Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe Opens Up on Past Struggles with Alcohol and Drugs
Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe was found not guilty of manslaughter charges earlier this year by a Czech court, but the controversial trial wasn't the first time Blythe's life was in jeopardy. Blythe has struggled in the past with addiction to pills and alcohol, and in a new interview, the Lamb of God frontman opened up about overcoming those demons.
If you've seen our Top 10 Hard Rock Smackdowns list, you know that a fight between Blythe and Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton came in at No. 1. It's obvious by the footage that alcohol and possibly drugs fueled the rage seen in Blythe that night, but luckily, the singer has been sober for nearly three years.
In a new interview with RVAnews.com, Blythe speaks about a number of subjects including photography and comparing Twitter to Instagram, but Blythe's account of his drinking and drug use stands out as a brutally honest recollection:
For me, drinking started out as fun. I talk to a lot of people who no longer drink, and a lot of them say from the beginning it was straight to-the-races craziness. For me, when we signed to a major label it got particularly bad because all of a sudden I didn’t have to work a regular job, and I didn’t know what to do. We all worked straight jobs for a long time, real jobs. When I got some money for the first time, I just went crazy, drinking.
In a while, I was in a really good place when I got sober. I was doing OK financially, my career was OK because I’d learned to control my drinking enough to not screw up on stage. But I was coming home, sobering up, and then going back on tour and getting wasted. I was on tour in Australia in 2010, and I was like, “is this the way it’s going to be forever?” I talked to some friends who were no longer drinking, who had drinking problems in the past, and I got sober. It’ll be three years in a little bit.
For me, as a creative person, drinking and opiate-based pain pills–I used those back in the day to some effect–they unlocked a certain part of my consciousness. But then that stopped working, and for years it was me drinking and eating pills, sitting in my shed listening to Black Sabbath and pretending to write lyrics. Justifying it.
The anger and hate will eat you alive if you sit in it. I definitely think that there’s a place for that punk rock anger. There’s a lot of screwed up stuff in the world, and people should speak against it. But, for me, when I was A) growing up, and B) drinking, it was all consuming, I couldn’t do really anything about it. I couldn’t perform any effective action towards change besides writing screamy records.
When I sobered up, photography became great. Right now I’m writing a memoir of my last year. That never would have happened had I been drunk. I never would have made it through my trial in one piece had I been drunk.
Sobriety has enabled me to do things.
Read the full interview with Randy Blythe at RVAnews.com.