just audio because I'm actually in a hotel room and I am I just woke up because I have a rather late show last night, and I'm not ready to be filmed.
Okay, because I was gonna say, like, I saw a picture you posted of you with a bunch of your books. And you looked great. I was like, wow, you whatever you're doing the secret, you got to give it to me. Because like, that's what I want to look like when I don't know how old you are. You're older than me. But you look like great. I mean, you're looking good shape. You got a full head of hair, and you look happy and
healthy. Thank you. Well, I'm 56. I have been fortunate in that I still have most of my hair. But it's completely great now and that's fine. But yeah, when I saw the meeting, it just said odd. It literally said audio only so I don't have a place to really do a good visual. So
now that's fine. Yeah, no, i That's why I had this conversation the other day with somebody just about, you know, when you see a lot of, especially in the music and entertainment business, it's like some people are so resistant to getting older, they dye their hair, and the plastic surgery and the Botox, and it's just all these things. And it's like, I feel like, if you don't notice it, you know, it's almost like okay, well, it's fine. But sometimes it's so noticeable.
It's like, I think you look better if you just let your hair be gray and have a couple of wrinkles or whatever.
Yeah, I mean, I will To be honest, I started going gray when I was in high school, so I've kind of always been going gray and I probably I mean my hair is pretty much totally white now. But you know, it's it's still it's still on top of my head. Yeah. So I'm thankful.
Yeah, do you have a workout routine too, because I mean, you look like you're in shape.
Well, I, I've sort of my whole life had some kind of workout routine, but it varies depending on where I'm at in the world, and what I have access to, but sometimes, sometimes I go to the gym, there's been periods of time when you know, I hit the weights pretty hard. And I've always been a swimmer. Excuse me, growing up in the Pacific Northwest, you know, we swam in lakes and in Puget Sound, and, you know, saltwater swimming
and, and Lake swimming. And then also, you know, Olympic swimming pools, I was always into that. And then the main thing I've done my entire life is I've been just over the course of since I was in my 20s different martial arts. So I did, like a early version of kung fu when I was living in Seattle in the International District and, and I did a Keto for some years and studied Japanese sword. And swinging a sword is actually a
really good workout. It's kind of like, it's like lifting a dumbbell but you know, using it in very interesting isometric ways. And I think the common and then I, I still have a, you know, kind of a lighter. I mean, I used to train really hard and you know, we respond and, you know, trained hard with with other martial artists and so, yeah, I, I've done that my whole life, but now I kind of just do sort of a mellow workout that just keeps me flexible and keeps me in shape. And, and I do my
push ups. That's, that's always a good one. The push up is kind of the great single exercise that everybody can do. And it's, it's a really good thing for just kind of keeping the upper body and the cardio. in good shape.
No, absolutely. Yeah. So you grew up in San Fran Pacific Northwest, too. I grew up in a little well used to be like a little town called Issaquah. Now it's blown up. But now you are you are an inner limpia or near Olympia.
Well, I grew up just south of Olympia, in a town called Tumwater. Okay, yeah, but it was like actually kind of way out in the woods because I grew up on a small farm. So it was it was the sticks. Right? Actually really beautiful area. I was I was very happy as a kid I love growing up in the forest. And, and you know, there were rivers and lakes nearby. And it was a really, it was actually a really great place to grow up.
Yeah. And you can play your drums in the in the in the
hayloft of hayloft. i Yeah, that's crazy. I had a little room setup up there where I had my drum so I could play in the barn. Because my dad worked in the mining industry. He he was an explosives expert. And so when he came home, he didn't want to be hearing me playing drums on the house. support. So we built a little loft space in the barn and that's where I practiced
was Fourth of July fun. Your house?
Oh my God, let me tell you, him and grandfather, they would go to the Nisqually Indian Reservation and buy all the illegal fireworks and yeah, it was. It was a good time.
That sounds amazing. So was skin yard. Was that your first like real band? Or is that your first band overall?
Ah, well, the first band I was in was called Finn men. And I joined that band in I think 1987. And it was kind of a punk rock band. It wasn't grungy. And, you know, we all had short, kind of punk haircuts, and we were punk clothes. And our songs were two and a half minutes long. And it was kind of fast up tempo, punk pop music because that was actually a parallel form of music that was going on, at the same time that grunge was
getting going, you know. So like, there were bands like The Posies and, and I'm trying to think of some other bands of that time, but they were they leaned more into the punk realm. And then there were the grunge bands that lean probably a little more into the metal realm, which was also new at the time. And a relatively new I mean, I guess, technically it started with Black Sabbath in the 70s. But, but there were very different kinds of music
going on in Seattle. And that's what made it exciting and interesting. There was also a lot of really cool experimental kind of avant garde jazz, and there was electronic, electronic composers, and of course, hip hop. And so my first band was a punk band, and I played with him for a couple of years. And then we were doing a recording session that, you know, we got Jack and Dino to be our producer. And Jack was, like, maybe not so impressed with our punk band, but he really liked
the way I play drums. And he invited me to work on some projects with him. And that's how I joined skin yard, which is, they are considered you know, one of the proto grunge bands that started that whole sound.
Yeah, it's crazy. So you replaced Matt Cameron, who obviously went on to go play drums and Soundgarden?
That's right. That's right. Matt's one of my oldest friends, too.
Oh, so did he just leave to go for it? Was it for Soundgarden? Is that why he left?
