Pod Insights DISGRACELAND Mark Lanegan: Kurt Cobain’s Drug Runner, Liam Gallagher’s Tormentor, and Matt Dillon’s Firestarter About this episode Mark Lanegan was grunge’s darkest secret – a gravel-voiced hellraiser who ran dope for Kurt Cobain, scared Liam Gallagher into quitting Oasis, and nearly lost his arm (and his mind) chasing the next high. He brawled his way out of a dead-end town, made as many enemies as friends in the music industry, and somehow kept singing through it all. From crack dens to concert halls, his life was pure rock ‘n roll noir – violent, haunted, and painfully real.
This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners, including depictions of suicide. If you or a loved one are thinking about suicide, help is available 24 hours a day at the 988 Lifeline.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is exactly right.
0:13 Speaker 01 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
0:41 Speaker 02 Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture. Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor.
1:22 Speaker 02 Report if you have a parasitic infection, common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, blue or flue-like symptoms, joint pain, or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.
1:41 Speaker 03 This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.
2:02 Jake Brennan? This is a story about violence, about heroin, about the real man who made Liam Gallagher quit Oasis. Hint: It wasn't his brother. And it's about some seriously underrated rock and roll. Great music. Great music made by a man named Mark Lanegan, singer and leader of Screaming Trees, and later, one of the singers from Queens of the Stone Age. Mark's music was very much unlike that music that I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called Kurt's Night Porter MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "We Don't Talk About Bruno" by the cast of Encanto.
2:47 Jake Brennan? And why would I play you that specific slice of weird, animated Uncle Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on February 22, 2022. And that was the day that Mark Lanegan, after years of rough fights and even rougher nights, after recovering from a nearly three-week coma, gave in to his own demons and died at the age of 57. On this episode, violence, heroin, Matt Dillon on fire, Liam Gallagher scared shitless, and Mark Lanegan. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgrace Land.
3:54 Jake Brennan? Lanegan, are you as dumb as you fucking look? You're a piece of shit, that much is true, but, my mouth to God's ears, son, I know you're a piece of shit. Your mama knows you're a piece of shit, but don't be going all dumb on me now, too. Got it? Okay, then. I'm gonna ask you one last time. Which one of your shitbag friends is stealing all the goddamn stereos out of the goddamn cars down at the dealership?
4:26 Jake Brennan? Fifteen-year-old Mark Lanegan shifted uncomfortably in his chair while his aggressor, Captain Limp Dick here from the local sheriff's department, loomed over him from where he sat on the edge of his desk. Of course, Lanegan knew who was taking the stereos. Bad recognizes bad and all that. And when it came to bad, right now, in the year 1979, in the dead-end city of Ellensburg, Washington, Mark Lanegan was about as bad as it got.
4:58 Jake Brennan? He was a thief, a trespasser. He was drunk or stoned 24/7, covering public walls with spray paint and piss. Barely tolerated by his teachers and abused physically and mentally by his miserable mother, he did what he had to do in order to survive in what he saw as a dead-end town, and thus survive the authority, apathy, and stupidity that ran amok there. And yeah, technically, Ellensburg was a city, but it was such a backwards, podunk shithole of a city that it had that permanent small-town stink all over it.
5:37 Jake Brennan? In just a few years from now, by the time Lanegan was a senior, he would destroy his probation officer's van with a sledgehammer, the cherry on top, as it were, of a long list of alcohol, drug, and theft-related offenses. And those offenses in total would earn him an 18-month prison sentence, a sentence that a lenient judge would suspend on the condition that Lanegan complete substance abuse treatment. The judge, bless him, thought that Mark Lanegan could change. Captain Limp Dick, on the other hand, despite all his obvious flaws, most glaring of which was the cast he was currently wearing on one arm due to an injury he no doubt sustained while beating on some other unlucky miscreant,
6:22 Jake Brennan? Captain Limp Dick knew that change wasn't something a kid like Lanegan was capable of. The bottom was where he was born, and the bottom was where he would stay. There was no amount of blackout drunk nights that could make him forget that. And no matter how hard he fought, he'd never claw his way out.
