Van Conner, Founding Bassist of Screaming Trees, Dead at 55
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The post Van Conner, Founding Bassist of Screaming Trees, Dead at 55 appeared first on Consequence.
Van Conner, co-founder, bassist, and key songwriter for the seminal alternative rock band Screaming Trees, is dead at the age of 55.
HIs passing was announced by his brother, Screaming Trees guitarist Gary Lee Conner, in a social media statement. “Van Conner bassist and song writer of Screaming Trees died last night of an extended illness at 55,” he wrote. “It was pneumonia that got him in the end. He was one of the closest friends I ever had and I loved him immensely. I will miss him forever and ever and ever…”
Born March 17th, 1967 and raised in Ellensberg, Washington, Conner founded the band Explosive Generation in high school alongside his brother and and drummer Mark Pickerel. That act evolved into Screaming Trees in 1985 with the addition of vocalist Mark Lanegan. Soon they moved to Seattle to participate in the city’s burgeoning grunge scene.
Together, the core group of Lanegan and the Conners released eight studio albums, including their 1992 commercial breakthrough Sweet Oblivion and 1996 follow-up, Dust. The band’s final album, Last Words: The Final Recordings, came out in 2008 after being recorded in the late 1990s.
Screaming Trees broke up in 2000, and throughout his long career Van Conner worked as a studio musician, toured with Dinosaur Jr., and released new music with bands such as Solomon Grundy, Gardener, and in more recent years, VALIS.
Lanegan passed away last year at the age of 57.
Van Conner, Founding Bassist of Screaming Trees, Dead at 55
Wren Graves
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