MARK Lanegan has one of the most in-demand voices in music. Since his band Screaming Trees disbanded in 2000, he has collaborated with Queens of the Stone Age, Creature with the Atom Brain, Bomb the Bass and Soulsavers. Belle and Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell, Melissa Auf der Maur and Martina Topley Bird are some of the female singers who have weaved their voices with his deep caramel baritone.

His most recent muse has been his old friend Greg Dulli from the Afghan Whigs. Lanegan has appeared on three albums with Dulli’s recent band, Twilight Singers, and Dulli returned the favour on two Lanegan albums.

The pair have formed their own band, the Gutter Twins (a low-rent take on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ “Glimmer Twins”). In 2007, they released an album, Saturnalia, which they are currently playing in their show, An Acoustic Evening with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan, alongside tracks from the Twilight Singers, Afghan Whigs, Screaming Trees and Mark Lanegan solo songbooks.

“It took quite a while because when we first started, we didn’t have plans to make a record,” Lanegan says of the Gutter Twins.

“We wrote a couple of songs here and there and then we decided to get serious and got the bulk of it done in a pretty short time. I enjoyed the process and we’re really good friends. I’m sure we’ll make another Gutter Twins record.”

The pair, whose relationship goes back to when they used to play Hank Williams songs in the kitchen of the house they shared in Los Angeles, have been known to burn the candle at both ends. But Dulli has said that the name refers more to how the two are perceived, rather than their current lifestyles.

“We’re pretty old guys, we take it pretty easy these days,” confirms Lanegan, 44.

It’s not as if Lanegan needed any help. Between 1990 and 2004, he released six brilliant solo albums. But he says he enjoys the challenge of collaborations and discovering how his voice can blend with others.

He says he receives “quite a few” requests from musicians wanting to work with him and he has declined many. So what does he look for?

“I’ve got to have an appreciation of what they do without me. Then I’ve got to see if there is a place for me in what they do, like a meeting point. If they’re cool people — that’s pretty high on the list. And it’s important to be challenged by someone’s point of view. I look to other people to be challenged.”

Lanegan’s next project is a second album and tour with Soulsavers, which will be followed by a third collaboration with British singer Campbell. Although it is easier to collaborate in the digital age, when you can email vocal parts, early recordings between Lanegan and Campbell suffered from the tyranny of distance.

But for their new album they will sing face-to-face in the studio, a la Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, to improve the chemistry.

“Obviously, I prefer being in the same studio,” Lanegan says.

“It’s always nice when you have the real thing in front of you.

“Singing with her is one of the great joys of my music life.”

Not many people would have the nerve to leave a revered rock band like Queens of the Stone Age but that’s what Lanegan did. However, he is keen to work with them again.

“They’re great friends … I just went out and had lunch with Josh [Homme] a couple of weeks ago.”

And when will he get that wonderful solo career back on track? “That’s a good question,” he says. “I’ve been so busy with other things I haven’t really gotten into it yet but at some point I will.”

“Sometimes I forget that I was in another band,” says Greg Dulli, discussing the legacy of his years as the frontman for The Afghan Whigs. The band released a string of albums through the ‘90s that earned Dulli a reputation as a dark and complex character. The Ohio band successfully melded rock, soul and RnB at a time when grunge was king. Since their breakup in 2001, Dulli has continued to explore the shadows of the soul in various guises.

A man who thrives on collaboration, Dulli’s focus of the last few years has been The Gutter Twins, with fellow prince of darkness Mark Lanegan. Like his partner, Lanegan has built a post Screaming Trees career as a singer for hire, following his muse through Queens Of The Stone Age, Isobel Campbell, The Twilight Singers and his own solo records. With their drama-soaked voices, both men gravitate towards angst and heartache – so working together seemed a logical step.

Dulli rates Lanegan’s voice as one of the best. “Aside from being my friend and collaborator he truly is one of my favourite singers that I’ve ever heard,” he states with conviction. The attraction to working together seems to be a mutual one built on respect for each other’s voices.