6:43 Jake Brennan? That didn't mean that Lanegan wouldn't put up a fight trying. In fact, violence was one thing that Mark Lanegan trafficked in from a very early age. "Come on, kid," the captain said. "I'm gonna ask you one more time, and you fucking a-better give me a name this time. Who took the goddamn stereos?" Lanegan cocked his head upright, finally making eye contact and said, "I don't know." Captain Limp Dick's face went red with rage. He lunged at Lanegan, and he swung his busted arm at the side of Lanegan's head, connecting with a thud, knocking Lanegan off to the chair and onto the floor, where the captain was now standing over his teenage prey,
7:26 Jake Brennan? ignoring the throbbing pain shooting up and down his arm. He wanted to see the abject fear in the kid's eyes. But instead, he saw the eyes of Victor. A look of satisfaction, even down there on the grimy floor. And that pissed Limp Dick off to no end. "You had this coming, boy," he said, grabbing Lanegan by his shirt collar with his good hand, cocking back his bad arm, and then... The punch landed squarely on Mark Lanegan's jaw. He stumbled backwards, in the cold, salty air of Asbury Park, New Jersey, stinging his lip, where it had been split open. He'd drunk himself into a stupor again tonight,
8:10 Jake Brennan? so the pair of angry bouncers now standing before him looked like a quartet. These meatheads were Planet Fitness big. Not Brick Shithouse big, like the Connor Boys, Van and Gary Lee, or Barrett and Mark. The guys who collectively, along with Mark, comprised the tallest and most intimidating band from the Pacific Northwest, Screaming Trees. But Van and Gary Lee, where the hell have they gone off to? Lanegan grabbed a piece of wooden signpost that was rotting in the gutter and waved it at the bouncers who were coming to finish what they started. He turned to see Barrett at his side, his arm dangling in a way that was not natural screaming, "They broke my arm! They fucking broke my arm!"
8:54 Jake Brennan? The piece of wood felt too heavy in Lanegan's hand. It was wasted enough that he knew that an attempt to wield it would be a fool's errand. Or at least a drunk's. So he tossed the weapon to the ground, put up his fists, and went in swinging.
9:11 Jake Brennan? It was October 1992. Mark Lanegan had long since put Ellensburg behind him, saved from a life as the town barfly by the only thing that mattered: rock and roll. The Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, Iggy Pop, Gun Club. Discovering music like that, music that no one was listening to in Ellensburg, that was like discovering a new language. And while Mark Lanegan may have felt like the only long-haired punk rocker in a city full of jocks, in reality, there were a few others. So when he met Van and Gary Lee Connor, who not only understood his musical vocabulary, but made their own music too, Lanegan knew he'd found his ticket out.
9:56 Jake Brennan? Mark Lanegan didn't play an instrument, but he could sing. And within a few years, he had honed his voice into the one we know today. The resonant baritone that was gruff like Tom Waits and gravelly like Billie Holiday, if Billie Holiday sometimes had a beard. And by the early 90s, The Screaming Trees had evolved from Nuggets-era garage rock into a powerful behemoth of sound that was as formidable as they looked, while also being as catchy as anything the so-called grunge scene was producing at the time. And just like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and the other bands that they'd come up with, The Screaming Trees quickly found themselves riding Seattle's rising tide.
10:41 Jake Brennan? Sweet Oblivion, their second album for Epic Records and their sixth overall, also their first to feature Barrett Martin, who replaced his original drummer, Mark Pickerell, set them up for the big time, but never actually got them there. Months before it was released, in September of 1992, its lead single, Nearly Lost You, had been featured on the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's movie Singles, a fictionalized take on grunge in Seattle starring Matt Dillon. But when Mark Lanegan found out that every other band on the soundtrack got paid, while The Screaming Trees were told to waive their sync fee in the name of exposure, that pissed him off to no end. Mudhoney got $20,000 and The Screaming Trees got fuck all.
11:26 Jake Brennan? It made Lanegan feel like he and the boys were swimming at the bottom of the barrel. At least he was familiar with the bottom of the barrel and glass being half-full and all that, there was only one way to get out of the bottom. But not tonight.
