The Unexpected Truth About Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll (ft. Randy Blythe)

Life in a rock band isn’t all sold-out shows and backstage parties—it’s a high-pressure, all-consuming commitment that tests friendships, sanity, and survival. In this episode, I sit down with Randy Blythe, legendary frontman of Lamb of God, to pull back the curtain on what it really takes to last in the music industry. From the brutal realities of band relationships to the myths of the rockstar lifestyle, Randy shares unfiltered insights on creativity, addiction, and personal transformation. We also dig into his journey to sobriety, the impact of punk rock’s DIY ethos, and the surprising ways today’s generation is redefining rebellion. Whether you’re a musician, a fan, or just someone navigating your own challenges, this conversation is a raw and inspiring look at resilience, reinvention, and the power of staying true to yourself. Randy’s books: Just Beyond the Light: https://www.amazon.com/Just-Beyond-Light-Making-Inside-ebook/dp/B0DJHMN7C1 Dark Days: https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Days-D-Randall-Blythe/dp/0306825090 CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: From Punk Rock to Prison 00:02:15 The Reality of Band Relationships 00:10:50 Discovering Punk Rock: The Sex Pistols Moment 00:15:19 The Cultural Evolution of Rebellion 00:19:00 Why Artists and Musicians Struggle with Addiction 00:22:30 Kurt Cobain and the Romanticism of Pain 00:30:17 October 17th, 2010: Randy's Last Day Drinking 00:37:04 The Brutal Reality of Getting Sober 00:25:44 Creativity After Sobriety 00:42:16 Balancing Two Extremes: Optimism and Nihilism 00:47:45 Why Metal Heads Are Actually the Nicest People 00:51:44 Arrested in Prague: The Nightmare Begins 00:55:42 37 Days in Pankrac Prison 01:00:26 The Artist's Mind in Crisis 00:58:34 Why Randy Went Back to Face Trial 01:06:27 Lessons from Prison: Perspective and Gratitude 01:10:13 Advice for Young Creatives: Practice and Don't Give a Fuck 01:12:51 The Reality Check: Beer Bottles and Middle Fingers ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: ⁠⁠⁠⁨https://markmanson.net/breakthrough⁩⁠⁠⁠ ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at ⁠⁠⁠⁨https://bit.ly/4w46FMH⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson Theme Song: Icarus Lives by @Periphery , used with permission from Periphery.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mark Manson?

  What happens when a rebellious teen from small-town Virginia discovers punk rock, rises to fame in a globally-renowned heavy metal band, battles addiction, and then lands in prison halfway around the world? You might think you've heard stories of rock star excess before, but Randy Blythe's story is on a whole 'nother level. It's a masterclass in turning chaos into clarity, self-destruction and the self-transcendence, and one's art into a way of life. Randy Blythe is an author, photographer, and the lead singer of one of the biggest heavy metal bands in the world. He has toured the world many times over, singing or screaming, more accurately, to millions of fans. But Randy isn't just an animal behind the microphone. He's a thoughtful, intelligent, philosophical man, and he has the scarred tissue to prove it.

• 0:43Mark Manson?

  Because Randy's life hasn't just been about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's been a delicate, balancing act of creativity, responsibility, and sheer perseverance. So if you've ever felt pulled between your own two extremes, whether it's work and rest, ambition and burnout, darkness and light, stick around. Otherwise, you might miss out on some of the principles that could very well help you find a much-needed balance. Here are just a few of the lessons that we're gonna unpack in today's episode. How to reconnect with a sense of purpose, even when you're sitting in a jail cell for something you didn't do, in a country you don't know. Also, how to cope with insane amounts of pressure, battling your darkest moments when, literally, the entire world is watching.

• 1:23Mark Manson?

  Why the best artwork always starts and ends with yourself, an audience of one. The unique team-building and leadership lessons from a band dynamic that has lasted for decades through thick and thin. Some real talk about addiction, alcohol, heroin, groupies, you name it, Randy's probably put it up his nose, or up his ass. And why the angriest music is made by the nicest people. How artwork acts as a form of catharsis for us all. We'll also talk about how to view life's hardest moments as simply new material to shape your future self, as though you were like, an existential sculptor. And if you've ever wondered what could possibly shake a man so deeply that it changes his entire approach to living, well, you're about to find out.

• 2:06Mark Manson?

  And the answers might just shift something major in your own life, too. All right, so enough setup, let's get into it. This is Randy Blythe.

• 2:25Mark Manson?

  Randy.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Mark.

• 2:27Mark Manson?

