Sing Backwards and Weep : A Memoir (Hardcover)

This gritty bestselling memoir by the singer Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees; Queens of the Stone Age; and Soulsavers documents his years as a singer and drug addict in Seattle in the '80s and '90s. When Mark Lanegan first arrived in Seattle in the mid-1980s; he was just "an arrogant; self-loathing redneck waster seeking transformation through rock 'n' roll." Little did he know that within less than a decade he would rise to fame as the frontman of the Screaming Trees and then fall from grace as a low-level crack dealer and a homeless heroin addict; all the while watching some of his closest friends rocket to the forefront of popular music. In Sing Backwards and Weep; Lanegan takes readers back to the sinister; needle-ridden streets of Seattle; to an alternative music scene that was simultaneously bursting with creativity and dripping with drugs. He tracks the tumultuous rise and fall of the Screaming Trees; from a brawling; acid-rock bar band to world-famous festival favorites that scored a hit number five single on Billboard's alternative charts and landed a notorious performance on Late Night with David Letterman; where Lanegan appeared sporting a fresh black eye from a brawl the night before. This book also dives into Lanegan's personal struggles with addiction; culminating in homelessness; petty crime; and the tragic deaths of his closest friends. From the back of the van to the front of the bar; from the hotel room to the emergency room; onstage; backstage; and everywhere in between; Sing Backwards and Weep reveals the abrasive underlining beneath one of the most romanticized decades in rock history-from a survivor who lived to tell the tale. Gritty; gripping; and unflinchingly raw; Sing Backwards and Weep is a book about more than just an extraordinary singer who watched his dreams catch fire and incinerate the ground beneath his feet. It's about a man who learned how to drag himself from the wreckage; dust off the ashes; and keep living and creating. "Mark Lanegan—primitive; brutal; and apocalyptic. What's not to love?" — Nick Cave; author of The Sick Bag Song and The Death of Bunny Munro