11:41 Jake Brennan? Tonight on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, outside a club called "The Fastlane", where the Screaming Trees were scheduled to play a gig tomorrow night, the bottom embraced Mark Lanegan. And tonight, when the bouncers told the Trees' bassist Van Conner he couldn't take his drink outside, Van told the guy to go fuck himself. And when the bouncer told Lanegan the same, Lanegan knocked the tyrant's ass off his little stool with one punch. The fistfight that followed ensured that the Screaming Trees would not play at "The Fastlane", not tomorrow night, or any other night for that matter. They did tape a performance of their great song "Nearly Lost You" on the David Letterman Show the next day, but did so with drummer Steve Ferrone sitting in for Barrett Martin,
12:25 Jake Brennan? since Barrett had dislocated his shoulder in the melee. Lanegan, however, was front and center, Van and Gary headbanging behind him. Lanegan gripping the mic stand with both hands like he was holding on for dear life, looking very much like the last dude you'd ever want to fuck with, and sporting a huge shiner on his left eye for maximum effect. This was not Matt Dillon with phony long hair and a soul patch up on a movie screen trying to be a singer from Seattle. This was not singles. This was the real deal. This was uncompromising rock and roll at its most violent, underappreciated best. It didn't give in to anything, and it didn't give anything up,
13:09 Jake Brennan? just like young Mark Lanegan wouldn't give up any names to Captain Lindtik all those years ago. Some things are better kept a secret. Some things you take to your grave.
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14:23 Speaker 02 it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose, every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection, common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or flulike symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur.
15:05 Speaker 02 Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.
15:18 Jake Brennan? Did you call for the night porter? You asked this of your buddy, Kurt Cobain, who was looking at you through the crack of the half-open front door at his house out on Lake Washington. The Night Porter is Kurt's nickname for you. Your friends call you all sorts of things. Old Scratch, Dark Mark, a homeless crack addict that he once ran a scam with to scare up drug money, used to call you Whitey Ford. But only Kurt calls you the Night Porter. He does so on account of the fact that you run dope all over Seattle like a bike messenger. But you don't have a bike, and you do your work under the cover of darkness. There's a gaping hole in town that needs filling, and just as you'd sing in one of
16:01 Jake Brennan? your later songs, you're there to janitor the emptiness. Everyone in town benefits from your quicksilver ass. Baristas making minimum wage at Starbucks, tech millionaires at Microsoft, and your good buddy Kurt Cobain here, who just so happens to be the biggest rock star on the planet. You benefit too, because ever since you cut alcohol from your life and replaced it with heroin, your habit is all-consuming. And that habit costs a pretty penny. You are not Kurt Cobain, or Chris Cornell. Shit, you're not even any fucking veteran. The money you make from screaming trees and from your solo career, which is running on
16:43 Jake Brennan? a parallel track next to the bands, it's not enough. It's never enough. So your side hustle helps make ends meet, and it also keeps you within arm's reach of some killer brown. Anyway, when Kurt sees that it's you at his door, not some crazy fan who's figured out where he lives, this huge smile bursts across his face, and he shouts your name, "Lanegan", like some god-fearing old biddy shouts "Amen" at Sunday service, because amen, brother, you are the light. You are the flesh and the blood. And you are the fucking Night Porter, and you've got the goods.
17:21 Jake Brennan? Kurt knows your situation and does what he can. And you understand that there are some things he can't do, like go out and score heroin now that he's the most famous person in Seattle. Kurt always repays the favor. Once, he took out three grand in cash from the bank, stuffed it in your fist just for you being you, for being there for him, for being, as he once told you, one of the only real friends he had. Kurt didn't just have your back, he was your champion. And the two of you almost made a record of Lead Belly songs together, but when that didn't pan out, you had to settle for Kurt guesting on your cover of the bluesman song "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" from your solo debut album, The Windy Sheet. That's right, be proud of that, man.
18:06 Jake Brennan? Everyone connects that song with Nirvana and their Unplugged album, as they should, because it's incredible, but you did it first, with Kurt. You put him onto that Lead Belly shit.
