Gary Lee Conner (born Lee Gary Conner, August 22, 1962) is an American rock musician, best known as the guitarist and primary songwriter for

Screaming Trees Screaming Trees was an American rock band formed in Ellensburg, Washington, in 1984 by vocalist Mark Lanegan, guitarist Gary Lee Conner, bass player Van Conner, and drummer Mark Pickerel. Pickerel had been replaced by Barrett Martin by the tim ...

Career

Originally from

Ellensburg, Washington Ellensburg is a city in and the county seat of Kittitas County, Washington, United States. It is located just east of the Cascade Range near the junction of Interstate 90 and Interstate 82 Interstate 82 (I-82) is an Interstate Highway in th ...

, Conner formed the band Explosive Generation with his brother

Van Conner Van Conner (born March 17, 1967) is an American rock musician, best known as the bassist for Screaming Trees. Career As a bass player in high school, Conner formed the band Explosive Generation with his brother Gary Lee Conner and Mark Picke ...

and

Mark Pickerel Mark Pickerel is an American musician best known as the original drummer for the alternative rock band Screaming Trees. He is also an active session musician and has released several solo albums as a singer/guitarist. Biography Originally fro ...

in the early 1980s. That band later evolved into

with the addition of singer

Mark Lanegan Mark William Lanegan (November 25, 1964 – February 22, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter, and poet. First becoming prominent as the lead singer for the early grunge band Screaming Trees, he was also known as a member of Queens of the St ...

in 1985. The band moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

in the late 1980s to join that city's burgeoning alternative rock scene. Conner played on seven studio albums with Screaming Trees until the band split in 2000. Conner released the album ''Mystery Lane'' in 1990, under the group name The Purple Outside. During the 1990s he made regular guest appearances on recordings by other alternative rock acts. After the demise of Screaming Trees, Conner retired from music for ten years, and re-emerged with a new band called The Microdot Gnome. That band released the album ''4D Sugarcubes'' in 2010. Starting in 2016 he began releasing albums under his own name, most recently ''Revelations in Fuzz'' in 2021.

Selected discography

''For his work with

, see Screaming Trees discography''. *''Mystery Lane'' (The Purple Outside, 1990) *''4D Sugarcubes'' (The Microdot Gnome, 2010) *''Ether Trippers'' (solo, 2016) *''Unicorn Curry'' (solo, 2018) *''Revelations in Fuzz'' (solo, 2020) *''The Opposite of Christmas'' (solo, 2020)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conner, Gary Lee Screaming Trees members American rock guitarists American male guitarists Grunge musicians 1962 births Living people People from Kittitas County, Washington 20th-century American guitarists People from San Bernardino County, California 20th-century American male musicians