In the fall of 1999 I got a call from Duff Mckagan. Our paths had crossed a few times when he came back to Seattle to record a Ten Minute Warning record for Sub Pop. He said he was doing a project with Mark Lanegan, and wanted to know if I'd like to come jam with him? He also wanted to know if I knew any bass players. So Duff, my friend Nick Rhinehard and I got together and started banging on ideas. 

After the three of us had worked out a strong seven songs, Duff flew us down to his house in the Hollywood hills where Mark was "house sitting" for him. Needless to say this house was pretty fancy - right above "thee" Dead Man's Curve, looking out over the sprawl that is the San Fernando Valley. It's impressive during the day. It's absolutely stunning at night. Looking north from the top of Mulholland Drive, 260 miles left to right, is a vast expanse of glowing urban development that leaves a permanent high water mark of pulsing florescence at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountain range. 

This house was a full on rock star bachelor pad, complete with neighbors worthy of mention - three doors up in the form of Glenn Campbell. There was a tiled pool that butted right up against a mini sports court. You could almost play a game of around the world, but you were never more than eight feet from the hoop. Any game that lasted more than a few minutes inevitably ended up as gorilla ball, with the only called fouls being a game stopping twisted ankle or fat bloody lip.

Duff had seen fit to dynamite into the foundation of the house and build out a basement that he turned into a control room for a "home studio."  He then had every room wired with input jacks and soundproof doors, so that each room became its own live room and isolation booth. It was pretty pimp. 

Nick and I talked VERY excitedly about the trip. At the very least, we assumed, we'd be coming home with a recording of these songs we'd been beating the shit out of for the better part of six months. This turned out to be not entirely accurate. 

A few weeks before the trip south was to take place, Mark flew up to check out the songs. I had never met Mark. I was at the top of my game and feeling pretty good about it, but still. I knew he was sober at this point, but all I'd ever heard were complete junkie horror stories. Regardless, even before we met, I was having a pretty good time telling people I was doing a project with Duff McKagan and Mark Lanegan. It obviously carried some weight. 

The first rehearsal... again we (Nick and I) thought maybe Mark would do some singing. Try out some ideas he'd been tossing around.

No.

Our practice space was maybe 20 feet wide by 50 long. We shared it with another band and we would set up on opposite sides of the long part of the room, facing each other. There were no windows and most times the only light was one (really) tiny desk lamp behind my drum kit and one fairly obnoxious red light that belonged to the other band and was on their end of the room. So the no-man's land between the two bands was always a twilight hue of red darkness. 

Instead of rummaging around for a microphone and a cable, perhaps inquiring about the PA, it was within this twilight that Mr. Lanegan enveloped himself on a long seated short backed chair that had him in an almost reclined position. Actions telling us far more than words, it was apparent there would be no singing on this day. As we started running through the first song, all you could see of Lanegan was his silhouette and the glowing cherry of the Pall Malls he chain smoked. 

The songs we had banged out of Duff's ideas were pretty fucking tight after six months of forging. We played them hard and EXTREMELY loud. Even with my bass drum mic'ed up and running through the PA I was still heaving to catch my breath at the conclusion of each tune. It was during these lulls that we first heard from Mr Lanegan.

"There's a power to that music. You can feel it," he said in a SERIOUS bottom-end baritone delivered just above a whisper.

At the time I didn't know WHAT to think. I mean, the guy IS a Seattle legend. He turned Cobain on to Lead Belly. He was around to see the wave build up, crash on the beach, then watch the rip tide suck the faithful out into the depths to drown in their sunny excesses.  The Screaming Trees had been a touring band for three years with four full length albums out BEFORE Nirvana's Bleach was released.

Then there were all the stories. ALLLL the stories. This man, it was told, had seen the bottom. Sustained himself on the sour bile that replaces oxygen as your life giver when you're on the streets living fix to fix.

Now a few years clean, this was the man that spoke of a "power" from the dusk of our practice space. I really didn't know what to think or say. Still heaving trying to catch my breath, I could only nod in the direction of the speaking figure.

My mind was racing, thinking "Is this for real? Is this how heavy it always is with him?"