18:19 Jake Brennan? And then, two years later, in 92, when the Screaming Trees were banned from all European festivals after you got blackout drunk at Roskilde and fought the stage crew at the end of your set like a cornered animal, Kurt was the one who orchestrated your redemption. He told the organizers at Reading the Nirvana would pull out of that festival unless the Screaming Trees were back on the bill. At fucking Reading, one of the most iconic Nirvana performances of all time, and it almost didn't happen because Kurt liked you too much. Still, after a while, it became a lot to manage, all this Night Porter business, because being a junkie was hard enough as it was. All the running around, trying to find your guy, and then finding out your guy got pinched
19:04 Jake Brennan? or he skipped town, so you gotta find another guy, and that guy's holed up in the sketchiest part of town where if you don't have a piece stuffed down the front of your jeans, you're either incredibly fucking stupid, or you're about to be dead. And if you're not at home when you score, then you gotta find somewhere to shoot, and let's say you do, you find a place, then you have to find a working vein to shoot in, because you're always running out of good veins. Next thing you know, you're pulling down your pants, staring at your cock, specifically at the big vein that runs upside it, wondering, "Well, it's a vein, isn't it? It'll only hurt for a second, right?" And then as soon as the needle breaks the skin, you watch that same vein balloon up and you're like, "Fuck, am I gonna lose my cock now?"
19:48 Jake Brennan? Just like you thought you were gonna lose your arm that one time in Quebec, there was no such thing as a clean needle, at least not on tour buses in the 1990s. Everyone shared everything. And once you were high, you didn't worry about that shit anyway. But this time, before the bus crosses the Canadian border, you shoot up with that dirty needle you hide in one of the van's interior panels and your arm just fucking goes poof! It inflates to twice its size. It's fire red and hot to the touch. You wind up in a hospital where the doctors are telling you, "Monsieur, your arm, we may need to, how do you say, remove it." So you're sitting there in a bed, waiting it out for 24 hours to see if the blood infection raging away inside
20:33 Jake Brennan? he was gonna come down or if they're gonna amputate. You're doing this while also sweating out the final vestiges of the heroin left in your system. You're going cold turkey right there and you feel like shit. Your drum tech takes pity on you and hits the bricks to find a Montreal prostitute with huge lips to come give you one last blowjob as a two-armed man. But he can't get her past security, which is a huge buzzkill for your equally huge blue balls.
21:02 Jake Brennan? The next day, the doc tells you that you can keep the arm, which is great news because there's a mic stand somewhere that needs leaning on. Its entire purpose is to be there for you to grip it tight with not one, but two hands. And that gargoyle power stance you strike, designed to scare off all comers, all posers. And if any shit-talking roughneck knows any better, they know to keep their distance from Mark fucking Lanegan. The only thing you haven't figured out yet is how to ward off the demons.
21:36 Jake Brennan? Lanegan stood at the foot of a set of stairs outside Kirk Cobain's house, smoking a Lucky Strike non-filter. He exhaled and looked up the stairs to where they led. A room above the garage. Kurt was missing. He had escaped from a detox facility in LA and caught a plane back to Seattle. But no one knew where he was now. And his wife Courtney Love was freaking out. Geffen Records was freaking out too. Lanegan's lawyer, the one he shared with Kurt, he was also freaking out. Lanegan shadowed a private investigator, took him to drug houses on Capitol Hill, bought dope with the P.I.'s money, going everywhere and anywhere he thought Kurt might be hiding out.
22:17 Jake Brennan? Places to fix, places you checked into but would never leave, but no dice. They called Kurt's friends and searched Kurt's house. Nothing. Outside, Lanegan took another puff off his cigarette. Just days earlier, Kurt had called three times and left three messages on his answering machine. Said he wanted to hang out and listen to music. In other words, cop some dope, bro, and bring it over and let's get high. Lanegan never answered and never called him back. All that Night Porter business, it was too exhausting. And Lanegan had no idea that Kurt was AWOL when he called. And now, he wished he had picked up.
22:59 Jake Brennan? He looked up at the stairs and at the door leading into the room above the garage. He didn't feel compelled to make the climb. So instead, he tossed the butt on the ground, crushed it with his boot, and left. The next day, his phone rang. Kurt Cobain was dead, and they found his body in that room above the garage. Just steps away from where Lanegan had stood. Courtney called him soon after and told him that Kurt had been listening to Lanegan's new solo record, Whiskey for the Holy Ghost, for days before he pulled the trigger, which just fucked Lanegan up to no end. He didn't need to hear that.
