ANTI-HEROS SCREAMING TREES WASN'T BORN TO FOLLOW by Jason Fine Option, 1993 Four songs into the Screaming Trees set at the University of Rhode Island, singer Mark Lanegan wants a drink. "Anybody got some refreshments out there?" he asks, squinting at the crowd through a bank of hot yellow stage lights. "Old gramps is parched." Using his mike stand as a walking stick, Lanegan stumbles forward a few feet and leans toward the rim of the stage, hoping for someone to pass him a beer or, better yet, a bottle. But if any of the clean-cut flannel-clad collegians in the audience tonight are drinking, they're not sharing, and Lanegan's outstretched hand is left dangling empty above the crowd. "Fuck it," he mutters to himself, and then tears into the next song with a coarse, stuttering howl. For Lanegan, it's another night on the job, another 70 minutes of singing to a swirling, faceless crowd – another reason to get drunk. The only problem is it's Sunday, and as Lanegan and four members of the road crew were heartily polishing off the last gallon bottle of vodka on the tour bus last night, no one anticipated that you can't buy over-the-counter liquor in Rhode Island on the Sabbath. But while his bandmates chose to face the gig sober, Lanegan found a friend with a car who was willing to taxi him to the nearest cocktail lounge five miles away. There, along with the driver, a roadie and assorted hangers-on, he spent several hours before the show hitting vodka-cranberrys two at a time, searching for the inspiration to perform. "Without booze," says Lanegan, in his dry, scratchy baritone, on the way to the bar, "things can get ugly." After a couple of days on the road with the Screaming Trees it quickly becomes clear that alcohol is the key to fighting off the tedium of a tour that's lasted six months and had the band zigzagging twice across the U.S. and Europe. The members say things have gotten particularly tiresome in the past two weeks, with the band stuck playing a string of gigs at East Coast colleges like this one. "I'm trying to mellow out," 25-year-old bassist Van Conner says during a five-hour downtime between soundcheck and the show. "But I just sit here and I'm so fucking bored that I'd like to be drunk. At least then I wouldn't know I was bored." If they were less than motivated going into tonight's show, the Screaming Trees burn from the first song. The set, drawn almost entirely from the band's current album Sweet Oblivion, includes mostly mid-tempo rockers and earthy ballads that recall '60s heroes like Cream and Creedence Clearwater Revival more than the grungy post-punk bands the Trees are most often associated with. Using congas and other percussion instruments on several tunes, drummer Barrett Martin and bassist Van Conner lock into a fluid, aggressive groove, while Gary Lee Conner's windmilling psychedelic guitar licks explode like buckshot all over the mix. Barreling sweatily across the stage in a kind of half-horizontal slam dance, it's no small feat that the giant guitarist keeps his balance, let alone avoids ramming into the rangy six-foot-three Lanegan or his own, equally large, bass-playing brother. For many years the Screaming Trees were written off as a rock'n'roll freak show; even in the band's adopted home of Seattle, soundman Rod Doak says the Trees were long treated like "some weird guys from the woods." Judging from the ecstatic response of the sold-out Rhode Island crowd, however, yesterday's misfits are today's teen heroes. During "Butterfly" and "Dollar Bill", two sentimental ballads that show off Lanegan's deep, pained vocals, the entire audience sways back and forth, with many members singing along to every word. In fact, it looks as if the show is going to come off without a hitch, until some overzealous student security guards begin manhandling stage-divers and crowd-surfers during the encore. In the middle of the last song, "Ivy", one guy jumps off the shoulders of some friends, rises a good two feet in the air and lands on the edge of the stage. The guards, instead of simply nudging him back into the crowd, hold him down and drag him across the stage by his wrists and feet. Lanegan, watching from behind his mike stand, charges the security guards and shoves one out of the way so the kid can break free. It's a heroic move, but doesn't please school authorities, who immediately stop the show. By the time Lanegan scrambles back to his microphone, the stage lights blink off and the P.A. is cut. With only the sound of Martin's unamplified drums flailing on, Lanegan looks briefly up at the crowd, shakes his head and walks off. "So we got shut down," Lanegan mumbles a half-hour later, rolling his head forward as he laughs. "Well, fuck it." He, Martin and a couple of female fans are back at the bar they'd visited earlier, in nearby Kingston. It's a dingy place decorated with bowling trophies and beer posters. The half-dozen old-timers quietly watching minor league