Fast forward: Mark is picking us up at Burbank Airport. It's awe inspiringly sunny. The Verdugo Mountains are IN EFFECT. It's got to be almost 90 degrees. I look north up the arrivals pick-up lanes, and down the sidewalk I see Mark walking towards us. He's wearing a long sleeved, button up shirt, Dickie pants and workman boots. Every stitch in black. It's not the cheesy "band dude rock uniform" look - he just happens to always wear all black. He's got a big smile on his face and we do a big bro hug, because by now we're totally homies. 

Mark, as it turns out, is what I like to refer to as "totally fellas." The degree to which his persona is inverse to his personality is startling and at times hysterical. A year or so later, when his record Field Songs was coming out, I started reading all these interviews describing he AND his voice in terms like "down trodden" and "brooding" and "whiskey soaked." As I had discovered none of these vibes in his personality, and felt that describing his music as such was, at best, merely skimming the surface of his craft, and at worst shallow and ironic, I asked him if he played up to that in the press. He deadpanned to me, "It's really for the chicks.... the second I ask ‘em if they wanna grab a frozen yogurt, it's over".  

At the airport it was hugs all around as we walked back to his car. Parked in the white zone was Mark's ‘73 Buick Century - gold colored. It wass like a Monty Carlo, a long two-door ‘70s classic that hadn't exactly been restored to its former glory. For how long the car was it had very little to offer in the way of back seat legroom. At six-foot I was the shortest in our group by four inches all the way around, meaning I was a shoe-in for the back seat.  And as Nick was neither paying for the trip, nor a former member of Guns-n-Roses,  it would be his 6'4" frame that would be folded into the space made for a hand bag.... next to me.

It was very, very exciting. We were in Los Angeles to record our band's demo at our guitar player's house. That alone would have had me floating. To include the names and neighborhood involved would have been almost inconceivable to me just a few years before.  

Nick and I had spent a lot of time with Duff in the practice space back in Seattle, but outside of that there hadn't been much hang time. Any there had been was in the company of Duff's wife and young daughter. We were going to be spending seven days living together. We were going to get to KNOW each other. 

Somehow it felt daunting and awkward to do the mundane, everyday living/maintenance things around Duff.  For instance, getting a coffee. Do I pay for mine myself? Is dude going to pay for EVERYTHING on this trip? How rich IS this guy?  The line between band mate and benefactor, at this stage, was unclear, and I felt like a kid trying to learn to drive a stick shift. Interaction was herky-jerky - not completely familiar.   Almost immediately, at our first stop at the grocery store, I noticed something about Duff - almost a disconnect. It was a very subtle color blend, one that ALMOST seamlessly faded into, "I am well off and buy what I want." But it was more. It was fathoms deeper, and darker in shade.  It said, "I have had mindless wealth from a very young age. I have been in the biggest band in the WORLD. I get recognized EVERYWHERE I go. I nearly drank myself to death. As much as I would like to (and will) pretend that I'm just like you, I'm not. There are day-to-day financially related worries you have that I can no longer relate to. The part of me that still notices is a little embarrassed." 

Mark was our rock star liaison. He told us to relax. He told us Duff was just a dude, and to buy our own coffee, and maybe once in a while buy his too. Mark was a world-class artist, but he was still one of us. He filled in some of the blanks as far as what we were dealing with. We were in a band with a guy that was in Guns-n-FUCKIN-Roses, fer god's sake. It was a little intimidating.  It was going to take some getting used to.

Not surprisingly, it was the playing, the music, the non-verbal communication that came most naturally, and that's why we were all there. No matter what our individual paths had been up to this point, when we got in the jam space we were all on the same page, speaking the same language, with a killer vibe and enjoying the shit out each other's company. 

Drummer Geoff Reading - who writes a bi-weekly online column (Fridays) for the Weekly Volcano called "Holding Down the 253" in addition to his weekly Wednesday music column - has played music in tons of Northwest bands - Green Apple Quick Step, New American Shame, Top Heavy Crush and most recently Duff McKagan's LOADED - to name but a few. He's toured the world several times over, sharing stages with the likes of Slipknot, The Cult, Buckcherry, Korn, Journey, The Sex Pistols, Nine Inch Nails and on and on. He has called Tacoma home since 2005, and lives in the North End with his wife and son.