23:40 Jake Brennan? But there was no one hearing it now, just like there was no one thinking the thought that he was the last person Kurt ever called. His friend was gone, on his watch. And Mark Lanigan was left to contemplate his place in it.
23:59 Speaker 05 We'll be right back after this.
24:06 Speaker 06 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
24:35 Speaker 02 Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.
25:18 Speaker 02 Common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or flulike symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.
25:40 Jake Brennan? Reputation is everything. In the music business, or the whatever business, doesn't matter. Your reputation precedes you if you're doing it right. Some have to work on building the reputation, but for Mark Lanegan, it came naturally, authentically. Just by being himself did his reputation evolve to where it was, firmly established in the mid-1990s. And it didn't really change from there. Everyone knew Mark Lanegan took no shit. Didn't matter who you were. If you got on Lanegan's bad side, if you pissed him off, watch yourself. And that goes for hecklers in the audience calling his bandmates fat, or even for those same bandmates when they did something that he felt was deserving
26:23 Jake Brennan? of his well-documented physical retaliation. I mean, have you seen Van and Gary Lee Connor? Those dudes were nine-foot-tall Andre the Giant-looking motherfuckers, but shit, man, sheer size did not faze Lanegan one bit. He even challenged Liam Gallagher to a fight when The Screaming Trees opened Oasis's brief American tour in 1996. This after Liam insulted him, insulted his band, and in general, acted like a "proper cunt," as they'd say in his native Manchester. Liam fancied himself a brawler, but Lanegan knew the type. His idea of fighting was a loud mouth that wouldn't shut the hell up. So when Liam Gallagher told Mark Lanegan that he'd throw down Mono Amono
27:07 Jake Brennan? at the tour's final stop in Miami, Lanegan could rest assured that all this time spent around this prick would be worth it when he got to break Liam's nose at the end of the line. But they never got to the end of that line. Because right before the Miami date, the final night of the tour, Liam Gallagher bailed. He quit Oasis and flew back home to England. Yes, Liam Gallagher briefly quit his own band in 1996, and it wasn't because of his dysfunctional relationship with his brother Noel. It was because he was terrified that Mark Lanegan was going to beat the shit out of him. If Lanegan shared something with Liam, it was that intimacy with dysfunction.
27:50 Jake Brennan? The Screaming Trees dysfunction was one thing pushing him further into a solo career. But in 96, The Trees remained an important part of Lanegan's revenue stream, which was necessary in order to maintain his all-consuming drug habit. And that was the other part of Lanegan's reputation. He was known as a junkie and a fiend, and an amateur cook who made crack cocaine in his kitchen that he could sell on the side when he wasn't shooting or smoking whatever he could get his hands on, with friends like Lain Staley from Alice in Chains, who, incidentally, filled in for Mark Lanegan at the Screaming Trees show in Montreal when Lanegan was laid up in that hospital wondering if he was gonna lose his arm, but I digress.
28:31 Jake Brennan? But in a bad part of town in Rockford, Illinois, home of Cheap Trick, where the Trees were passing through as part of the Lollapalooza Tour that same year in 1996, Mark Lanegan's reputation didn't mean shit. He was just another mark with crumpled up bills in his pocket, looking for a fix. Some brown, some rock, some of whatever came easy. And the old guy standing guard outside this dilapidated drug den said it was 10 bucks to get inside. And then he looked over at the tall dude standing next to Lanegan, Josh Hammy, formerly of Kias and a new addition to the Trees as their touring second guitar player. Short red hair, white puka shell necklace, nice polo shirt.