“When I heard his first solo record I was like, ‘my god’, I can’t really compare him to anyone,” says Dulli. “I can tell you as someone who has learned to sing with Mark over the years, his phrasing is utterly unique and unto himself. It’s almost like learning algebra. The song will bend to Mark and that’s to the song’s benefit.”

After releasing their debut album Saturnalia in 2008, The Gutter Twins toured as a full band, exploring their blues and soul-inflected rock at full volume. Then came phase two in January, with a USA and European tour dubbed ‘An Evening With Greg Dulli & Mark Lanegan’. Now expanded to Australia and South America, the idea was to strip away the musical layers from a variety of songs from both of their back catalogues, leaving just the duo’s voices to carry the performance.

Originally the idea was to tour the whole band, but logistically the stripped-down show proved to be more practical. “The full band costs a lot of money. Being asked to do this tour mean it makes more sense to do it acoustically. Plus we would have to re-rehearse the whole thing,” explains Dulli. The two singers are joined by an additional guitarist and Dulli is keen to point out the enjoyment he gets from the format. “I love playing this show, the interplay between me and Mark and Dave Rosser, I’ve never really had that in any other form so I’m totally looking forward to it.”

For the first time the Twins will also be looking back to their former bands and breathing new life into some of their favourite songs. “I’m playing a couple of Whigs songs in this show we are doing,” Dulli says. “I really hadn’t done any Whig songs in ten years so it’s been fun to revisit them – in a new way. People sure do like them.”

Rather than just singing their own songs, Dulli and Lanegan mix up their roles to give the audience a different perspective. “We’re both singing all the songs, whether as the lead singer or harmony singer or a straight-up duet. One of us pipes up at some point during the other one’s songs. It’s cool, I sing a couple of lines from his songs and he sings a couple of lines from my songs too, so it’s cool,” he enthuses.

Reinterpreting other people’s songs has always been a big part of Dulli’s live shows, where he has been inspired to tackle everything from Prince, to old soul classics, to Fat Freddy’s Drop. Recently the tables have been turned with the imminent release of Summer’s Kiss, A Tribute To The Afghan Whigs, featuring the likes of Lanegan and Joseph Arthur. Dulli is flattered by the tribute and is looking forward to hearing the different versions – though one key song is missing. “I used to say I wished Whitney Houston would cover one of mine just to make some money,” he jokes.

Dulli is currently recording the next Twilight Singers album and is taking time out from that for the upcoming tour. Though it interrupts that project, there is still some continuity as both his travel mates are involved with the new record. “Rosser is in the Twilight Singers so we can work on things in hotel rooms, it’ll be good. Mark is singing on the Twilight record as well.”

As for future plans, Dulli is confident that the Gutter Twins will reappear at some point. “I’m certain we’ll do another Gutter Twins record some day; there’s no reason why we won’t. I’ve been lucky to be able to do things when I want to do them and that worked for me. I’m not going to fuck with the situation.”

The Gutter Twins land this month for Splendour In The Grass and two ‘acoustic evenings’ presented by FasterLouder.

No. 32 – The Gutter Twins Saturnalia

No big surprise that the long-awaited collaboration between ’90s-vintage gloom kings Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli wasn’t exactly the feel-good hit of the year. But the former’s narcoleptic, baritone moan and the latter’s mischievous, soulful wail give these mid-tempo dirges, awash in revelations and Revelation, a touch of grace that recalls their classic work without repeating it. The most upbeat moment: the synthy “Idle Hands,” in which the word suffer pops up only four times. S.K

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The Gutter Twins’ Saturnalia comes in at number 84 on Amazon.com’s Best of 2008 list.

thx burton

Twins in the Lemmon and Matthau sense, The Gutter Twins are longtime buddies Mark Lanegan (of Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age fame) and Greg Dulli (of Afghan Whigs and The Twilight Singers). ‘90s rock fans will eat this stuff up: an indie act with purebred Seattle grunge pedigree and an unlikely pairing that works because it operates in stark contrasts, rocking out with hard-hitting fuzz one moment, hushing down to ethereal shimmer the next.

