There were several instances where friendships within the Seattle music scene led to classic collaborations. Case in point, Temple of the Dog (which saw various members of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam unite), Mad Season (Alice in Chains‘ Layne Staley and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready), Brad (Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard and singer/songwriter Shawn Smith), etc.
But one that tends to get overlooked was the fleeting Screaming Trees and Nirvana union, The Jury. Comprised of Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan and Mark Pickerel along with Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, the collaboration came about due in large part to the friendship of Lanegan and Cobain.
In my 2023 book, “Lanegan,” the relationship between the two incredibly talented singers was discussed by several people from the scene who knew the pair personally. Including producer Jack Endino, who oversaw The Jury recording session at Reciprocal Recording in Seattle in 1989.
“I’d imagine [Mark and Kurt] were drug buddies on some level. But, they were also simpatico on a creative level, as well. Unfortunately, there were no results as far as songwriting that anybody knows about. I don’t know what they might have done together – in terms of collaborating creatively, other than these Lead Belly covers. And Mark is only on ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night‘ – he has no involvement in the other two tunes we recorded during The Jury session. Kurt sings one of them and Mark’s not there, and nobody sings on the other one and Mark’s not there, either.”
And as Endino mentioned, frustratingly, only one song was completed that included both singers. “It could have been something very interesting – if they had actually done something with it. It seemed like a great idea on paper. Sub Pop paid for that session, and ultimately since they ended up paying for ‘The Winding Sheet’ [Lanegan’s 1990 solo album], they got one song out of The Jury session that we could add to that record. It’s funny that that song got a lot of mileage – that arrangement of the song has been copied by other people quite a few times.”
This version of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” would be included on “The Winding Sheet,” while the arrangement would later be covered by Nirvana (with Cobain on lead vocals and without Lanegan) on Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged in New York.”
Lanegan’s long-time Screaming Trees bandmate, guitarist Gary Lee Conner, described it as “a really personal relationship” and recalled that the singer was “pretty broke up” about Cobain’s death in April 1994. But Conner also remembered Lanegan mentioning Cobain again not long after.
“In 1994, after Kurt had died, I was writing songs, and Mark came by the apartment. He comes over driving this old Dodge Dart, and he’s like, ‘Courtney [Love, Cobain’s widow] gave me this car – it used to belong to Kurt. But I can’t get in the trunk.’ And I don’t know if he ever got in the trunk. I don’t know what was in the trunk – but you can just imagine. [Laughs] Was it guns? Drugs? Song lyrics? What the hell could it have been? It’s probably missing forever now because it was sold. Whoever bought it didn’t even know it was Kurt Cobain’s car.”
And it turned out that Lanegan’s late friend continued to affect him long after his passing – both personally and artistically – according to Chris Goss (the producer of Mark’s 2004 solo effort, “Bubblegum”).
“‘When Your Number Isn’t Up‘ [a tune off ‘Bubblegum’], I mean, your friends are all dying and you’re the only one alive in that song. He’s ‘the night porter’ – that’s what’s on his gravestone. ‘To janitor the emptiness’ – that is one of the most profound lyrics of the last two decades. Like, losing Kurt Cobain and giant talents like that, and his friendship with Layne Staley, and losing those kind of comrades, and who else was there to replace them? I think that his poetry was Mark Lanegan.”
Sadly, Lanegan – who, in addition to his work with the Screaming Trees and as a solo artist, would also collaborate with Queens of the Stone Age, Isobel Campbell, and The Gutter Twins, among others – would pass away on February 22, 2022, at the age of 57.