baseball on a small TV don't look too thrilled when the giggly young women start pumping quarters into the jukebox and yelling out their selections. Lanegan, an intensely guarded person who can be surly when he wants to, tonight talks easily about his days playing quarterback for the Ellensburg High football team, his musician hero Roky Erickson, and the ups-and-downs of life on the road. The 28-year-old singer seems uncertain about the Trees' new prosperity; he's happy to be finally making a living playing music, but he's also grappling with the price of success. Particularly now, at the height of a media frenzy surrounding the "Seattle scene," times are strange for a band that has long bucked rock'n'roll trends. "I've been ridiculed by people on this tour for wearing a flannel shirt," says Lanegan, dressed tonight in a black leather jacket and a black ski cap with 'White Trash' scrawled across the front. "But, fuck it, I'm not going to stop wearing something I've worn for 27 years just 'cause it's not cool anymore; 'cause someone's going to say we're part of some fashion thing... "All this Seattle shit," he goes on. "We made three records while still living in Ellensburg and played Seattle only as much as any other major city. It wasn't like we were out pressing the flesh every day. We still don't... It's never been our thing to shamelessly self-promote, get out and be seen and all that; shake a lot of hands, sign a lot of shit. It's just not us. We're private people. We'd rather sit down and have a beer with somebody than be placed on a pedestal." He pauses and grins: "Some people play that game really well," he adds. "We stumble a lot." A few minutes before one a.m. and the Screaming Trees tour bus pulls up out front. As a parade of long-haired, tattooed crew members and drunk musicians from opening bands Pond and the Poster Children file in, the dark suburban lounge begins to look more like an MTV video set. Though last call was made 10 minutes ago, and the few remaining regulars are slowly staggering out, it doesn't take much to convince the bartender to pour another round. In fact, within minutes he's shut the shades and locked the door from inside, and we all find ourselves guests at a private after-hours party. Draft beer and whiskey shots flow up and down the bar as several people sing along to Elvis Costello's "Allison" and an endless string of '70s hits coming from the jukebox. At one point, a pair of old Neil Young tunes is followed with a heartless ballad by America. It's striking how both groups mine such similar heartland turf, yet achieve such different results. "What a Neil Young rip-off," Lanegan says quietly, amidst all the clamor. "No fuckin' soul." The road to respectability has been a long, bumpy one for the Screaming Trees. Even in Ellensburg, a 13,000-population college town in rural Eastern Washington, the band's ability to play every song off Black Flag's Slip It In did not win any talent contests. "We couldn't even get a gig in Ellensburg," says guitarist Gary Lee Conner, the band's oldest member at 30. "People thought we were complete shit. One time we were maybe going to get this gig opening for this other band, like the hip band in Ellensburg – a band I tried out for but they wouldn't let me in. And we were going to maybe get to play with them, but one of the guys, Joe Kingston, I remember, he said, 'What do you think, are people going to laugh at them?' "It was like, 'Fuck you, man!'," Conner says, wagging his middle finger in the air. "Now we can just totally tell those guys to fuck off." It's the day after that long night, and Conner is sitting on a bench overlooking the grassy plaza and stately colonial buildings of the University of Rhode Island. He grins as he looks back on the band's meager beginnings. "We didn't really even know like how you got to be a band, how to write your own songs," he says. "But I started messing around, trying to write some stuff on a four-track I had. I played it for Lanegan one day and he said, 'Jeez, we could actually try and do some of these songs.'" At the time, a local musician, Steve Fisk, had opened a fledgling studio and indie label in Ellensburg called Velvetone. In the summer of 1985, the Screaming Trees recorded a six-song demo there called Other Worlds (issued in 1988 on SST), followed a few months later by the full-length album Clairvoyance. At a Black Flag show in Olympia, the band gave a copy of the Other Worlds cassette to Flag guitarist and SST co-founder Greg Ginn. He liked it, and a few months later phoned the Conner family's video store and offered the Screaming Trees a contract. "That was probably the coolest thing that ever happened to me," says Conner. "It was a total dream come true to be on a label with all those great bands. It's funny, because at the same time we were also getting an offer from [the former Restless subsidiary] Pink Dust. If we took that, we probably wouldn't even be sitting here