In an open-hearted interview in the new issue of Metal Hammer, Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe admits that he’d very probably be dead by now if he hadn’t stopped abusing alcohol over a decade ago.
Interviewed for the magazine’s Life Lessons feature, Blythe admits that he has lost friends to illnesses related to alcohol abuse and confesses that he feels “pretty fucking lucky” to have escaped a similar fate.
“It’s a well known fact that I was a fuckin’ alcoholic and I’ve not had a drink in well over 10 years now,” the singer states. “Unfortunately, I’ve known people who didn’t embrace the choice to try something different… and they’re dead now.”
“I don’t know what it is within me - I’m certainly not saying I’m special, or made of stronger moral fibre than anyone else - that I made that conscious decision, but I did, and I feel pretty fucking lucky. The driving force was, ‘I’m going to quit drinking, or I’m going to die’.”
As Blythe recalls, it took him four-and-a-half years of trying to get sober, before he finally managed to get sober.
“One morning on tour in Australia I woke up and just felt horrible and empty,” he admits. “I was in a good place; we were on tour with Metallica - it doesn’t get much better than that - I had money in the bank, and my personal life wasn’t too much in tatters. On the outside, everything looked good, but I just felt like there was this horrific void. I realised I had to try something different.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with drinking,” he adds, “but there was something wrong with drinking for myself, and drinking in the way I did.”
Lamb Of God’s explosive new live album, Lamb Of God: Live In Richmond, VA is out now via Nuclear Blast. You can read more from the singer in the new issue of Metal Hammer, which is out now.