Well, Matt plays on the first in yard record, which I think is 1985. And Soundgarden. I think when they started they, I think Chris Cornell was the drummer. And then they got a different guy to play drums. And then Matt joined. So I think, you know, Matt joined, you know, a little bit after Soundgarden formed, but there were also a couple interesting drummers in skin
yard before I drums. And so that's kind of how Seattle was people were, you know, kind of changing seats and moving around and, you know, playing in different configurations until the bands kind of settled into the, the lineup that everybody's familiar with. It's also I mean, just kind of as a side note that's also made Seattle. So cool back then, is that we, we all knew each other and saw each other play in different musical configurations until the bands were solidified.
Yeah, so were you able to get fans and an audience at that point when you're playing? Like, it's kind of really, like in the art rock? I mean, was there a nut? Because at the time, the 80s it was, I just think, like, heavy metal pop? I mean, I feel like it would be hard to find an audience for those kinds of things.
Well, I think everybody would sort of agree that in the beginning, when Seattle was, you know, I'm talking like the mid to late 1980s, before her Vana, you know, kicked in the door. Yeah, it was kind of the same two or 300 people at all the shows, I mean, it was a very, very small music. It wasn't, you know, the whole whole world. Yeah, where of it. It was just kind of those of us in Seattle, and in that kind of greater Pacific Northwest music scene. So you'd see the same people at every show.
So it was like the small loyal following that just was into all that
stuff. Yes, yeah. And, and I, you know, people were aware that there was something going on, it's not, it's not that, you know, this was just the only game in town. People knew that something was building and growing. There was no way to know how big it was going to become. But it was an exciting local scene that we were all participating in. So I saw I think the first or second Mudhoney show, I saw the first tag show. I saw I mean, my punk band got to open for the
Screaming Trees in 1988. At my the old college where I used to go there was a show there that we got to open for the trees. I saw the Screaming Trees open for sound garden I saw well when I was in skin yard we open for Nirvana so so all this stuff was going on before the rest of the world knew about this. Yeah tell
the story I heard you tell the story on your friends podcast is so cool my audience has to hear this you go to the I beam with with Kurt Cobain is there and this is when you guys see Dave Grohl play the drums in his punk band the screen. That's crazy.
That's right we so skin yard we were playing a show in San Francisco at the IBM which was this great kind of giant club on Haight Ashbury. And somehow Kurt, or Chris from Nirvana had called Jack and Dino, the guitar player of skinny art and said, Hey, we're we're at the IBM checking out this drummer that we might hire to be in our band, why don't you guys come down and we'll hang out. And Jack of course, had produced the first Nirvana record bleach, and that record
had been out for a while. So we went down to the IBM and Chris were there and, and, and I had talked to Chris before, I never really knew Kurt, but I but I talked with Chris a couple of times. So I'm standing next to Chris. And we're watching Dave Grohl play with screen his punk band from Washington, DC. And there really weren't that many people there. It was kind of the club was pretty empty. But you know, scream was this awesome punk band. And Dave was just
destroying the drums. I mean, like really incredible drumming. And I leaned over to Chris and, and I said, I said, Man, you better get this guy in your band before somebody else does. And he looks at me, he goes, yep, I think that's exactly what we're gonna do.
So how I always wondered about that, because you always hear stories about this, where how these bands form and they got this guy from this other band and this guy from another band? How do you convince somebody? Because when you're all I mean, at this point, Nirvana? Yeah, they had bleach but they weren't like they are known now, you know? So it's like, what's the saying this the screen band wasn't going to take off? Like, how did the How did they convince him to quit scream and join nirvana?
Well, you know, at that time in American history, there were all of these really cool independent labels around the country. So in Washington, DC, you have the discord label, and I think screen was on Discord. So people knew of screen. Also, the band Minor Threat was on that label. And I'm sure many others that I'm not remembering right now. But there were a lot of very interesting record labels with really interesting bands all
over the country. And I don't think anybody could have predicted which label or which, you know, sound, you know, quote, unquote, was going to be, you know, the new thing. But I do think, you know, it ended up being Seattle that just happened to be where, you know, the big explosion happened. But I will say that those musical elements were in all of the bands that came out of the Northwest, there was a punk element, there was a metal element, there was a
hardcore element. And there there's a certain pop element because the reasons why those songs like Nirvana songs, and Alison Chang songs and, and even Soundgarden songs, they might be really heavy, but they're catchy. You know, they're really really good choruses and really
great. You know, vocal melodies and they stick in your mind you know, for decades and you remember those songs and that's that's the best quality of pop music when you write a really great song and it's so good that no matter what musical style it was, you remember it 20 3040 years later?
No, absolutely. So he must have just made that to say he must have liked curd or like the music more something but So then for you data you join Screaming Trees because it partly because skin yard kind of fallen apart at that point.
Well, skin yard it was kind of winding down when I joined the Screaming Trees. I mean, when I joined the band, we made two albums and the band kind of had its highest success, you know, like our our 9091 album 1000 Smiley Knuckles was a was a pretty huge college radio album. And so we played all over North America and we did one pretty extensive European tour.
And we were being courted by some major labels because at that point Nirvana you know, had the nevermind album had come out and and everybody was signing Seattle bands. So we had offers to sign with a major label but Jack and Dino and I talked about it. Jack said, you know, look, I'm not really made for touring, you know, he Jack was kind of
older than other people. I mean, I was 22 At the time that I think Jack was 32 or 33, and he just didn't really want to tour, he, he really wanted to just be a producer and stay in recording studios. So it wasn't viable for skin yard to sign a major label deal and, and do that whole
thing that you have to do. So, literally on the flight home from London from that first European tour that we did, we kind of had a little band meeting and Jack was like, Look, I'm glad we got to tour Europe, but I really don't want to do this again. Let's just, you know, finish our last album, put it out, but you know, let's have the band be done. And so that's
what we did. The band amicably broke up on the plane, flying home from London, that last album, which was called inside the I came out in, I think 1993, but the band had already broken up by that point. And that's right when, when I joined the Screaming Trees was I think it was November of 1991. We had just got back from Europe. And within two weeks of me getting home, I got the phone call from Van Conner to come audition for The Screaming Trees.