Lanegan possesses the voice of God, if God chain smoked and had a penchant for single malts, and his gravelly, rumbling baritone—capable of dipping so low you can feel it in your chest—is The Gutter Twins’ single best asset. But Dulli’s melancholic, chameleon-like vocals complicate the texture, frequently layering over his partner’s voice in thick harmony. This complex sound—like a slab of dangerously black marble with a beautiful sheen—is what transforms this band’s otherwise pretty generic grunge rock songs into something special.

Their Thursday show at Greenpoint’s Warsaw mostly showcased the band’s darker side, roaring out the gates with the crunchy triple-guitar attack of their debut album Saturnalia and rarely letting up until some light piano balladry toward the end. Songs from previous lives, including updated cuts from Screaming Trees, The Twilight Singers and Lanegan’s prolific solo career, mixed well with the Twins’ bluesy, mid-paced, minor-key anthems of failed love, loneliness and desperation.

The many fans packed into Warsaw’s small theater seemed not to mind the sameness that sometimes crept into the long set, jumping and flailing limbs with each heavy groove, egged on by Dulli’s sarcastic bravado and Lanegan’s quiet brooding. The Twins are all about atmosphere, and their music approaches a gothic bleakness that seems more profound than their lyrics of longing and lost loves suggest. That inky, irresistible blackness, as they sang in unison during a cut from their recent Adorata EP, “comes creeping, comes swallowing everything in its wake.”

By Michael Christopher, Times Music Columnist

The teaming of Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan is a music lover’s dream: Two alternative rock icons, both with a twisted and dark psyche, getting together to see what trouble they can get into.

Initially, it was to dabble in each other’s projects — a guest spot here, a backing vocal there. But earlier this year, the two banded together for a full length under the oh-so-appropriate moniker The Gutter Twins.

The result, “Saturnalia,” is a bleak and twisted affair that makes some of the work by Edgar Allan Poe seem like cheery, sunny day material. Barreling through songs of tortured love, impending doom and fire and brimstone swirl within the dark brood of Lanegan’s growl and Dulli’s painful pleas for salvation from certain damnation.

Well received by critics and fans of the singer’s respective outfits, Dulli, for one, is not surprised at the praise the album garnered out of the gate.

“I think that’s why we signed with Sub Pop,” he told Rock Music Menu. “Because they are a machine, and I knew that they would attack with tenacity.”

Sub Pop, of course, is the Seattle-based record label often credited with launching the grunge-era of the early ’90s, showcasing the likes of Nirvana and Soundgarden. It was also the first home to Dulli’s Afghan Whigs and Lanegan’s Screaming Trees.

“I think it’s very poetic,” Dulli said of returning to the Sub Pop fold. “They were the first people to believe in me, and the fact that they believe in me 20 years later? It’s a beautiful feeling.”

Linking up with a fellow singer who also approaches matters of the heart with suspicion if not outright distrust seemed only natural to Dulli, who also helms the Twilight Singers, a soulful outlet that features a revolving door of collaborators.

“He’s like one of my best friends that I’ve ever had, and he’s got one of the greatest voices that I’ve ever heard.” Dulli said. “I’ve loved that guy’s voice since I was, you know, 19 years old. It’s a thrill every night. We’ve done over 150 gigs together and it never gets old, I’m never not psyched to look over and see him standing there.”

The stoic and cool Lanegan has shared the spotlight with Dulli often in recent years, mainly to do a handful of songs on the road with The Twilight Singers before slipping away almost unnoticed until it was time to return for more. This time around, both pull their own weight for the entire show.

“We have designed the set so that no one leaves the stage —- ever,” Dulli said. “When he came out with the Twilights, I just wanted him around, and he was keen for a road trip, and it was understood whose show it was.”

“This thing here is a straight up and down 50/50 composition, and honestly, I think it’s easier on us both vocally. I would’ve lost my voice by now and I have not, so it’s nice.”

