Losing your heroes is hard. You never expect it, because to you they will live forever. And one day, they don’t. On the 22 of February this year, we lost Mark Lanegan. A great hero of mine. A man who’d been through so much and lived to tell the tale when so many others perished, whether it was Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley or Chris Cornell – all close friends of his. Suffice to say, the prevalent figures of the 90’s alternative rock movement are dear to me.

A ginger with a soul. Live with Screaming Trees.

I first came in contact with Mark Lanegan's work in my teens via the band Screaming Trees. I latched onto their blend of psychedelic garage rock immediately. I’m a big Trees fan. The way they melded a classic rock sound with throwback psychedelia made them stand out from their peers. Though their albums before Uncle Anesthesia (produced by Chris Cornell) might be a bit unwieldily, I dug the hell out of them, too.

The band arguably produced their best work with Sweet Oblivion and Dust. It’s a marked step-up, and Lanegan now pens the lyrics, which show. There’s a timelessness to a song like “Dollar Bill” and their hit “Nearly Lost You.” Had there been a shorter gap between that (1992) and 1996 years Dust, they’d surely made it even bigger. But I digress.

At this time, I had heard of Lanegan’s work with Queens of the Stone Age but hadn’t delved into his solo work yet. When I did and it registered for me, I was hooked on that, too. His solo debut is equal parts brooding and eloquent, but it’s really with his sophomore effort Whiskey For The Holy Ghost that he made a real mark (pun intended). The stand-out track “Riding the Nightingale” is a late-night fever dream, like a twisted song by Van Morrison circa Astral Days. It’s an album I’ve listened to countless times.

His voice is like no other. He could elevate any song. Give it gravitas. That’s an apt word. There’s a hard-earned world-weariness to his voice. Not a tired one, but one that’s been through the ringer many times over and still stood tall, despite it all.

It’s tricky to talk about Lanegan’s discography because his output is so wide. The collaborations are so many, ranging from the wonderful duets with Isobel Campbell – like a modern take on Nancy and Lee – and the rousing cinematic soundscapes of Soulsavers to the introspective acoustics of his records with Duke Garwood. The amount of music is staggering. A new listener would rightly be intimidated.

But there’s one unifying thing that ties all these things together, and that is his voice. It’s singular. Incomparable. He could go from a low purr to a bellowing roar. Whether he crooned to the jagged riffs of Queens of the Stone Age or tackled the decadent synths of UNKLE, he always gave an impassioned performance. How many singers have that range? He’s the definition of soul.

Much has been said about his immovable stage presence, but that’s because he didn’t need that. He didn’t need to strut around on stage. All you needed was that voice. It demanded attention enough. It overtook you, overpowered you. I was lucky enough to see him two times in my town of Malmö.

Seductive, soulful, mysterious, ghostly, powerful, relaxing, I can wax lyrically about his voice for ages, but for all that’s been said about his singing, not as much is said about his lyrics.

Lanegan’s lyrics often deal with the shadow sides of life. Death, sorrow, and addiction are recurring themes. It’s easy to castigate him as a dour troubadour, but that was just one side to him. For all his grumpiness and solemn stage presence, he also had self-awareness. He dubbed himself “Dark Mark” for a few of his side projects (including the oh-so-wonderful Christmas album he did).

Though there was a certain amount of myth-building on his part (intentional or otherwise), he never veered into pretentiousness; if anything, he was one of the most down-to-earth guys in the business. At the concerts I was lucky enough to attend, he always sat down by the merch table to sign things and exchange a few words after the show.

His music is so genuine and resonates with so many because it’s told from experience. The feelings are real. The experiences are lived. When he sang, there was no doubt that this man had been to hell and back again. That last part is particularly important because he saw so many of his peers pass.

When reading his grimy, honest memoir Sing Backwards and Weep, detailing his life up to the 2000s, one is struck by many things, particularly a deep sense of survivor’s guilt. It’s a darkly funny and disturbing book. I mean, the guy started doing heroin to stop from drinking himself to death. Probably the most engrossing rock biography I’ve read. There’s the debauchery you expect, but it’s laced with a sharp wit and the hindsight of a man who made it out of multiple tragedies, some of his own making.

And that’s why the news of his death last Tuesday hit me so hard. He was a survivor until then. Just two weeks ago, I finished reading his latest book Devil in a Coma where he details his harrowing ordeal with COVID-19, which had him bedridden and sent into a coma. After finishing the short book in a day, I felt immense gratitude that he was still with us. A week later, he was gone.

The loss is palpable. The tributes from other musicians such as Iggy Pop, Eddie Vedder, Peter Hook, Nick Cave, Nicole Atkins, Greg Dulli, and more display the respect for the man.

One week later, the sorrow is somewhat muted and has started to give way to gratitude. With Mark Lanegan’s great body of work – his gifts – there’s so much to be grateful for. We’ll always have his music, his books, his words.

In Memory of Mark Lanegan