Wow. So then talk about the writing for that sweet Oblivion album, because I heard that at one point, half the songs didn't have lyrics or titles. And then your singer Mark, he disappears for three days goes on a binge, and it comes back with all the lyrics.
I have never heard that story. Because the way the so when I joined the band, they were just starting to write those songs like the audition that I went to in November of 1991. The songs were starting to be sketched out. So we worked on, we worked on a suite of or I mean, well, that's the album but we worked on a shadow of the season. dollar bill. Here, a couple others, I can't remember all the names at this point. But I nearly lost you was written by van, the bass
player. And he kind of had those lyrics sketched out. And so we we rehearsed those, you know, basic tracks very diligently. And Mark started coming in and started to write lyrics as we were working on the songs but but Lee, the guitar player also had kind of outline some lyrical ideas, and Mark would take some of these ideas and enhance them and change them and maybe use some of the vocal melody but add his own melody, and they would just sort of like, continue to
morph. And so over the course of November, December and January of 1991, and early 1992, we just kind of worked on those songs, and we did them at my loft space in the International District, because they saw where I practice them. And it was quite a bit nicer than the rehearsal room that the Screaming Trees had been using, which was in a steel foundry. And it was a cool space because the guy that owned the steel foundry loved rock and roll. And so he made one of his
vacant buildings. He partitioned it into a bunch of Rehearsal Studios, and that's where the trees had been rehearsing. But you can imagine it was kind of a dingy place to practice. So they saw my, my loft space, and everybody moved their gear over to my place. And we wrote sweet Oblivion in my loft. And, and yes, you know, Mark certainly added his own lyrics, and it was an ongoing process. But it's not accurate to say that there weren't lyrics already there.
And that it was all done in three days, it was about three months of us, just, you know, shedding the tunes and diligently working out every detail, which is why when we recorded it, it was it was fully realized when we went into the studio.
So then like for your drum parts, because you're, you know, not to like kiss up a little bit, but like, you really are one of those drummers where you're the drums stand out in that band, like even if you listen to nearly last year like the you know, it's like the it's like part of the song. Do you just play that like that's your vision for the drums or somebody saying, hey, why don't you do this on the drums? How does that work?
Well as a drummer, I've always been influenced by very specifically, British drummers from the from the British Invasion of the 60s and 70s and drummers from from like the Motown and Stax Records era of American soul music. And when you listen to any of those drummers, they all have a distinct style and they play these really cool parts that become almost like they're not just rhythmic undercurrents, they are specifically these pop
hooky catchy parts. So like Ringo Starr, is one of my favorite drummers because he wrote drumming parts that stick in your mind is like, that's not just the rhythm for the song. It's part of the song and it's catchy, like a like a hook or a riff or like think about it.
Drum drum track for come together, it's a very specific pattern that he plays and it's your mind remembers that or the way John Bonham would play a groove, you know, it would be a groove, but it would be so unique and specific that you will never forget that groove. And it's part of the song.
Exactly. And I know that he was really influenced by the drummers of Motown and Stax, you know, in that that Memphis, you know, Detroit, Soul explosion, and so you can hear that groovy way of playing in his plane, but, but I also love the way l Jackson Jr. Played and Clyde
Stubblefield. And, you know, James Brown's drummers and, and so when I write a drum track, I think about it, it's like, this is part of the song, it should have catchy, memorable moments that also serve the spirit of the song, you know, and with the Screaming Trees, that was the thing, like, we all wrote songs. And you know, over the course of a long period of time, we would synthesize you know, 100 songs that we had written into the best 15 songs, and then that's what we would record for an
album. So by the time we got to that point, everything had gone through, you know, sort of like a strainer, and everything good got through and anything, you know, that was it didn't quite meet the litmus test, you know, didn't get through.
Yeah, so you co wrote some of the songs on that album, for people who don't know, I mean, obviously, you're phenomenal drummer, but you do so much more, you play all these other instruments, how do you typically write a song, I'm assuming you don't write the songs on the drums, you probably use guitar or keyboard, or, well, sometimes
I've written songs on the drums because of rhythmic idea can spawn a song idea. So you'll be playing the drums and then you'll kind of sing out a little bit of a of a, of a melody. Or I also am an upright bass player. So I started on upright bass when I was in high school. And then I also play electric bass, and I'm a pretty good keyboard player. I can play guitar a little bit, but I'm mostly focused on keyboards, and, and bass. So I've written a lot of music that
way. And so I would write songs, and then we'd be working on like, let's say, a song that Gary Lee had written. And Mark maybe had a had a melodic, lyrical idea. And then I would be like, Okay, this is cool. But you know, we need an intro, and we need, you know, a bridge. And, you know, we need to, you know, kind of shape this into something a little more sophisticated. And I, I sort of attribute that to the fact that I went to music school to study
jazz and classical music. And so I kind of thought of songs in an arranging kind of way. So I would, I would think of, you know, intros and outros and, and interesting left turns in the bridge, that would make the song a little more interesting than just the verse in a chorus. So that's kind of that was my influence on the Screaming Trees was, was bringing in those additional parts that sort of flesh the song out into something a little more sophisticated than the way that it might have started.
