily, but it was different.”