  So good to have you, man.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28Mark Manson?

  Thanks for coming out. You guys, I have to say, I mean, you know this, but I need to say it for the audience. Lamb of God is probably on my Mount Rushmore of metal bands. Like massive, massive fan for a long time.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Very flattering, man.

• 2:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah. So it's been great getting to know you and meeting you, hanging out and everything. My 20-year-old self is like quivering with excitement. I want to talk about band relationships because this is something that I've thought about quite a bit. When

• 3:01Speaker 01

  It's a very hairy, very unsexy marriage without any of the benefits.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  The quetal benefits, at least in our band.

• 3:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I've thought about this quite a bit because, you know, from probably age 15 to 21, 22, like my dream.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, guitar.

• 3:23Mark Manson?

  Was to be a guitarist in a band like yours.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:25Mark Manson?

  And I think when you're that young, you kind of have this romantic ideal of what like a rock band, being in a rock band is like, you're hanging, you're just like rocking out with your best friends and like everything's fun and there's just parties and girls and all this stuff.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39Mark Manson?

  And

• 3:40Speaker 01

  The 80s are over, bro.

• 3:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah, right. But like as an adult, it's been interesting as an adult, as I've, I've met a number of musicians and talked to them, like you realize like, these are business partners. They're creative partners.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:56Mark Manson?

  They're roommates for months at a time.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:00Mark Manson?

  And I imagine if you've been in a band for decades.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  30 years.

• 4:06Mark Manson?

  Those friendships come and go, like, you know, it's, it's, there's probably periods where you're not super close. There's periods where you're like really close. Maybe you like lose touch with people and then kind of come back together, like, but you still have to work together. You still have to be professionals and you still have to be creative together and, and, and listen to each other. And like, I actually, as an adult, I look at a band, like the band relationship.

• 4:32Mark Manson?

  And I imagine it's, it's got to be one of the hardest working relationships.

• 4:37Mark Manson?

  Like I can't think of an analog, right?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:39Mark Manson?

  You know, like if you're on a sports team with somebody, you know, it's only going to last for a few years. Somebody's going to get traded or whatever.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:45Mark Manson?

  If you're in a company, everybody's always kind of shifting and moving around. Like when you're in a band.

• 4:51Mark Manson?

  It's like a marriage.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:53Mark Manson?

  Like, the idea is that you do this forever together.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:56Mark Manson?

  Even if the guy pisses you off, or farts in his sleep, and like, you know, I don't know, like, I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on this.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Is it the hardest relationship possible? I mean, I think.

• 5:11Mark Manson?

  Professional relationship.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Professional relationship. I don't know, submariners, dudes who go down underwater. I grew up in a Navy town in Norfolk, Virginia, and you'd see them come off the submarine cruises. We called them bubbleheads.

• 5:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  And they were weird, you know, they'd been underwater way too long, playing D and D together, working it out. So, you know, that's a pretty intense relationship. I think that the, the, um, the intensity of probably people who serve in combat together.

• 5:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Is, is, uh, much more intense than, than our relationship. And they form these lifelong bonds because they've been through these horrific experiences together. But as you're saying, I mean, hopefully in most places, that, that sort of relationship has its time and its place and its intensities. Ours is long-term. It's strange to me because it's sort of the, there's very few bands that last as long as ours do.

• 6:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  And it's strange for me to say that, you know, we're kind of moving into the legacy sort of.

• 6:16Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Era. It's very strange for me to say that, but most bands just don't last as long as ours do because of the personality differences and so forth. I think with us, it, it's because in so many ways, we have become better friends that we're still here.

• 6:35Mark Manson?

  Hmm.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  You know? I mean, like, we've gotten in fistfights together, you know, like, me and my guitar player, Mark famously got in a drunken brawl in, in Scotland. I had adopted a Scottish accent. I was wearing a kilt. It was a nightmare, you know? And we videoed it and put it out. And we'd do signings and people are like. You know, I can't believe you two are sitting next to each other like after this fight, because it's this frozen in time moment, you know. It happens in all bands. We were just stupid enough to put it out. We got a platinum DVD out of it. But like, Mark and I are extremely close friends.

• 7:17Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Extremely. And we text and talk to each other very often, not just about band stuff, but about life, you know. And I think we're very fortunate in that, you know.

• 7:34Mark Manson?

  Would you compare, it sounds kind of like, almost like a family, like a

• 7:37Speaker 01

  It is.

• 7:38Mark Manson?

  Like a synthetic family.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  It is.

• 7:40Mark Manson?

  That you put together, you know?