That's awesome. So I'm assuming you go into a lot more detail in this upcoming book, which I haven't gotten a chance to read. I've just read your last book. Stillpoint. That was phenomenal. People should check that out. But this one is called the greatest band that whatever wasn't, and this Screaming Trees, right?
Yeah, it's yeah, the greatest man that ever wasn't because, I mean, it's, it's, you know, if people who follow the band know, the history, you know, we could also be very self destructive and, and, you know, we all have, you know, the classic battle with drugs and alcohol. But I think it was, what was great about the band was our, we were really for really eccentric, very talented, live wires. So when the four of us were in a room and writing songs, it was incredibly
powerful. And on stage, we can do these incredible shows, but sometimes, that kind of energy can also reverse on itself. And you can, you can have, you know, more destructive elements come in. So, on any given night, we could be like this incredible live band, but then we could also have a really terrible show, too, you know, we we weren't consistent. And the truth of the matter when you're when you're talking about having a long term career in music is
you got to be consistent. You know, you have to consistently write songs and consistently make great records and consistently tour and play good shows that really, you know, they stay with people as as as good memories. And that's something that we were sort of able to do, but you know, it took us a long time to make a record. We weren't fast at it. We couldn't keep that fast pace up and tour and make records all that time, it was just too much for us. I think it just, the
band had a shelf life. And we maxed it to, you know, as long as we could. And then, when the band finally did break up, everybody was sober. Everybody was on good terms, and we knew we were gonna break up. And we knew when our final show was and that was it.
Yeah, that's crazy, though that I mean, just all the ups and downs. So explain because I know, like one of the shows you said was bad when it was when you opened for the Black Crowes in Germany. So like, like, what? What was it? How did the bad what constitutes a bad show with up it was because of the drugs and people to fucked up? Or what's the issue there?
Well, that was the last tour that we did of Europe. And Mark was in really bad shape. I was actually finally sober myself. You know, I had a long battle with alcoholism, because it was, it was in my family for generations on you know, it was just inevitable that it would come up in me. But I had gotten sober and the other guys in the band, you know, Lee was always sober. I mean, he never drank or did drugs or did anything. But Mark
was in pretty bad shape. And that tour was getting pretty ragged near the end, and we were opening for the Black Crowes plane. It was a festival on television. And we had to, well, mark left the stage early. And we had to stop the show early. Because we couldn't play it without him. And we didn't realize it was being broadcast
live on television. So there was kind of the scene where we went back to our dressing room and the German TV producers were banging on the dressing room, like, you have to get back out on stage. We're live on television, we just barricaded the door and we're like, Nope, we're not going back out on stage. And that's the end of the show. So that actually wasn't even that horrible of an
experience. It was just, you know, this is the kind of stuff that happens when you're, you know, you agree to do television shows or or live taped performances, you know, because, you know, you build a production schedule around a rock band that might be a little unstable. It's just not not really the smartest way to do it.
Right. Well, and then I'm sure you're talking about this in the book in depth, but we could talk a little bit about the tour with Allison chains, and I think and grunt truck was on there too. Right?
Yeah. And grunt truck was the band that the singer from skin yard started after we after skin yard had broken up and grunt truck was a great band. They love them. Yeah. And Ben had that same thing. He had that really good sense of pop songwriting. So he could write a catchy, really, really good melody with good lyrics. And it was but it was also a heavy, cool rock song. So
the song tribe is I love that song. Especially.
That was a great song. Yeah, and they, I can't remember that because that tour was kind of a blur. And you know, I can't even remember how long it went. But they joined that Allison chains tour after we had already been doing it for a while. They added them as as the opener so it'd be grunt truck, then Screaming Trees, then Allison chains.
Yeah, I mean, there was the thing I'm sure you write about this in the book, when we're Mark almost loses his arm, to heroin, a blood infection. It's the same. And then there's also a video that I saw online of Layne Staley jumping into the audience to beat up a fan who is being a dickhead everybody and then lane gets arrested. It's like, it's crazy. Like all these stories
kind of vaguely remember that? I mean, I do remember when Lane got on stage to play with the Screaming Trees. He? Yeah, he was subbing for Mark. And he's saying nearly lost to. And I think that's actually the only song he's saying.
It sounded phenomenal. I only heard like 20 seconds of it. But he doesn't like that voice. It doesn't. It doesn't miss a beat.
Yeah, Lane's voice was incredible. I mean, he was one of the I think he might be the greatest singer I've ever worked with, because he had that incredible voice. But when we did the Mad season album, he would come into the studio with a fully realized vocal part, like with the lyrics and the melody, and the harmonies. And so he would sing it in real time, of course, because we're recording on tape. And there was
no auto tune back then. I mean, in 1994, you actually had to be a singer, you actually had to sing in tune and sing like a human being no computer assisted technology. And he would sing this beautiful lead vocal, and then he would stack his backup, you know, his backing vocals in exactly the places where he wanted to do it. And it would just be this incredible vocal performance that he heard Rudy in his mind, and then just went out into the studio and just laid it down. Anybody since then
be able to do that. It was really really remarkable.
Amazing. Yeah, I love that mad season stuff is so underrated like the song. I don't know anything. I mean, that's got to be one of my favorite all time riffs. I love that song. The River of deceit is so beautiful. Was there ever plans for a second mad season album? Or was any demos recorded or anything?
