The Grunge Pioneer Who Lost His Home

Mark Lanegan sang with Screaming Trees, an early Seattle band from the grunge era, for about 15 years. He later joined Queens of the Stone Age and built a solo career. VICE interviewed him in 2020 about his memoir Sing Backwards and Weep, which Anthony Bourdain had encouraged him to write and which he finished after Bourdain's death.

In the interview, Lanegan spoke briefly about a period after the band when he was homeless. The article gives no year, city or length for it. He said it was centred on a pawn shop run by a friend, which he visited every day to use the phone. A sign by the phone read Mark's phone. He also brought items to sell there. He described himself in those years as a maniacal kind of addict.

Courtney Love tried to reach him and left rehabilitation leaflets at the pawn shop. Lanegan says he brushed the idea off at the time. About a year later, after a confrontation with a man he had been working for, a police officer told him to get clean or leave town. He went back to the pawn shop and looked at what Love had left, and entered a rehabilitation programme. When he woke up five days later, she had sent him new clothes. He says it was clear he needed long-term treatment, and Love paid for almost a year of it.

Lanegan, then 55, said his life had turned out beyond his expectations: he made records, travelled widely, saw favourite bands and played with people he admired. About Love he said she saved his life and that he owed her a debt he could never repay.