29:14 Jake Brennan? His palm desert Jaco Foco vibe was in direct conflict with Mark Lanegan's strung out, shoulder-length hair and beard. "That's 10 bucks each," the old guy corrected. Lanegan forked over the cash, and then he and Josh walked inside. The place was dark. Cigarette smoke hung from the ceiling. Ready or not, but the Fugees was blaring from a set of shitty speakers behind a bar where a dope head nodding off made a show of nursing liquor from a dirty glass. Some skinny piece of ass draped herself on Lanegan's arm. "Give me a 20 and I'll take you to score." Lanegan reached into his pocket and pulled out another Andrew Jackson. Price of doing business, and the woman stuck the money down her bra
29:58 Jake Brennan? and began to walk up a set of old stairs. She stopped, turned back, and motioned that Lanegan and Josh should follow. And Lanegan could feel it already. The rush, the high, the escape. They reached the second floor where the woman knocked on a wooden door. It opened, and no sooner had Lanegan and Josh stepped inside that three dudes, big dudes, leaped at them, chests out, antenna up. "The fuck is he doing here?" one of the guys yelled. "Are you a fucking cop?" Lanegan had never been accused of being a cop before, but then he realized he wasn't being accused. They're all staring at Josh Hammy. "Shit," Lanegan thought, looking at his friend through the eyes of a paranoid drug dealer.
30:43 Jake Brennan? Yeah, he could see it. Josh had narc written all over him. "Look, man, we're not cops," Lanegan said, trying to diffuse the situation, get his fix, and get out. "You may not be a cop, but he is, motherfucker." Lanegan panicked. And Josh slowly began to reach for his back pocket, which is where, as Lanegan knew, he kept his switchblade. Shit! All three of these mean-looking bastards were no doubt strapped. If Josh snapped open his blade, then they were fucked. Lanegan put his hand on Josh's shoulder, as if to say, "Cool it, Clint Eastwood", and then calmly addressed the room. "Excuse me, gentlemen,
31:27 Jake Brennan? but I think we've made a mistake. We will see ourselves out." "You're fucking right, you will, old man. Take your bitch-ass cop with you."
31:38 Jake Brennan? Now Lanegan and Josh were back out on the streets of Rockford, forty dollars lighter, with no direction home. They'd been dropped off in this neighborhood earlier and had no idea which way was out. So they started walking. Up the road a piece, Lanegan spotted some dudes loitering under a broken streetlight. Definitely looked like they were holding. But he still had a few bucks on him, so he told Josh to hang tight for one minute and went to score. Josh stood stone-solid, watching helplessly. And before Lanegan could say anything to the guys he hoped had what he so desperately needed, he heard footsteps come up on him fast from behind. And then, the feeling of cold steel pressed into the back of his neck, followed by the sound of a pistol cocking.
32:23 Jake Brennan? "Keep walking, cop." Lanegan wasn't running now, but he was moving faster, away from another potential score, those early symptoms of dope sickness beginning to set in. Josh Homme was there with him every step of the way, freaking out but trying not to show it. Then, headlights.
32:43 Jake Brennan? A car was making its way toward them, engine humming, the muffler doing god's work. It began to pick up speed and as it got closer, Lanegan and Josh could see the barrel of a gun hanging out the rear driver's side window. They had no time to react. The car was rumbling directly past them now, and the kid holding the gun was squeezing the trigger, and suddenly Lanegan and Josh were sprayed... with water.
33:10 Jake Brennan? Standing there soaking wet, the car's taillights fading into the night, Lanegan and Josh laughed. It was the only appropriate response to thinking you were just about to lose your life on some back-end street in Cheap Trick's hometown, only to find out that the joke was on you. Moments later, Hommy went quiet, his smile fading, and he said, "If you ever do that to me again, I'll fucking kill you."
34:00 Jake Brennan? Josh Hommy did not kill Mark Lanegan. But a few years later, he did hire him as a secondary lead singer in his new band, Queens of the Stone Age. Being asked to join Queens in the year 2000, when Lanegan was 36 and at a personal and professional crossroads, it saved his life. And I'm not being hyperbolic here either. Let me set the scene. Screaming Trees had finally broken up, but not before that close call in Rockford, Illinois, some years prior had gone full-blown bad omen, and Lanegan was robbed in Amsterdam at knife point while trying to score. And then, in London, it happened again. Only this time, Lanegan's old-school Captain Limp Dick defying fight-or-flight instincts
34:43 Jake Brennan? kicked in, and he beat the living shit out of this would-be mugger. And when he got home to Seattle, he was broke. His phone and his electricity had been shut off. And before he got himself evicted, he was frantically cooking up batches of cracked cocaine that he could sell for a few bucks on a Coleman propane camping stove. Soon, he was homeless, sleeping under a tarp near the freeway.
