Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme discussed playing with Screaming Trees in a new Mojo magazine interview. Lanegan revealed his nickname for his old friend,and former Dinosaur Jr. guitarist/Mark Lanegan Band guitarist, Mike Johnson as well: Downer Mike.
“I was a bit disillusioned with music [in the mid 90’s]. I moved to Seattle ‘cos my brother and his husband were living there and I wanted to be around them. My friend Mike Johnson from Dinosaur Jr, who Kyuss had toured with – I used to call him ‘Downer Mike,’ ‘cos he was always bummed out – I used to go to his house, we’d both drink, and he had this amazing record collection.
The Trees asked him to play guitar but because he’s Downer Mike he was like, ‘No..but Josh could do it.’ I didn’t really know the Trees’ music that well. I knew Nearly Lost You and that’s about it. I knew I loved [Mark] Lanegan’s voice, just from that song, I knew his thing was special. And I knew they notoriously hated each other. But I also did not know what it was like to be a hired gun and to make someone happy.
I wanted to make them incapable of saying anything other than, ‘Hey thanks, man.’ I was just gonna do one Lollapalooza tour. And it turned into two years.”
