Sing Backwards and Weep

The Sunday Times Bestseller

A Rough Trade and Mojo Book of the Year

The most honest and unsparing grunge memoir ever committed to the page by one of the greatest alternative rock stars of the past thirty years

From the back of the van to the front of the bar, from the hotel room to the emergency room, Mark Lanegan takes us back to the sinister, needle-ridden streets of Seattle, to an alternative music scene that was simultaneously bursting with creativity and saturated with drugs. He tracks the tumultuous rise and fall of Screaming Trees, from a brawling, acid-rock bar band to world-famous festival favourites with an enduring legacy, and tells of his own personal struggles with addiction, culminating in homelessness, petty crime, and the tragic deaths of his closest friends.

Gritty, gripping and unflinchingly raw, Sing Backwards and Weep is about a man who learned how to drag himself from the wreckage, dust off the ashes, and keep living and creating.

About the Author

Mark Lanegan first hit the scene as the front man for Screaming Trees, the Ellensburg, Washington, band that quickly became associated with the Seattle grunge scene. Between 1986 and 1996 the band released seven studio albums. Lanegan released his first solo album, The Winding Sheet, in 1990 and has released several more since. He is also known for his work with Queens of the Stone Age. Lanegan lives in Los Angeles.