35:07 Jake Brennan? Lanegan was then saved not once, not twice, but three times. First, by Courtney Love, his unexpected benefactor, who put up cash when Lanegan needed it most, just like Kurt used to do back in the day. She paid for Lanegan to live at drug treatment facilities and halfway houses in California for nearly a year so that he could get clean. Next, by Seattle resident Duff McKagan, bass player for Guns N' Roses, his unexpected sponsor who helped Lanegan get back on his feet as the caretaker of his two houses. And then by Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age, his unexpected new boss, who gave Lanegan a new creative lease on life, not to mention a great gig.
35:50 Jake Brennan? Lanegan used to say that being in Queens was the best because healing had to be the center of attention for one-third of a show. And following his brief but impactful tenure with Queens of the Stone Age, Mark Lanegan continued making great solo records and continued to find inspired collaborations with Greg Dooley of the Afghan Wigs and Isabel Campbell of Bell & Sebastian and with Soul Savers, Moby and Uncle. He was the go-to guy for discerning musicians and their fans with a voice like top-shelf bourbon. And it was a voice that only comes around once in a great while. You can't learn that voice or teach it, it's just always been inside you, just like your
36:33 Jake Brennan? attraction to violence and hard drugs and conversely to close fellowship with those who get you and are worthy of your good graces. It's all part of what makes you so authentic, for better and for worse, because above all else, inauthenticity is the greatest sin. And to that end, you find yourself in a bar in New York one night after a show, and someone taps you on the shoulder. You turn around and take a drag off your lucky strike and narrow your eyes. Mark, do you know Matt Dillon? The actor sticks out his hand to shake yours, says he's a big fan. "Yeah, thanks, man." You don't have much beyond that to say to him, so you stand there smoking your cigarette and feeling awkward.
37:19 Jake Brennan? Nothing personal, but every time you see this guy, all you can picture is him wearing that stupid wig in that stupid movie that turned your friends into a cartoon and screwed your band out of thousands of dollars. Someone else catches Dylan's attention and he turns his head away from you. And as he does, you drop what's left of your lit cigarette in Dylan's suit jacket pocket and it begins to smolder. And then Dylan's jacket catches fire and he's wildly stamping out the flames with his hands now, looking around to see who did this to him. But you're long gone, out the door, onto the sidewalk, and there but for the grace of God, into the emptiness.
37:59 Jake Brennan? I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace Land.
38:15 Jake Brennan? All right. Hope you dug this episode. Apple Podcast listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned on so you never miss an episode of Disgrace Land. This week's question of the week, guys, who is your favorite but most underrated rock star? Is it Mark Lanigan? Is it someone else? I want to know who and I want to know why you love them. Hit me up, voicemail and text, 617-906-6638 and let me know. I can also be reached on Instagram, Facebook X, at Disgrace Land Pod and [email protected] . If you want to do the email thing, leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and win some free merch. All right, here comes some credits.
38:53 Jake Brennan? Disgrace Land was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgrace Land All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgrace Land ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com/membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook,
39:37 Jake Brennan? at Disgrace Land Pod and on YouTube at youtube.com/AtDisgraceLandPod. Rockerola.
39:48 Speaker 00 He's a bad, bad man.
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40:20 Jake Brennan? Hey guys, time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyage. Back by popular demand, this five-night, adults-only escape sets sail March 20, 2027, to Grand Turk in the Beach Club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year, along with Zeph, and he and I will be taping a live version of DisgraceLand along with podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, Podcast of the Year Award winners Wisecrack, and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind-the-scenes storytelling, exclusive meet-and-greets, and immersive true crime programming throughout this one-of-a-kind voyage.
41:05 Jake Brennan? Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/truecrime to secure your spot.
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Previous Bonus Episode: Uncovering Grift, Country Punks, and RIP Ozzy Next Bonus Episode: Sanitized Biopics, California Wildfires, and Underrated Rock Stars Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated