Mark on new Afghan Whigs album.

[frode]

Mark did background vocals on 2 songs on the new Afghan Whigs album.

theafghanwhigs.com/?fbclid=IwAR1KmK4gjiqdJIH-5dmqbXJNlIBex6PIZfNND7plNgn6t6OSYPSFbyR6BwY

[goldrush]

Love the new single and I’m really looking forward to the record. Dulli is right up there with the very best for me.

“For his supporting cast, Dulli called upon several serial collaborators including the late Mark Lanegan, who was a regular in Dulli’s Twilight Singers, a partner in The Gutter Twins and a close friend. Lanegan makes his Afghan Whigs debut singing backup vocals on two tracks. “It was Mark who named the album,” Dulli remarked.”

[goldrush]

Greg Dulli talks about Mark in a new interview with Rolling Stone

RS: Mark Lanegan sings on “Jyja” and “Take Me There.” How have you been handling his passing?

Greg Dulli: That was a very sad day when I got that call. Mark was a brother to me. I’ll tell you why I’m mostly sad about it is that I really feel like he had started to find his writer’s voice. He wrote a couple of books in the last five years of his life, and even a novel, and a couple books of poetry, and he was really good. I was just watching him improve. I was watching him become this other thing, and I really wanted to see where it would go.

Mark was just a very complicated guy in a lot of ways, but in a lot of ways, very simple. Super-talented, incredibly kind, one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. I really do miss even just the snarky texts we’d send to each other when something weird would happen. And like a lot of good friends, you have your secret language. And I miss the banter because he could just fucking crack me up. For someone with such an intimidating public persona, he was a fucking pussycat and really sweet, very thoughtful. And without question, he was one of the greatest singers to ever sing.

RS: Speaking of how he could be intimidating, I remember getting his voice mail when calling him for an interview once and it said, “You have reached Old Scratch” in his gruff voice.

GD: Right. He had “Old Scratch.” He had “Dark Mark.” He had a couple other like satanic nicknames, and I called him “Bubbles.” I called him Bubbles after he named one of his records Bubblegum. And he definitely didn’t like it at first, but he grew into it. I spoke to him a week before he died, and I called him Bubbles during that conversation. So it stuck from the time I named him that to the time I called him that.

I visit with him either through our text chain or listening to him. Some folks have sent me interviews and live clips of him that they love. Mark will never be far from me. He’s always very close to me, and it’s not anything that I’ll be over, ever. But I can say that I’m glad he’s at least in a peaceful place now. I don’t know anything that anybody else doesn’t know [about his death]. I will say that the Covid experience that he had was devastating, and you can read about that in his book. He’ll tell you everything you need to know if you read Devil in a Coma. It’s all right there.

RS: Mark named the album How Do You Burn? How did that come up?

GD: He just said stuff. Mark was a very lyrical, poetic person. And he asked it in the form of a question. He said, “How do you burn?” And I’m like, “What do you mean by that?” And he goes, “What turns you on?” And I’m like, “I’m going to be using that.” And he’s like, “You go right ahead.” And so I used it.

Years ago, before Bubblegum came out, he recorded the song called “Number Nine” with the Twilight Singers. We were leaving the session and, you know how like when wind blows and you just kind of shiver for no reason, I said, “Here comes that weird chill.” And he named his EP that. So in those terms, he returned the favor. I love the title. I think it’s very Mark. I appreciate the parting gift.


RS: Since Mark recorded on How Do You Burn?, do you have other, unreleased recordings with him?

GD: We did a bizarre cover of “California Dreamin'” that never came out, and we also did “Crossbones Style,” by Cat Power. I don’t know where they are, but we definitely recorded both of those songs.

[goldrush]

Greg talking about Mark in a new interview with Stereogum:

Mark Lanegan gave the album its title. What’s the story behind that?

DULLI I named an EP of his years ago. It was just an offhand comment that I made. You know, like when the wind blows, and you kind of shiver? And I said, “Here comes that weird chill.” And he was like, “Hey, can I use that?” And I’m like, “Sure.” And then he put out an EP and I was like, “Oh, fuck! Cool.” So, loosely we were having a conversation, and he was like, “It’s sort of — you know, what do you like? How do you burn?” And I’m like, “What’d you say?” He goes, “How do you burn?” And I’m like, “…Can I use that?” He’s like, “Yeah, go ahead.” And, same thing. I think when I pressed him about it, that’s what he said. He was like, “What do you like? What turns you on? How do you burn?” And I loved that. And he had returned the favor, so to speak.

That’s such a weird, interesting phrase. Is that just something he came up with?

DULLI: I guess so. I mean, Mark is a trippy dude. As I used to say when we toured together, “Sometimes you speak in tongues, dude.” So that was one of those moments that I’m just glad I was around for. I loved it. I wrote it down immediately, and I knew immediately it would be the name of the record. I loved it.

How did you and Mark first meet?