Tonight at the TLA, the duo will welcome Philadelphia into the shadows for the first time, after skipping the city on the first leg of the tour in the spring and then canceling a portion of summer dates due to scheduling conflicts.

“It was not purposeful,” said Dulli of the slight. “The night we would have played Philadelphia was the night we played The David Letterman Show, and that was the casualty. Believe me, Philadelphia and Detroit, of all the towns, they’re my two favorite towns we didn’t play that round.”

In addition to “Saturnalia,” the band is promoting an EP that came out in September called “Adorata,” which consists mainly of covers.

From the recent Jose Gonzalez single “Down the Line” to an excellent take on “Deep Hit of Morning Sun” by Primal Scream, it’s no surprise to anyone familiar with Dulli that he absolutely nails other artists’ songs, sometimes better than the original.

Last year, he flew under the radar with a cover of the Lieber and Stoller classic “Trouble,” made famous by Elvis Presley, which appeared in the Hilary Swank film “P.S. I Love You.”

“Richard LaGravenese, who is the director, is a friend of mine, and I sang an Elvis song at a party, at a piano one night, and he was at that party,” Dulli said. “I’m guessing that he noticed my Elvis skills that evening and came back at me for that one, and filled my pockets with money.”

But even as an elder statesman of such an influential era in music, Dulli still has sharp teeth that will be bared, at least into a sneer, when proper respect to his legacy isn’t shown.

Parker Gispert, singer of the rocking Athens trio The Whigs, responded to a question posed by Harp magazine earlier this year about his act’s name in relation to The Afghan Whigs.

“With all due respect, I don’t feel like it’s naming the band ‘The Stones,’” he said.

“I think that’s funny, and it must suck to be on the defensive is all I can say,” Dulli responded. “I’ll tell you what man, maybe my next band will be called The Stones.

“You know what? Albatross around your neck Whigs – have fun with that.”

The Gutter Twins tour wraps Sunday in Boston, but Dulli is already onto something else; last week he put out his first proper solo record, a live gig taken from a show one year ago in Seattle where he was joined on-stage by friends like Shawn Smith and Petra Hayden.

Right now Dulli is getting excited about some new music in the initial stages. But whether it will turn into another Twilight Singers album or something completely different hasn’t been figured out just yet.

“I’m always thinking about stuff,” he said. “I have begun to lay down riffs for something, I don’t know what it is yet, but I have some riffs that I really like. I don’t know what it will be, but they’re good.”

“It’ll be good for my new band The Stones.”

by Jeffrey Barg

Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan rise from the ashes of the ’90s.
Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan are survivors. Few heavy alt–rock bands emerged standing after the ’90s—the Afghan Whigs and Screaming Trees included. But Dulli and Lanegan, those bands’ respective erstwhile frontmen, have combined forces in the Gutter Twins to salvage the loud guitars and melodic songwriting, while mixing in the doom and gloom of eight years’ worth of the Bush presidency.

”It’s a bit slower, a bit more theatrical, more cabaret–esque” than an Afghan Whigs show, says Dulli on the phone from New Orleans, his home and city of muse. ”It’s different enough”—both from the Whigs and from the Twilight Singers, Dulli’s other major post–Whigs project—”to deserve its own name and its own place in the canon.”

Screaming Trees, with their Washington state pedigree and prominence on the Singles soundtrack, were always equated with the era’s hallmark grunge and melancholy. The Afghan Whigs, meanwhile, seemed a little more dangerous, with Dulli’s songwriting taking on a more overt sexuality. It was driving guitars run through a filter of L.A. seediness and New Orleans gumbo, then painted over with a brush of old R&B. It was hot.

In the years since, the two’s respective solo projects—Dulli with the dark and brooding Twilight Singers, Lanegan with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Belle and Sebastian’s Isobel Campbell—paved the way to this year’s Saturnalia, the Gutter Twins’ macabre debut, and its mostly covers follow–up Adorata. The pair have been described as a satanic Everly Brothers.