Oh, yeah, we started working on a second album in 96. And so, you know, a couple years after the first album, and we recorded I think 17 or 18 Basic song ideas. And, you know, the first record did extremely well, I mean, I don't know what the current sales figures are. But I mean, it's pretty close to double platinum at this point. And, and we wanted to do more touring, but we couldn't, because everybody's, you know, the day
job bands. So Allison chains, Screaming Trees, Pearl Jam, you know, we all had very busy touring schedules. So we were only able to play a handful of shows in Seattle, and then we were back in our regular bands. So in 96, we started working on on more basic tracks. But we just weren't able to finish them. You know, Lane's health was deteriorating, deteriorating pretty badly. And so we never finished it. However, when we did the box set, Mark Lanigan finished three of those songs.
And those were the those three songs that are in the box that are the only songs that we were able to finish from that second album.
Okay, so you couldn't finish some of the other ones because I don't like did you hear that new Beatles song or they went back and they finished the song with Jeff Lynn. So it's pretty amazing,
right, but they also had John Lennon's original vocals from the demo, and they were able to extract his vocals from the demo. And then the rest of the band could play to that, but we didn't even have any demo vocals. Like there's just no vocals, okay? We were just working on the music for lane and mark to, you know, to sing vocals, too. And so, but Mark really liked those three songs. One of them was written by Peter Buck of REM, because Peter jammed with us when we were doing that second album.
And aren't you in a band with him too? Or something rich Robinson of blackrose?
Yep. I mean, I've been in bands with Peter. We were just counting up how many albums we played on Peter and I have played on 35 albums, just as backing musicians, so we, you know, we would backup a singer songwriter. But of course, you know, I played in REM, on a couple of albums. And then Peter and I had the two guitar project with, which was an instrumental band that sometimes would backup singer
songwriters. And then Peter and rich Robinson of the Black Crowes and myself and Joseph Arthur made an album of about two years ago, but we haven't found time to release it and promoted yet because the Black Crowes are still on tour. And Peter's got a bunch of projects and, and so at some point, that record will eventually come out. And you know, it's a really beautiful record.
I was gonna say I was looking I heard you guys talking about it. And I was trying to find it. I'm like, I can't find what is the band called doesn't have a name.
We called it the silver lights because silver haired now too. And yeah, it'll eventually come out. We talked about it on Joe's podcast, but gonna take a couple of magazines picked up on it and wrote some articles but it just hasn't come out. You know, and there's there is this thing now you know, it's if you're going to release a record, you really have to like time the release and go out and promote it. Otherwise, it just kind of people forget about it right away.
Right. Well back to Screaming Trees. I wanted to ask about that. So there was such a such a long break between sweet oblivion and then the next record the follow up dust. Why was it such a long hiatus? Is it just because like you said, it just took a long time to write songs and things?
Well, we did. Okay, so we got back from the sweet Oblivion World Tour, and it was two and a half years. I mean, it's a long time to be on the row. Most tours, you know, are done in nine months, a really big band, like you know, you know, the Rolling Stones or you to my tour for 18 months. But we did two and a half years on the road. And by the time we got back, we were so tired. And we didn't really have very much time to write songs because we were just touring all the time.
And we we did start to make a record in 1994. And it's actually a pretty good record. It was never titled and it was never released. But we wrote about 15 songs, and but we just felt like it wasn't as good as sweet oblivion and we didn't want to release something right after that record that wasn't of the same kind. Over. So we took more time to write songs. And we took some of the best songs from that session and included them in what became the dust album.
But so, you know, two and a half years of that four year period was touring, and then another six months recording an album. And then finally, you know, we finished the dust album. So it was, it's hard to explain it in words, except that, you know, time can go by so fast when you're on the road, it just becomes a blur. And next thing, you know, two years have gone by, and it's like, wow, we have to make another record, but it takes a year to write songs and record and make a great record.
So that's why it took four years.
Yeah. So then you do in 96. Right after, I think either must have been right before right after dust was released. You did Lollapalooza, do you have any memories of doing that? That must have been a lot of fun because it's like so many other great bands on the venue.
It was and I liked a lot of those bands. I mean, the Ramones and Soundgarden, and even Devo did some special appearance on that, and I loved debo and loved all of those bands. But that was when Lollapalooza was a touring you know, it was a I think it was 30 shows or, you know, 35 shows, I mean, quite a lot of shows. And so by the end of that, you know, that's a pretty
exhausting tour. And so by the end of it, like the impact of those bands, you know, after you've heard them night after night after night, you know, it just it starts to not be as interesting as when you first started.
So you can't see you actually watch it stay in watch them or you don't like go backstage and hide out when they're playing. Well, we were
all backstage together all the time. But I would you know, I'd go on the side of the stage and I'd watch the Ramones and I'd watched Soundgarden and, and I loved when Devo played and there were a couple of shows where we had like Waylon Jennings, like the great outlaw country singer. He was incredible. Waylon Jennings, Steve Earle did some shows. Oh, those shows were more interesting to me as a musician, but But I mean, when you do a tour that's that big was so many big bands, you know, after a
while, it just it does. It kind of becomes routine. And I don't mean that in a way like, like, these aren't killer, amazing bands. But you just see it night after night after night. It sort of just becomes routine.
Right? Where are you supposed to tour with a waste as to what happened with that?
We did play about it was supposed to be a two week tour. And we did about a week of it because the Oasis brothers started fighting and eight, they actually canceled the rest of the tour. Also, because I don't think they they didn't go over across this. Hello Can you can you still hear me? Yep. For a second. Something happened where it timed out. But okay, we're back. Okay.
Well, I'll see. So the Oasis thing? Yeah.
