The Gutter Twins: Up From the Gutter

Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan, photographed for Spin in Los Angeles, December 21, 2007 / Photo by Tom Fowlks

SPIN: That said, you're still referred to as "former Afghan Whigs frontman and "former Screaming Trees frontman." Is that a drag?
DULLI: No, because it makes people come to your concert and find out what you're doing now. All you want to do as a musician is have people have an experience with you. I'll be "former Ross Rams shooting guard," you know? I was that, too.
LANEGAN: "Former Texaco employee."
DULLI: "Former IGA stockboy."

SPIN: Does it make it hard to keep the focus on your current work when people like me are always asking you to look back on your past?
DULLI: I did what I did, now I do what I do -- that's the way I look at it. I can't take back what happened, but I can have something to do with what happens next.
LANEGAN: I prefer to try to stay in the here and now -- it's a lot healthier.

SPIN: The Gutter Twins are hitting the road this year. Is touring a different experience for you guys now than it was when you were in your 20s?
DULLI: When Mark was in the Twilight Singers, we were hands down the oldest guys. After the show, the band and the crew would go out, but we'd go read or watch movies on the bus. I remember after a show in Albuquerque, this white stretch limo pulls up alongside the bus and four hot chicks pop out. They had champagne and short skirts, and they wanna meet me and Mark. It looked kind of fun, but we couldn't come out; I think we were watching a basketball game. So the limo pulls away with the rest of the band in it, and Mark turns to me and goes, "Wow, what happened to us?" That defines the two of us now.

SPIN: Are you cool with that?
DULLI: I got a vicarious thrill from the stories when they came back. "Did you do this? Did you do that?"
LANEGAN: Much like George Kennedy in Cool Hand Luke.
DULLI: Exactly. "Then what happened, kid?"

SPIN: Is that attitude a product of already having--
DULLI: Completely chewed the scenery? For me, yeah. I can't do it anymore.

SPIN: Can't or don't want to?
DULLI: I probably could, gun to my head, and scare the shit out of everybody with my capacity for doing it. But I guess I just don't want to.
LANEGAN: I enjoy touring more now.
DULLI: I do, too. Now it has a structure to it: You get on the bus, and the bus is your home and your coworkers are your family. I have three businesses, and I also like to travel not for work. But I always make time for it, and now I look forward to each day, whereas I used to be sleeping off a bender.

SPIN: Are other things in your lives as or more important than music?
LANEGAN: Basketball -- that's about it for me.
DULLI: Your relationship with your lady.
LANEGAN: Normal shit.
DULLI: I find I'm more three-dimensional than I used to be. When I was 25 years old, I was a one-dimensional--
LANEGAN: Knucklehead? That's what I was.

Read our review of the Gutter Twins debut performance at NYC's Bowery Ballroom, and listen to a backstage interview conducted that evening by SPIN.com's Peter Gaston.