SCREAMING TREES: BACK FROM OBLIVION, RISING FROM DUST by Adam Jackson unknown magazine, 1996 It's been a long time since 1992 for the Screaming Trees. In September of '92, they released Sweet Oblivion, then hit the road for a year and a half. In early 1994 they went straight back into the studio and recorded a full length follow up. Later that year, they threw the album out. Not re-mixed it, not re-recorded it, not changed some songs. They nuked it. Dumpster city. Then they rested. Singer Mark Lanegan released his second beautiful solo album and drummer Barrett Martin recorded the Mad Season album with Layne Staley and Mike McCready. So finally, 1995 arrived and the Screaming Trees came together to record their seventh full length album, Dust. Halfway through 1996, we get to hear it. Four years can certainly test the patience and attention span of the truest fan, but an album as powerful and graceful as Sweet Oblivion deserves a worthy successor and Dust qualifies. Besides, maybe the time lag will help the Trees find an identity as strong as their music. In 1992, remember, to thousands of new fans, they were a Seattle band, a grunge band. In 1996 the Screaming Trees may get counted as what they've always been; a rock and roll band, a great band. Bassist/songwriter Van Conner recently took a break from tour rehearsals to share some of his opinions of Dust and the Lollapalooza tour, which the Screaming Trees will be a part of. He started by explaining what happened to the aborted album between Sweet Oblivion and Dust. "We spent two years touring Sweet Oblivion and hadn't really spent time away from each other, which is what we actually needed. Instead, we went straight into the studio in Seattle and started writing. Nobody really wanted to see each other so everyone would just run home as soon as they were done with their part. There was no spark. It was just total crap and everyone was in a bad mood all the time. It was like we didn't want to make the record. We didn't. Nothing could've helped it." So how could such an ugly situation lead to Dust, an album as powerful as its predecessor, but with a vastly expanded range of sounds? The subtle delicacies of organ, Mellotron, tabla, Eastern drones and the strongest harmonies of the band's career can hardly be the product of a band in a bad mood, who didn't want to record. "Well, we all just went home to try to write some new songs and ended up writing a whole new album that turned out about a million times better." Did they ever come close to just giving it up? "Of course that comes up. You get discouraged and you think maybe we just can't do this anymore. If this was our first record that would be ridiculous, but when you've been around as long as us you get doubly excited when you get through all that and your two best records are the last one and the one we just did. It's really exciting and it strengthens the glue of the band." One experience the Trees haven't encountered in the last decade is a tour on the scale of Lollapalooza. I asked Van what his opinion was of the widespread criticism of this year's less diverse lineup. "I've been doing a lot of press for the last three weeks, and I just realized something yesterday. The only time I've heard about this controversy has been in the form of a question during interviews. I haven't seen or heard friends or other people talking about it. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I don't think there is a controversy. All I know is I'm going on Lollapalooza. I'm really looking forward to it and that's all I have to say, really. It'll be fun." At this point in the conversation Van's brother and Screaming Trees guitarist Lee Conner arrived to take him to practice, so I asked him to leave me with a thought on his favorite track from Dust. "'Halo of Ashes' is a certain type of song that I've always been a fan of and we've had songs like that before but never really been able to pull it off. It has a real powerful vocal part and at the same time it sounds like a train rolling down the track or a house at full gallop, and then you get into that middle section and there's actually three or four different parts in that section. In my mind, each of those parts has its own emotion. That sounds pretentious but it's true. On this record especially, but on the last record too, I feel like each part of the music is a different idea within the song and each song is a little story or movie. That's the way I think of it anyway." With that, Van Conner set off to rehearse the ten "stories" of Dust for the hundreds of thousands of people who will hear them live for the next year or so. If each chapter of the Screaming Trees' own story continues to be as gripping as Sweet Oblivion and Dust, we should all hope for a library's worth. [more articles]