So we were supposed to do about two weeks of shows opening for them. The opening band was called Manic Street Preachers, which is a great band still going from Wales screaming chooser in the middle and then Oasis was headlining, the Manic Street Preachers went across really well, because they're just a great rock band, we went across
really well. But a waste is, you know, there a little bit of that shoe gazing kind of, you know, looking down standing there not really rocking out and American audiences could feel that, like there were they were not as engaged, I think, and their shows were not going over very well. And I think after about a week of shows, they just canceled the rest and went back to England. So a waste is canceled the remaining parts of that tour.
Wow, interesting. And then to explain to my audience, what bumper shoot is because I think you guys played bumper shoot, too. And that was such a fun thing in Seattle. If you grew up in Seattle, you know what it was used to? And I think it used to be free. And now it's like, super corporate, like, you probably have to pay $1,000 for a good ticket or something. But you guys find the eight. It's probably really good back then.
Okay. Bumbershoot is one of the first and I think if I remember reading this correctly, at one point, it was the biggest music festival in the United States. It was started locally in Seattle, and it would attract huge musical stars from all over the world would play this festival. I you know, I mean, like, you know, the biggest bands in the world would play at this festival. And, and it was it was very local and homegrown and the Screaming Trees played it. I think you're right. I
think it was 1998. And in fact, we played with Buck Owens, the great Country artists from Bakersfield, and and I think actually I think he opened for us. But then it kind of, you know, like all things, you know, it kind of fell into disrepair and it was owned by a big corporation at some point the corporation ran it into the ground. But now, it just came back this last summer for the first time in many years. And it's locally owned again. And
they're building it back up. So hopefully, hopefully it'll, it'll just continue to come back like that.
That's awesome. And then, yeah, so you besides music, you do so many other things. But one of the things you do is photography, right?
Well, no, my wife is a professional photographer. She's an amazing photographer. And she just published her first photography book, it's called Numa, pmtu. Ma, you know, which means breath and spirit. And it's photographs that she did around the world, while we were traveling, filming this music series that I'm developing. And she she took all these beautiful still photos and put them into a book. So yeah, photography is her talent. It's definitely not my tablet. Oh,
really? Well, you know, I snap photos with my iPhone from time to time, and it's just kind of to capture the moment, but it's not the kind of stuff that I would ever buy a printer.
Okay, so like, what do you have pictures from back in the day of the of the Seattle bands? Or was that your wife too?
Well, no, some of those photos are from, like, a really bad Kodak camera that I had? Well, not it wasn't a bad camera, it was just like a point and shoot, you know, film camera. So I do have some photos from skin yard and early Screaming Trees. And even, you know, my first punk rock band, I've got some photos of that. They're not, you know, great photos, but I guess they're they're sort of like snapshots
of time. And I've been using those in my live show that I'm doing when I when I show films, sometimes I just have, you know, like a few of these photographs on the screen, you know, because a photograph is powerful, you know, just looking at an image that's 30 or 35 years old. Like what we look like when we were 2021 years old, playing in our first rock bands, you know, it's effective. But my wife is the she's the great photographer for sure. Like that's her talent.
Yeah. So you did your wife, I thought I heard you say your wife did. Because I've done one of those like 10 day meditation things where you don't talk, or your wife did it for three and a half years. That's how did she do that was that when she was still married to you or dating you?
That was right before we got married, she did a three and a half, three and a half year Silent Retreat in the Arizona desert, like completely isolated three and a half years meditating, looking inward at the human spirit. And as a result, she's probably the wisest human being that I personally know.
Wow, that's yeah, that's because I was going crazy. After 10 days. I mean, really, the first day I was going crazy. By 10 days, I was like, I gotta get out of here. And like, they told me like, the teacher, whatever. I was trying to learn the technique. And he's like, You have monkey mind. You know, it's like I just do it. So that's amazing that she was able to I guess if you if you took that much time you probably figure it out. And yeah, I get
real introspective. And are you into that stuff as well, the meditation and things. Yeah,
I mean, that's what that's that's kind of why we met is that I've been Zen meditators since the mid 1990s. So about 30 years, I've been doing Zen, and it's a different, like, my wife studied the Tibetan meditation style, and I studied the Japanese style. But you know, there's a lot of I mean, these are universal truths. So they're, they're, they're understandable by anybody that learns how to meditate. So I mean, I've, I've done several days of silent meditation, I've never done
stripping and a half years. But yeah, I mean, like, we, I think anybody that studies the meditative practices, you all understand the same things. And but for whatever it's worth, I totally had the monkey mind as well. I mean, that's a very common phrase, it's very hard to learn how to control the chattering of the mind. But the more that you do, learn how to meditate and control your mind, that shatter just starts to it just gets quieter and quieter.
And you're no longer ruled by those, those thoughts or those impulses. They just, you just sort of, you know, make them fade away.
That's amazing. Yeah. And congratulations, because and I think this is all connected. You have like, I think 22 Or maybe now it's more 22 or 323 24 years of sobriety.
Yeah, about 24 years. Okay. Yeah. 20 Yeah.
Talk about that, and how that's because I think that is something that, you know, maybe it's not talked enough about in our society and how I mean, it's just you hate to see these people like Kurt and Elaine and Chris Cornell, you know, it's like, I feel like there's they're struggling with those demons. And if they had learned maybe some techniques like this, you think the meditation could help replace the drugs?