right now. I'd probably still be working at the video store." Between 1987 and 1990, the Screaming Trees recorded three albums for SST, an EP collaboration with Beat Happening for Homestead, an album for Sub Pop, and various solo projects. [See accompanying story.] Van Conner quit the band in 1988 to stay home with his wife and newborn son Ulysses. He re-joined seven months later to record Buzz Factory. The Trees' last album for SST and best recording to date, Buzz Factory is a raw blast of fuzzy guitar psychedelia, full of killer hooks, harmonies and dark, penetrating vocals. Though it sold a respectable 15,000 copies and established the Screaming Trees as a national college radio favorite, the band was plagued by infighting, lack of funds and several threatened break-ups. "I think everybody has quit the band and rejoined at least once," says sound man Rod Doak, a childhood friend of Lanegan who estimates this is his 12th tour with the Trees. "They got to a point where they were just about ready to break up; they'd gone as far as they could, as far as any band could make it without taking it to another level. [Ex-manager] Susan Silver was trying to get a deal with a major label but no one was interested. I remember someone from Atlantic one said, 'Well, if you get rid of one of the fat guys we'll sign you.' They were just like, forget this." In 1990, the Trees signed to Epic. The following year's Uncle Anesthesia, despite some solid songs, suffered from poor production and the chaos surrounding drummer Mark Pickerel's exodus from the band. Thinking the next album could be their last, the three remaining Trees sat down in the summer of '91 and collaborated on songs together for the first time in years. They hired ex-Skin Yard drummer Barrett Martin to replace Pickerel (who now runs a record store in Ellensburg), and that fall began recording Sweet Oblivion with producer Don Fleming. "Before I joined I'd heard these stories about the dueling brothers," says 26-year-old Martin, a native of Olympia, Washington. "Jack [Endino, Skin Yard's guitarist, and the producer of Buzz Factory] had warned me about these two huge guys, but really everything was pretty mellow. I was surprised." "We just found that after all those years it was a lot easier now to work together," shrugs Lanegan. "I guess it's a matter of learning to respect each other. We all seem to get along real well now. It's been a long time. It's been hours since we had a fist fights." With Sweet Oblivion fast on its way to selling gold, and the hype surrounding the band's Northwest pedigree feeding the fire, the Screaming Trees are on the verge of a major commercial breakthrough. Success has been a long time coming, though, and like so many other likeminded bands that have been swept up in the latest major label feeding frenzy, all four members seem adamant about sticking to their punk rock values in the corporate rock world. "Sometimes you feel like such an idiot doing this for a living," says Van Conner. "We learned from [Firehose bassist] Mike Watt and a lot of those early punk guys about this idealistic thing: that even if you're not singing about politics, you're going out, playing to people and making them part of the whole thing rather than becoming a rock star. It's getting really hard now, though, because the more records you sell the more impossible it is to do that. "It used to be you'd hang out with people before the show, talk, have a beer," he continues. "But now people are kind of freaked out, like 'Hey, rock stars!' We don't want it to be like that." Two days after the Rhode Island concert, 60 or 70 college-age fans gather around a makeshift stage at a record store in Boston, anxiously waiting for the Screaming Trees. Sweet Oblivion is playing softly over the sound system, posters are taped to the walls, and store employees are wearing Screaming Trees tour T-shirts. Local "modern rock" station WAAF is broadcasting from a mobile studio parked in front of the building, and two Epic Record executives are milling about, nervously trying to ensure that things run smoothly. Meanwhile, the Screaming Trees are sitting around a small dressing room table backstage, picking at warm cold cuts and trying to figure a way out. "My voice is fucked," says Lanegan. "If I sing now, I won't be able to do the show tonight." "I hate doing these things," adds Van Conner, unscrewing the cap from a fresh bottle of Jim Beam and pouring a healthy slug into a plastic cup half-filled with diet Coke. "Who's idea was this, anyway?" "Let's just do one song and split," Martin suggests. "I wouldn't feel bad at all about walking out of here right now," says Lanegan. "Just tell those people to kiss my ass." For all their complaining, once the Trees make it onstage they seem to enjoy themselves. Though Lanegan's voice sounds raspy and tired, his bandmates pick up the slack, working through "Winter Song," "Dollar Bill" and a funky version of "Nearly Lost