• 7:42Speaker 01

  It is. And it's

• 7:43Mark Manson?

  And it comes with all the trappings of a family relationship.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And, you know, you're talking about this idealistic version you had of being in a band when you were younger, you know. People seem to think, to this day, I mean, we've been in, I've been in this band almost 30 years. When I'm at home, and I'll go to the grocery store or something, someone will be like, where's Mark? Where's Willie? I'm like, at home with their wife, you know. We don't, like, we aren't attached at the hip. They're also, you know, even in Richmond, you know, where I'm from, people are like, at the grocery store, what are you doing here?

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Buying produce, man.

• 8:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I'm a normal human being. Shouldn't you be on tour? No, I'm allowed to be at home. So somehow, somehow, we have learned how to function better now than we ever did when we were younger. Very combative with each other. And I think the only reason why we didn't break up is because nobody wanted to be the guy that broke the band up. Because that would be Defeat.

• 9:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  I quit. It's like, I hate you.

• 9:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  You know, and you do spend so much time around these guys. You're like, I hate the way this guy ties his shoes.

• 9:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  You know, but you don't want to be the guy to crack and like, well, the band could have done great, but it went down the tubes because, you know, you went out.

• 9:18Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah. What would you say are like the biggest lessons you've taken from those band relationships? Like, what have you, what skills have you had to learn and develop to like, last for 30 years?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  I kind of keep on coming back to the same point, I think. It's remember what the most important thing is. Remember what your primary goal is. And for us, it's always been to make good music, music that we like.

• 9:44Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  We're not writing it.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Like, we love our fans. They've provided us a life beyond my wildest dreams. You know, I never thought I'd get to go to Japan or whatever.

• 9:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  But we write music for five dudes, us. I've said this a million times. And as long as we are happy with it, then it's a success. And I think the fans respect that. But the most important thing, I really think that you're saying that lesson. And I think this would be applicable to relationships in general.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Whether working or familial or romantic is what do you want out of this relationship?

• 10:29Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  You know? What do you, what is the most important thing in this relationship? And what started this relationship? If you can remember that, I think you're going to be successful.

• 10:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  As long as the personalities don't get too divergent.

• 10:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  You know?

• 10:47Mark Manson?

  In your book, you talk a lot about. I guess I would call it like the punk rock ethos.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:53Mark Manson?

  And how influential it was on you.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:56Mark Manson?

  Like, how did you get into that? And what appealed to you about it?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Well,

• 11:03Speaker 01

  like, I come from this little tiny paper mill town originally called Franklin, Virginia. On my dad's side of the family, it's where they were raised. And I was a weirdo, sort of outcast nerdy guy, still am, proud nerd. And I couldn't seem to fit into any sort of regular social group. I wasn't interested in football or cars or whatever.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  And I didn't understand why people didn't accept me for myself, why I was more interested in, you know, reading Lord of the Rings books or whatever than going to a football game.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Because I was like, I'm a good person. That's the most important thing, right?

• 11:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  No, but you're young and immature and so people judge you. And so I felt pretty alienated. And but since I lived in this little town, there was no record stores or anything. The only sort of music I heard was on the radio.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  And so I liked Black Sabbath, you know, because I wound up getting a Black Sabbath cassette. And I liked the song Shout at the Devil by Motley Crue.

• 12:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  And I went away to a gifted and talented summer camp at the University of Virginia. And this skateboard, I was also a skateboarder, you know? This guy was like, what music do you like? And this guy, Jason Smith, shout out to you if you ever hear this. I'm like, wow, I've been listening to this band, Motley Crue. They're pretty aggressive. He's like, oh, no, dude, you need to check this out. And hands me this cassette tape he made me with Nevermind the Bollocks. Here's the Sex Pistols on it. And I listened to it. And from the first note of the first song, Holidays in the Sun, it's like this marching.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  It was just aggressive and I was like, oh. And then John Lydon came on and started singing. And I could tell he was pissed off. You know, right from the beginning and I immediately felt this connection. And it took me years to understand a lot of what he was singing about because it was very specific to British culture during Thatcher's England.

• 13:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  But there were definitely parallels to American culture at the time, being Reagan's America and all this other stuff. So I learned, I just heard this, I'm like, what is this music? This is punk rock. This is what you need to listen to. And I'm like, you're right, it is. Because it felt real. It wasn't a guy with perfect pitch singing and it wasn't overproduced. It was just raw and gut feeling. From there, you know, I became, once again, through skateboarding, I became more involved in like the American punk scene. And I would go see bands at these small clubs. Unlike when my first concert I ever went to, a big one was ZZ Top, right?

