Roots Music by Grahame Bent Sounds, March 17, 1990 What the hell do you do when you're stuck in an obscure place like Ellensburg, Washington? Go to college? Get a lousy job? No, you follow the example of Lee Conner and form one of America's most distinctive guitar bands since Black Flag or Hüsker Dü. The name of this band is the Screaming Trees. The Screaming Trees are the complete antithesis of overnight sensations. And, if their story to date has been about anything it's been the sustained pursuit of perfection that's seen them grow from total provincial obscurity to their current status as one of the most distinctive American guitar bands to have emerged in the wake of names such as Black Flag, Hüsker Dü and the Minutemen. Although they contributed one of the highlights to last year's Sub Pop 200 Box Set with a lively cover of Hendrix's 'Love Or Confusion', the Screaming Trees sound has never tidily fitted within the 'perceived' sound of close neighbours the Sub Pop stable or, for that matter, their former label SST. Rather, along with fellow North Western 'outsiders' Beat Happening and Girl Trouble, one of the most telling factors in the blossoming of the Screaming Trees has been the opportunity their remote geographical location has afforded them to develop at their own pace. At its simplest the Screaming Trees are the essence of small-town America realised in sound. "You just sit around writin' songs and listenin' to a whole lot of weird music," says guitarist Gary Lee Conner - plain old Lee to his friends. "What in the hell else are you gonna do in a place like Ellensburg? Go to college? Work a shitty job?" Working out of far flung Ellensburg's 8-track Velvetone studio under the auspices of producer Steve Fisk, the band slowly perfected that tangy fusion of power and melody that's since become their trademark on a succession of critically acclaimed albums - 'Other Worlds', 'Clairvoyance', 'Even If And Especially When' and 'Invisible Lantern' - before coming up roses with what's widely considered to be their breakthrough album - last year's 'Buzz Factory'. Recorded in the luxury of a 16-track studio with producer Jack Endino, in terms of songwriting and production 'Buzz Factory' was the album everyone had been waiting for. Given the list of changes that now look to be on the cards for Ellensburg's finest, the current mini-album 'Change Has Come' could hardly have been more appropriately titled. Both vocalist Mark Lanegan and drummer Mark Pickerel have already done the unthinkable and forsaken their lonely cultural outpost for life in the fast lane of Sub Pop Rock City some 110 miles down the road in Seattle. But can they remain the Screaming Trees we've known and loved if they're uprooted from their beloved Ellensburg and transplanted in an alien environment? "As far as the band goes it doesn't matter where we're at," says Mark Lanegan. "When we're together we make Screaming Trees music and that could be anywhere from Ellensburg to f**kin' Timbuktu. We're not scenesters, we're not really up on what's hip and happening' - we're not big city types - we're simple folk but we're good hearted. If the move to Seattle changes anything it can only be for the better because for the first time in our lives we're gonna be sitting in the same room and rehearsing every day. Even when we were all in Ellensburg we all led completely separate lives. We never rehearsed that often in case it affected our spontaneity but with this new stuff we really wanna hit it hard." With a major deal in the pipeline, far from seeing their potential elevation in status as some sort of symbolic departure from their roots, the Trees just see it as their long-awaited opportunity to record an album the way they've always wanted without having their choices made for them by the unhealthy state of their bank balance. And given the miracles they've consistently performed with the meagrest of resources, the prospect of what these sonic wizards might achieve with a decent budget behind them is little short of intoxicating. What it is safe to say however is that with some 15 to 20 songs already written and ready to roll, the band promise something of a departure from past habits by opting for a more immediately personal and less hallucinatory approach to songwriting. All of which might go some way to explaining the timing behind the new mini-album. The five songs on 'Change Has Come' date from the period after 'Buzz Factory' and superbly capture the essence of the band at the moment in a way that might not hold true in the future. Mark: "It's not that they're radically different to what we'll be doin' in the future or to what we did in the past, it's just that when we plan out an album we try to plan it out completely. You know, what songs we want and in what order, and they were just the ones that were left behind. Don't forget that this is the band that's got three LP's worth of stuff that's never made it onto vinyl. We've also got a completely mixed double album just sittin' there..." Just sittin' there, indeed. Lee Conner is nothing if not a seriously prolific songwriter and Screaming Trees are nothing if not fast workers. On the back of 'Invisible Lantern' the band adjourned southwards to Los Angeles where they recorded and mixed an entire double album's worth of material in a mere two-and-a-half weeks. As yet this magnum opus has never seen the light of day in its original form, although some of the songs eventually turned up on 'Buzz Factory', albeit in modified form, with further titles set for inclusion on Lee's forthcoming solo venture The Purple Outside. Lee: "It goes way the hell back in time. I've been wanting to do this for the past two or three years - I had tapes mixed, I even had a cover all worked out but I ended up changin' it around and we wound up usin' some of the songs on 'Invisible Lantern'. The thins it I don't know how many songs I've actually written - I suppose I've got around 60-65 tapes with five to ten songs on each of them. We used to use more than half of everything but I've gotten so prolific it's more now." Now wanting to be outdone by his elder brother, bassist Van Conner now has his 'other' band, Solomon Grundy, off the ground while Mark Lanegan's also caught the bug and is set to release his debut album as a "solo artist" on Sub Pop. So things are looking pretty rosy in this corner of the enchanted forest. With the latest tally probably running at something around five album's worth of unreleased material, a Screaming Trees triple album doesn't seem as unlikely as it might've once done. Changes are-a-comin' and you better believe it. [ more articles ]