DULLI: We first met in I want to say ’89? And we did not get along. Later we ran into each other somewhere in Pioneer Square in Seattle, and that was the first time we just kind of stood and talked alone. I don’t even think that cellphones were a thing yet when we talked, so there wasn’t any kind of “Hey, here’s my number, let’s hang out.” Somehow we got in touch with each other. We both moved to LA around the same time, and somebody put us in touch I want to say in, like, 2000? 2001? We went to lunch, and then we started hanging out every week, and then a couple times a week, and then we started bringing guitars out. We weren’t even recording. He would teach me blues songs, and I would teach him country songs, and we were just kind of entertaining each other.

And then I had started working on what became Blackberry Belle by the Twilight Singers. And I actually wrote this song called “Number Nine,” and I wrote it for him, for us to do a duet with. And that was the first time that we went to tape. And it’s still one of my favorite songs that I’ve ever done, certainly that I did with him, that it was the first song that we recorded together. And then he asked me to sing on [the 2004 Mark Lanegan Band album] Bubblegum. I sang on a couple songs on Bubblegum. And then we started kind of loosely collaborating, just every once in a while.

I actually thought I had him in the Twilight Singers for a minute, and then he started touring and recording with Queens, and that was — he was gonna make more money with Queens than he was with Twilight Singers. And then I toured as the keyboard player in his band for a short tour. And then we just sort of — at a certain point he gave up his apartment, and I’m like, “Wow, I think Lanegan is my roommate now.” All of his stuff was in my spare room, and he had a key, and it was like, “Oh, looks like he lives here now.” We were roommates, we were collaborators. And then he sprung the Gutter Twins idea on me, and I thought that was cool. I think we recorded like three Christmases in a row, but never any other time. You know, just at the end of the year we’d be like, “Hey, what are you doing?” And all of those songs made it onto Saturnalia.

But I think it was when he joined the Twilight Singers in 2006 [that we became so close]. I heard the Massive Attack song “Live With Me” that Terry Callier sang lead on, who — Mark and I both loved Terry Callier. And later we’d meet him in Ireland. It’s always wild how that happens. But Mark wasn’t in Queens anymore. I said, “I’ve got an idea for a song I want to do. Do you want to come to New Orleans and play it with us?” He ended up coming to New Orleans, and he never left. He stayed in the band. He did all of the Twilight Singers’ Powder Burns tour. Then he turned that into Gutter Twins. Then we went out and toured acoustically after that. We probably played like 350 shows together in five years. We basically spent like five years together on the road. We went around the world like five times. South America, Australia, New Zealand, just everywhere. We went everywhere. And he became my brother then. Rosser was in the band then, too. Rosser and Mark became super close. When we peeled off from Gutter Twins and did the acoustic tour, it was just me, Rosser, and Lanegan. And we didn’t have a tour manager, we didn’t have roadies. It was just the three of us, and we’d get on a plane and make our way around the world. We were a power trio in every sense of the word. And some of the best memories of my life…

That’s awesome. I didn’t realize you guys lived together.

DULLI: Yeah, we lived together for probably six months? I think? He was leaving and touring with Queens, and I was leaving too, so it wasn’t like we were together the whole time. But he certainly — I had a cat named Clyde back then, and Clyde and Mark were fast friends. So Mark would stay and watch Clyde. It actually worked out really well for me.

[skezz]

Sadly it's pretty inaudible

[cireme]

Does Mark really sings on "Jyja" and "Take Me There" like it was announced? I only hear him on "The Getaway", and I can't find the album credits anywhere.

[reznore]

I read a Dulli interview and he said you can barely hear Mark on the album, he knows.
It's the last recording and last time he saw Mark so he kept it.

[calm ocean]

new album itself is pretty good. afghan whigs and twilight singers somehow always seem to fit with the end of summer /start of fall mood for me.

the background vocals was pretty well what i was expecting so not much of a disappointment for me. i find when mark does backup its like hes not even there, not just these tracks but in general

[jjmcl15]

Sept 13, 2022 11:55:05 GMT -5 cireme said:

Does Mark really sings on "Jyja" and "Take Me There" like it was announced? I only hear him on "The Getaway", and I can't find the album credits anywhere.

Lol I thought he sang on The Getaway too but I guess not.


floodmagazine.com/116688/greg-dulli-afghan-whigs-feature/

Lanegan sang on “The Getaway” and one other track, right?

No, Lanegan does not sing on “The Getaway”. That’s me [laughs].

Really?

Yeah. There’s a song on the solo record where people were like, “Hey, I like what you and Lanegan did!” And I'm like, “That's not Lanegan.” But I've hung out with Lanegan enough that when I can't get Lanegan, I just do him instead [laughs]. And now I have to!

So which songs is he on?

Mark's on “Jyja” and “Take Me There." I'll freely admit to you that he would be like, “I can't hear myself on there.” But when I would say to Christopher, “Should we turn Mark up?" he would say, “Listen to this, what do you think?” I'd listen to it, and I'm like, “It sounded great!” And then he goes, “Now listen to this.” And I was like, “That doesn't sound as good.” He goes, “That’s ‘cause I took Mark out.” With that low voice of his, you can feel him more than actually hear him