A Screaming Trees put out their number 1 album, Clairvoyance in 1986 & recorded 9 albums and EPs of original material between 1986 & 1996. A band was among a pioneers of Seattle's grunge music phenomenon, but never achieved a profits or even ill fame of contemporary Seattle filth acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Lanegan's solo career began when he was however working sustaining a Screaming Trees, however has continued beyond a band's dissolution around 1996.

Around 1990, Lanegan released his number 1 solo album, A Winding Sheet, on the legendary label Sub Pop, which also hosted Nirvana & numbers of others. Nirvana's frontman Kurt Cobain was a notable guest creative person on this album, appearing on the tracks "Down in the Dark"& "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" as a backing vocaliser & guitarist, severally. Nirvana's bass streaming video player Krist Novoselic played bass on the latter track (a Leadbelly cover) which would later pop up in Nirvana's Unplugged album. A Winding Sheet was the mild commercial profits, & Lanegan has recorded 5 additional good-length albums since so.

Lanegan's solo albums indicate supplementary distinct blues and folk influences than his work by using Screaming Trees. This is virtually all apparent on the 1999 album ''I'll Require Care of Professional people, in which Lanegan covers songs by prominent folk & R&B artists such as Tim Hardin and Booker T. and the MGs.

In his latest album, Bubblegum'' (2004), Lanegan was joined by a cadre of supplementary large creative person, including P. J. Harvey, Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri of Queens of the Stone Age, Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs and Duff McKagan and Izzy Stradlin of Guns N' Roses. Besides appearing in Bubblegum is Lanegan's ex-ex, Wendy Rae Fowler. A favourably reviewed album is his virtually all commercially successful up to now, reaching total 39 in Billboard's Top Independent Albums chart.

Lanegan has too been the major contributor to (although non the good-whale member of) Queens of the Stone Age. Joining his friend Joshua Homme, who supported a Screaming Trees when their touring guitar player inside 1996, Lanegan's distinctive vocals come featured in numbers of of QOTSA's virtually all luminary hits (Hangin' Tree, Song for the Dead, In the Fade etc.). Lanegan oftentimes appears as a guest in more creative person's records. He has worked sustaining Mad Season, Masters of Reality, Melissa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley-Bird, Mondo Generator and The Twilight Singers.

Around August of 2005, Mark Lanegan suffered the non-deadly drug overdose. Still, he recovered eventually for the survive debut of The Gutter Twins in Rome.