”He’s got that voice,” Dulli says of Lanegan’s unmistakable rumbling baritone. ”I just think he’s one of the best singers I’ve ever heard. To me, he’s like Sinatra. Mark Lanegan doesn’t sing harmonies; he sings Lanegan.”

Though Dulli is the obvious magnetic force at the front of any Twilight Singers or Afghan Whigs show, in the Gutter Twins he largely cedes that role to Lanegan. ”He only has an A game, so you have to have an A game too,” Dulli says. ”I’m sure Josh Homme and Isobel Campbell would tell you the same thing.”

Onstage, ”I really don’t mind subsuming my enormous personality to fit the context,” Dulli adds, mostly joking.

Saturnalia, long in gestation before finally being released earlier this year, sounds little like previous projects of either Dulli or Lanegan—more discordant and symphonic than Lanegan’s previous work, and more chaotic and about–to–run–off–the–rails than Dulli’s. Late summer’s eight–track follow–up Adorata, with only two original Gutter Twins tunes, finds the duo even tighter, from their dark rendition of the traditional ”St. James Infirmary” to a blistering cover of José González’s ”Down the Line”—one of the Twins’ few all–out rockers. When they shout, ”Don’t let the darkness eat you up,” you get the sense that it’s already too late.

The music has a cinematic quality that’s landed Dulli’s work some prominent placement in Denis Leary’s scary–good FX drama Rescue Me—which in turn means new fans have found their way to Dulli and the Gutter Twins.

”They opened an episode where a bunch of children died in a fire, and they played the whole song ’The Lure Would Prove Too Much,’” an older outtake. ”It’s a long song and it takes a while to unfold, and they played the whole song. I’ve never seen that in modern television—old television either. It was pretty ballsy. And when I watched it, it just took my breath away.”

He isn’t the only one. ”The Lure” is the Twilight Singers’ second–most downloaded song on iTunes.

”I get much more out of television than I do out of films,” says Dulli, an avowed fan of The Wire, Rescue Me, Lost and, above all, Adult Swim’s Frisky Dingo.

”Frisky Dingo is the greatest show on television,” Dulli says of the ongoing animated superbattle between Killface and Awesome X. ”I define my life like this now: pre–Frisky Dingo and post–Frisky Dingo. Post– is much, much better. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.”

This TLA show will be one of the last of the year for the Gutter Twins. Dulli is building a studio at his other home in Los Angeles, and plans to spend 2009 working on the next Twilight Singers record there—something he says he can’t do well while on tour.

”I’ve been playing music a lot lately just for my own enjoyment,” he says. ”We did some 90 shows last year, and honestly, people who say they write songs on the road—they must be 22.”

So it’s not exactly the ’90s anymore, is it?

”I’m more prolific now,” says Dulli. ”I was kind of lazy when I was younger. I was always off to the party. Now, after the show, the young guys all go out to a bar, and me and Lanegan go on the bus and watch sports.”

The Gutter Twins
Wed., Nov. 5, 8pm. $18. With Afterhours. TLA, 334 South St. 215.922.1011. www.livenation.com

The Gutter Twins just released a cover of “Down the Line.” What did you think of it?
I love it. I thought it was great, and I got to meet them in Canada at a festival, and they were really nice. I got to see them live and Greg Dulli was telling me, “Yeah, it is about time someone else covered one of your songs.” There have been a couple of other artists that have done it before, but I guess the Gutter Twins are the most well known. It’s very cool.

by Steve Baltin
Filed under: Spinner Interview
Greg Dulli has experienced indie hero worship before — most famously when the Afghan Whigs’ brilliant 1993 release ‘Gentlemen’ garnered the band both remarkable reviews and a major cult audience. But now 15 years older, Dulli is savoring the success of his current project, the Gutter Twins. A partnership with fellow indie stalwart Mark Lanegan, the album brought Dulli back to play on ‘David Letterman’ for the first time in a dozen years and earned the pair a spot at this summer’s Lollapalooza.