Well, I think it has helped a lot of people. I mean, looking back on it historically, at the time, I thought it was just our generation, I thought, wow, Generation X really has a problem with addiction, you know, there was there just drugs everywhere. And of course, alcoholism is the most common addiction in the United States, because it's socially acceptable to be an alcoholic, it's, it's allowed, even though it's so mentally and physically
destructive to people. And yeah, I was not a drug user, but I was a terrible alcoholic, and a lot of it is genetic. And the more we learn about genetics, and people's propensity for those things, you know, the more we can help them and, and, you know, let them know, like, Okay, you gotta watch out for this. But I think, you know, there's just as many drugs now as there ever were, maybe more, you know, so many people have had problems
with with drug addiction. And, and all I can say is my own personal path was that, because I saw and had to actually bury my friends. And I saw how destructive drug addiction and, and addiction of any kind, but specifically drugs and alcohol, I realized that that was not the way I was going to go. And I didn't want it to ruin my path as a as an artistic creative person. And so I've worked on myself to get sober and stay sober, and learn how to remove the things that would trigger
those impulses. And so I think that those tools work, no matter what generation you are, because they're kind of universal. And the more we learn about addiction, and, and, and genetic programming, the more we can, you know, kind of stave that off. But at the end of the day, the individual person has to decide that they want sobriety, you have to actually make the decision that you don't want to be an alcoholic or an addict.
And you just simply decide that, and then you work towards using all of the tools at your disposal at your disposal to stay that way.
Right. And that seems to be the issue. Right now. I mean, I think you talked about this in the in the still point in the book about the homelessness and the drugs. And I know, there's resources out there, I feel like a lot of people, they're not trying like, yeah, it's like a decision that they don't want to get help. They want to be on drugs, they want to be homeless. And it's just it's really sad, because there's just so much wasted potential is what I what I see.
Yeah, the resources are there, that's for sure. There are a lot of outreach programs to help people with those problems. But it still comes down to the individual deciding, like, I do not want to live like this anymore, I want to change. And once you really make that decision, and you really mean it, then you you can change, but it does, the individual has to decide that.
Yeah, no, I feel like I feel like that's with a lot of things, though. I mean, somebody's asked me yesterday, like, how did you grow your YouTube channel and your podcasts, and I was like, I just, I made a decision, I was going to do this, like, this is what I want to do. And then it's like, when you make a decision, or you set a goal, then it's like, somehow you kind of your body and your mind, kind of just start weaving into the direction of of making it happen. That's,
that's exactly right. You You just make I mean, this, you can say this about not just about becoming sober. But you just decide like, I am going to be this person, and I'm going to become an architect or a doctor, or a lawyer or a scientist or a biologist and environmentalist you, you decide that you want to be someone that can make the world better, and you diligently follow that path.
And it's not easy. You know, it's not designed to be easy if you're going to do great work in the world, as, as someone that's an advocate for human beings and the environment and making the world safer and cleaner, and more equal for everyone. If you're going to work towards that it's going to be hard. But you have to be willing to go through that transformation. And the transformation process is what makes you the capable person to do that thing. Whatever it is you decided to do.
Yeah, and you do find that it's it's not difficult to be creative, being sober, like how do you find your creativity? In sobriety? Is it you find it through the meditation or others or being with nature, and you talked about like that in your book as well?
Well, I can say absolutely, for sure that I'm so much more creative in these nearly 25 years that I've been sober than I ever was before that. I mean, when I look me like if I literally look at the timeline, I see how How many records I made, you know, in my 20s up until the point when I when I got sober, which was, which was, right. I mean, I was starting to get sober at the end of the Screaming Trees and then like complete sobriety by the
year 2000. But my creative output from from that point up till now is like 10 times what I did in the handful of years before that, I mean, it's, and I get it from a lot of different things, yes, going out into the forest and hiking in the woods or, or climbing a mountain or, or doing a sailing adventure like I did the summer. I'm hugely creative, and lots of ideas come but but you know, the way an artist really works, and I talked about this in the
Screaming Trees book. There's this famous saying, by the artists, Chuck Close, and he says inspiration is for amateurs. And what he's saying is like, you know, sit around and wait for the lightning bolt to strike you with creativity. You go to the studio every day, and you work on a song, or you work on a painting, or you sit there in front of the typewriter, or computer and you I say typewriter, because I used to write on a typewriter, and you write the story, you just
sit there and do it. And sometimes those days aren't as creative. And you might struggle and like, feel like you didn't get anything done. But you did, because you showed up and you worked on something. And the next time you show up, you're going to have a breakthrough. And you're going to get the song or the story or the painting. So to truly be creative as an artist, you you sit there or stand there and you work every
day on that art. You don't sit around waiting to be inspired, you make the inspiration come from the practice of doing the art itself.
Interesting. So it's kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier, why the Screaming Trees didn't make it bigger as it was they didn't have the consistency. So that's a big part of it is the habits and the consistency.
Yes, the consistency you have to Yeah, especially with a rock band, I mean, like I this is something I can speak from a pretty expert opinion, because I've been in a lot of bands, and some of them were, you know, mad season was very successful. And the Screaming Trees were successful in a certain kind of way.
Because even though the band you know, didn't last as long as other bands, we did write some really great songs, but it came from when those four or five guys show up at the studio, and you practice and you rehearse and you refine and you perfect the song. And so all of the bands I've been in have had moments where they were able to do that and that is when you that's when you do write a classic album, you just sit there and work at it really really hard. That's that's how
you do that. But if you're not consistent in that over the course of years and decades, eventually the band is going to break up because it's just the nature of things you know you can pull things together for a little while but if you don't consistently work at that it will dissipate and that's what causes the band to break up
hmm yeah interest now and are you still in is walking papers still active
are still active although you know, I started that band with Jeff Angel and Duff Mckagan and, and it was a great band. I mean, I loved the first couple of albums we did. Duff and I, you know, Duff is the bass player for Guns and Roses.