You" that turns into a free-form conga-and-guitar jam. Afterwards, the band sits at a long table, shakes a few hands and autographs a stack of promotional items. It's time for me to leave, but on my way out I stop and turn around for one last look. I see four large, unshaven men slumped in a row, looking tired and a bit cranky, sipping bourbon-and-cokes from red plastic cups. Seven teenage boys linger nearby, anxiously clutching posters, CDs and T-shirts, and talking amongst themselves. They look eager to approach their heroes, but also a little scared. FAMILY TREES Much of the Screaming Trees' reputation for being a hot-tempered outfit revolves around brothers Van and Gary Lee Conner, whose public arguments, walk-outs and fist-sights are legendary. Van says it's "kind of like the Kinks thing." Yet the Trees endure. In fact, the band is playing better than ever, writing and arranging songs together and, for the first time in ages, actually looking forward to doing another record. Many factors contribute to the recent détente, but the one the Trees cite as most important is that each member keeps busy with outside work. "One of the first things they told me when I joined," says new drummer Barrett Martin, "is that side projects and solo stuff keep the band fresh. It's important for everyone to maintain their mental health." Following is a run-down of the Trees' moonlighting work – past, present and plans for the near-future. The band's most prolific songwriter and main psychedelic cowboy, Lee Conner, formed the Purple Outside in 1989 as an outlet for some of his favorite tunes that hadn't made it onto Trees records. Mystery Lane, which came out in 1990 on New Alliance, also features younger brother Patrick (there are seven Conner kids in all) on drums, with Lee doing everything else. Despite its rough production and mixed bag of songs, the album is worth its discount-bin price for droning acid-grunge gems like "White Plastic." After the Trees finish touring and recording the next album, Lee plans to return to the studio with Patrick for a Purple Outside follow-up tentatively titled Grasshopper's Day Dream. "I actually made tapes of the record I want to do," he says. "But the songs keep changing. The thing is, I've got hundreds of songs; I've got a ton of stuff I want to do." Van Conner quit the Trees for seven months back in 1988, living back home in Ellensburg with his wife and baby and working three jobs. Armed with a handful of songs his fellow Trees never expressed interest in (Van got few songwriting credits before Sweet Oblivion), he formed Solomon Grundy. The band's self-titled debut, also released in 1990 on New Alliance, is packed with warm, lazy pop tunes, many containing hooks as irresistible as the chorus he wrote for the Trees' recent hit "Nearly Lost You". Van, who began as the Trees guitarist (the brothers switched instruments early on), picks the instrument back up in Grundy, adding fuzzy rhythms and incisive leads. If not as gifted a soloist as his brother, he has a killer melodic instinct. Songs like "My Prison Is My Freedom" and "A Little While" register somewhere between late-Beatles and early-Dinosaur Jr. Solomon Grundy actually did some gigs with Dino Jr. and Firehose (Van even played bass with Dino on a recent tour) and built a small following in Washington. Conner claims the band is finished, but there's talk of a new project called Van Conner's Roadblock, also featuring Trees drummer Barrett Martin. When Mark Lanegan, who had never sung in a band before he joined the Screaming Trees, released his solo, mostly acoustic album The Winding Sheet on Sub Pop in 1989, his dark lyrics and rich, plaintive baritone earned the singer-songwriter some long-overdue recognition. Though Lanegan says the record embarrasses him today, it is a raw, vivid account of pain and struggle. Full of jangling acoustic and buzzing electric guitars, nearly every one of the album's 13 tracks is slow, spare and haunting, suffering only from a lack of variety. When he returns to Seattle in the fall, Lanegan will put the finishing touches to his still-unnamed Sub Pop followup, due in October. Before joining the Screaming Trees in the fall of 1991, Barrett Martin drummed with Skin Yard, a metal-edged psychedelic Seattle group also featuring underground producer Jack Endino. Skin Yard's last album came out on Cruz, an SST subsidiary, and Martin says he may continue to play drums for Endino's other project, Earthworm. Martin, who started out as a jazz bassist and spent two years on a music scholarship at Western Washington University, also played upright bass recently on a record by Dinosaur Jr.'s Mike Johnson. Once the Trees have some time off, Martin looks forward to pursuing other percussion projects. "The cool thing about the Seattle scene," he says, "is that since we all came up together and had some success, we've continued to work together. That will go on long after the hype." [more articles]