The always outspoken and entertaining Dulli spoke with Spinner about working with Lanegan, returning to Sub Pop (his first home), upcoming projects, celebrity in the Internet age, and why classic-rock icons Lindsey Buckingham and Don Henley are lucky they didn’t earn fame today.

How has working with another person accustomed to being a frontman affected you?

It’s not as hard as you might think. Mark toured with the Twilight Singers, he did a hundred shows with us, so it wasn’t like I didn’t know how to do that. And, actually, we both discussed how it’s a little easier when you’re sharing the singing. You can breathe better, you don’t get worn out as fast; all in all, it’s a pretty positive experience. I’m sure that we’ll both go back to doing our own thing and then we’ll both come back to doing this again. In the best possible world, it’s something we can do at a whim and probably for the rest of our lives.

Does the success of the project change your approach at all?

Our plan was to do this and then go back and do our own thing, and that is what we’ll do. But will we come back and do another Gutter Twins record? Sure. I don’t know when that will be. It may be 2012 or 2015 or 2020, but I know that we both want to do our own records next. And he’s doing another Soul Savers record. Mark’s much more busy than I am as far as with bands. He has, like, five; I only have two.

But you always have stuff going on.

Yeah, I’m building a studio in my house right now in California and I’m going to make a Twilight record there. So that’s my next project: to finish the studio — and I’m working on an instrumental record with Mathias Schneeberger.

For someone like you who always has a variety of projects going on, how liberating is it to have all these different avenues of releasing your music?

It’s very liberating. I recorded a live record in Seattle last year of this acoustic show that I did and I’m gonna put that out online in a couple of months. So the ability to get things right to people as soon as you do them is incredibly liberating and I think it’s been done rather creatively and successfully by some people.

Who are those people who have done it well in your eyes?

I think the two best cases I know are the Radiohead and the Saul Williams record, and to varying degrees of success. On one end, you have an extremely known quantity. On the other hand, you had Saul Williams, who’s great and had the backing of Trent Reznor, who is certainly no shrinking violet himself. I’m guessing that Trent Reznor put out a bunch of records online, too, in a similar kind of plan. They have incredibly dedicated and large fan bases, and bypassing traditional distribution is a smart move for people like that. For people who aren’t as well known, or not known at all, you’re going to meet with varying degrees of success. I would probably place myself somewhere in between those two extremes as always.

Well, let’s talk then for a second about the success of this project. When you and Mark appeared on ‘Letterman,’ it was the first time you’d been in more than a decade, right?

It was the first time in 12 years.

With that, given you started this record as just a fun project with a friend, how gratifying has the level of interest been?

Anytime you do a record you’d like it to be listened to by as many people as possible. There’s a lot of stuff out there. I’m still incredibly grateful for my position in life — that I get to make records with who I want to make them with and go play shows with the people that I want to play with. And it breaks down to that simple fact, certainly. I get to do what I wanted to do when I was a kid and I get to do it for a living. And it’s opened up other doors for me that have allowed me to do other things in my life to fulfill myself. So we can talk about all kinds of things, but I just want to put that out there, that every day I wake up I’m f—ing psyched to be me.

When did you know you wanted to do this?

It’s probably the first time I wrote a song and I first wrote a song when I was 12. It was terrible, but it was fun and I couldn’t wait to learn how to play instruments after that. But yeah it’s all I ever wanted to do and I knew it.

Tell me about this live album.

I played a benefit show in Seattle. It’s the only time I’ve done it [played acoustic] and they wanted me to do it alone and I was like, “No f—ing way, dude.” At first I was gonna bring Petra Haden up to play violin with me; she ended up coming. Then I added Jeff Klein on the second guitar, then I added a cellist once I got up there. And then I added Shawn Smith, so I ended up having a full band by the time I got up there. But we all did play acoustic instruments. There’s mostly Twilight stuff, a Gutter Twins song, an Afghan Whigs song, and there are a couple of covers.

You played Lolla recently. Do you hang out or take off?

Dude, I’m playing f—ing 10 festivals this summer. I don’t hang out. Maybe if there are a couple of bands playing in the vicinity of when I’m playing, that’s who I’ll check out.