Oh yeah, I'm a huge Guns and Roses fan. I love trying to get a show forever.
Duff is one of my favorite human beings. It's just a one also, you know, very, very long time sober, incredibly creative and wonderful human being. I've loved us and we've been friends since the I mean I met him in the late 1990s When he was living in Los Angeles and Mark Lanigan was actually living with him and we were all silver
at that time. And and have remained so but duff and I tried to form a band in like 1997 with Sen dog from Cypress Hill, but he and I Yeah, we wrote all these really cool songs that were kind of had this like kind of rockin backbeat was sent dog rapping over the top of it, it was actually very cool just drums, bass and vocals, and we made a demo but I don't know we just didn't like we didn't finish it. We didn't try to get
a record deal. It was just this kind of cool thing that we tried out Duff has the tape somewhere. And and then it was almost 15 years later deaf and I decided to form a band again. And he and I again with the rhythm section and let me tell you, that is a good rhythm section me on drums and Duff on bass. I love it. It's swings. It's heavy and it swings. And it's really cool. And we made a couple of albums.
But we had problems with our record label like it was it was kind of made made a couple of bad business decisions with the record label we were on and the record label went out of business and the records went out of print for a while. And Duff got the offer to do the Guns and Roses reunion. And he was like, bro, I got to do this. And I was like, hell yes, you do. You got to do it right now. And so we both left the band at the same time. And Jeff has kept
it going. We gave him the rights to the name and everything, but I'm not sure exactly what he's doing with it right now. So,
okay, well, so you're you've got this book coming out. And then you're doing like a it's a speaking tour. Is that what it is?
Yeah, I'm, well, it's, it's quite a bit more than speaking, I basically. So I'm developing a music series. And we're about to release the first few episodes, and it's called singing Earth, which is also the name of my first book. And so it's singing Earth, you know, hosted by Barrett Martin, and we go around the world. And we interview musicians and do recording sessions with them. Sometimes it's in a recording studio. But I, we filmed an episode last summer in the
Peruvian Amazon rainforest. And we recorded these shamans that sing in the rainforest. And so it's got shots of us in Brazil and Peru, and Seattle, and the Mississippi, delta and Alaska up in the Arctic. And this is just the first season. And we're finishing editing the episodes, and they're about to launch on our vivo channel. So it'll be on vivo, which you can watch on, you know, streaming channel, so you can get it on your Roku device, or you can watch it on YouTube, because they have a
partnership with YouTube. And it's amazing. And so I'm showing clips of us in all these different locations, I'm showing short film clips, I'm telling stories about these different places. And I'm also playing a bunch of musical instruments on stage while the films are playing, okay, as part of this kind of providing live music for the soundtrack. So it's, it's about a two hour multimedia show. And we've just done three shows like The tour has just begun. I'm in Portland right
now. And I'm on my way to Eugene, tonight and California tomorrow.
Awesome. Would you be adding dates because I didn't say I'm an Arizona now. And I didn't see Arizona on the list. Unfortunately,
there is not an Arizona date. I mean, well, I love Arizona, and we'll come back and play there. But right now we've got about 26 shows around the United States. So it goes across, you know, we go through New Mexico, Texas, Florida, up the east coast through the Great Lakes. And I think the last show was in Denver on December 10. So that all the show dates are published on my website and bands in town, you know, it's all out there in the universe for people to find
a show near them. But it's, it's been going really good people seem to really like the combination of the storytelling, the films and the and all the music and just learning about music around the world is even if you're not a musician, it's fascinating, you know, what are people doing in the Peruvian rainforest? What are they doing in the studios of Rio de Janeiro? And what are they doing in the Alaskan Arctic or down in the Delta? It's, it's exciting.
No, absolutely. It's, it sounds amazing. I'll have to check out the book when it comes out. What what is it? We have a release date on the book?
It's today? Oh, it's early today. It is it is available worldwide. I mean, most people buy books on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, but you can also order it through your local bookshop, or you can buy it off my website. You know, Barry martin.com It's you can
is this one gonna be on Audible too, because that's how I listened to Stillpoint. And it's really cool because you had the music in audible book. I was like, This is so cool that the way you did that is that you have the same way for the Screaming Trees book.
I did do I did make an audible book for this new Screaming Trees book with me narrating it but I didn't put music because it's really complicated to get the rights to all of those Screaming Trees song. I couldn't I couldn't it was just it was gonna take longer than writing the book. Yeah, so the audible is just me telling the story. There's kind of music in there but
yeah, you can get the listen to the music on Spotify and all that stuff. So yeah,
the music's all Yeah, I mean, it's free. The funny thing is, is yeah, the music is free, but you can't if you want to do it on an audible you got to get all these rights and so that's so
silly. Yeah, well, thank you so much for doing this and yeah, people should check out that I'll put the website in the show notes so they can check for tour dates and the books out now. And you also have so much other music and and books out available anything else you want to promote?
Oh, just if anybody wants to check out my website, I I'm not like super quick on updating things because I'm, you know, I'm an older person. So I'm not super savvy with social media. But I do have you know, I've got an Instagram page, and I have a Facebook page and my website, Barrett martin.com. You can buy my book, I'm actually I have a bunch of signed books. So you can buy signed copies of my books
through my website. But you can buy all my books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or you can be really cool and order them through your local bookstore and support small businesses.
I love it. That's great. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I'll let you get to the next one.
Thanks, Chuck. It was a pleasure.
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