I was talking with Lindsey Buckingham and Don Henley, who come from an era right before yours, about success in the Internet age. I’d be curious to get your thoughts on what artists today face.

I’ll tell you this first of all: If Don Henley and Lindsey Buckingham would’ve come up in the f—ing Internet age, they’d both be in jail right now. That is a fact and they both know what I’m talking about. As far as what’s going on now, the persistence of paparazzi and media people, if I was a big celebrity I would walk around with a can of mace and a can of spray paint in either hand, and if you didn’t get one you’d get the other or you’d get both. Mother f—ers up in my s—, taking my picture, following me around, taking pictures of my family — that’s insane.

Care to elaborate on the Henley and Buckingham comment?

You know what I mean. Everybody knows what I mean. Google “Don Henley,” dude, and go past the first five pages. Lindsey Buckingham, watch the f—ing Fleetwood Mac ‘Behind the Music.’ It’s fantastic. Let it be known that I love Fleetwood Mac.

I wasn’t a big Eagles fan, but Henley is actually a cool guy at this point.

I’m sure John Mayer’s a nice guy, and I’m not a fan of his.

I had this exact conversation with Poe recently, and she feels the same way about him.

I’m sure he is a nice person, I have no doubt about that, but his music is abominable. I’ve never heard a good one. He’s great when he’s playing guitar on ‘Dave Chappelle’ and playing ‘Less Love’ and s— like that — that’s fantastic. But I’m not going to go sit in an amphitheater and watch it.

What are you digging lately?

I really love that new CSS record, man. That’s what I’m listening to right now. It’s exciting. That’s my jam right now. I think that No Age record is good. I’m really kind of out of it right now. I like that song ‘Rich Girls,’ by the Virgins. But I think that came out a while ago. I do think it’s extremely catchy.

You’ve done a lot of recording of late in New Orleans. What will having your studio in L.A. bring to the process?

I’ll probably still record some stuff in New Orleans, ’cause I always do. But I have wanted my own real studio for a while, and the time has come. And I want to be able to work on it all day long and not have to go anywhere and not change my clothes.

How’d the Sub Pop 20th anniversary go?

Like high school reunion, bro.

When you re-signed with Sub Pop, was it a feeling of coming full circle?

There can’t not be. It was my first label, it is my current label. So with lots of water under the bridge, it couldn’t have worked out better; they’re my friends, they care about me as a person, I think. And they’ve been really, really supportive and done the best job they could, which is all you can ask of anyone. The one band that I made sure I saw was the Fluid, and they were phenomenal. I saw their entire set, I hung out with them all after their gig. And then I had to split to go back and get ready to sound-check back in town. And then Tad Doyle was our support at the ShoBox gig; Tad is one of my favorite human beings, period, let alone in rock ‘n’ roll. And I would say hanging out with Tad and the Fluid were the highlights of my weekend.

Going back 20 years, did you ever imagine Sub Pop would have this history?

As far as forward thinking goes, I don’t even know what I’m gonna do in an hour, so I don’t think that far ahead.

The Gutter Twins are Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan, the lead singers of the Afghan Whigs and the Screaming Trees, respectively. Both their bands spent the mid-1980s through the late ’90s on the fringes of grunge and alternative rock, building up loyal followings of those angry at the world and lying on their bed. Lanegan also collaborated with such bands and artists as Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey and Isobelle Campbell from Belle and Sebastian.

Dulli, on his part, after the Whigs broke-up, started The Twilight Singers, who gave two shows when they were in Israel two years ago. That show was considered one of the most riveting to have been had on an Israeli stage. Finally, Dulli, the gutter poet of America, and Lanegan, one of the best composers in the alternative scene, have collaborated to create an album that continues the lines of their separate bands and carries on the search for salvation in this sinful, painful world. And, I like to think, that had Tyler Durden lived to watch his dream fulfilled, he’d probably’ve been listening to The Gutter Twins as he watched the major credit card companies’ offices blow up and fall down.