• 14:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  I didn't get to meet the dudes in ZZ Top. I stood in the audience amongst everybody and watched them do their thing and did a light show and it was great at a place called the Hampton Coliseum. But when I went to go see Corrosion of Conformity, or The Bad Brains, or Agent Orange, or The Vandals from out here in Southern California, they were the guys at the merch table afterwards, selling stuff. And, and so I could just talk to these dudes and meet them. And it was sort of a community. And it wasn't, it wasn't just the music that was speaking to my sort of teenage angst or discontent with the way the world was running. It was also a feeling of community.

• 14:50Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  And that a self sustaining community, which was extremely appealing to me.

• 14:55Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  And still is to this day. So that, that's how I, I became involved with it.

• 15:00Mark Manson?

  Punk rock's like.

• 15:03Mark Manson?

  It's very interesting to me culturally, looking back. Because it was, I mean, you mentioned the eighties, like it was clearly very subversive of everything, right? It was just kind of fuck the man, fuck the system. Absolutely. You know, uh, put everybody on the same level. Intentionally jarring, like at times, just ugly sounding, not playing their instruments correctly. Like that's part of the point, right? Right, anyone can do it. Yeah, yeah. And it's, um, it's interesting to me that that ironically, like it influenced culture in the nineties and two thousands. And kind of the like, the subversion became almost mainstream.

• 15:48Mark Manson?

  Oh, yes. And, and, and like self, like the self-destructive aspect of it became cool. Right.

• 15:56Mark Manson?

  And I, I just find it so interesting to think about that these days, because today, if you think about what is subversive, it's the opposite of self-destruction. Like being so, like the punk rock of today is like quitting drugs and alcohol and waking up at four AM and like not dating. And, you know, like being a monk, basically. Right, right. And I, I don't know, I look at like, I look at, uh, like what's, what Gen Z is doing today, uh, to kind of quote unquote, stick it to the man. And, uh, and then I just think back to like our youth. Right. You know, where I'm just like drinking and smoking and doing drugs at an absurdly young age.

• 16:40Mark Manson?

  And it's, it just makes me wonder like how we've, how the pendulum has swung completely in the other direction. And where it will end up eventually. Yeah, I mean, part of me thinks that it just, it probably oscillates back and forth across the generations. Like the, I'm sure the young people today look at our generation and they're just like, man, get it together. Like you guys are a fucking mess.

• 17:04Mark Manson?

  Just like when we were kids, we looked at our parents and grandparents and we were like, wow, you guys are a bunch of fucking yuppie uptight.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, squares.

• 17:12Mark Manson?

  Squares, bullshitters, you know, it's, um, it's just really, it's really interesting to me.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  It is, it is very interesting to me. I think that the sort of, um, there's been a paradigm shift, I think, in what is cool, as it were.

• 17:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Uh, and, you know, I try not to be the old man shaking his fist at this guy.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  So I think the fact that, um, beyond the obvious problems of like the opiate opioid epidemic that, you know, was fed by the Sackler family, um, I think that the youth are today are much more cognizant of the fact that it's not cool to be an alcoholic.

• 17:58Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  You know, uh, you, you hear the term heroin chic. You used to hear that a lot more. And, you know, I, I knew a guy who became a junkie on purpose. He's, he's just like, I'm gonna be a junkie. It's cool.

• 18:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  No, it's not, you know? Luckily he got out of it eventually, but he had a rough ride through it. And for me, drinking, um, and then particularly once I got in a band, uh, and eventually that was my, my paying gig, uh, drinking was expected.

• 18:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  It's like, of course you're gonna drink your face off. You're in a metal band, you know?

• 18:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Haven't you ever seen the Pantera Home DVDs? Don't you know about Ozzy?

• 18:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  You know, I think kids today are cognizant of the fact that all that is, is bullshit. It's an illusion and they don't seem to be as substance driven, I guess.

• 18:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Or recreationally substance driven.

• 18:58Mark Manson?

  Why do you think addiction is so prevalent among musicians and artists in general? I mean, even going back to like Charlie Bird in the forties and, you know, like, I mean, it's just.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Coltrane?

• 19:12Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I mean, it's just addicts all over the place.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yes. I think, I think it's because musicians, artists in general.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  When we're creating, I've sort of come to this conclusion, at least for my own self, and I certainly see parallels in many, many people I know. We're trying to process these out of control feelings, I think. We're trying to express very strong feelings, particularly, I know in my case, about whatever. And sometimes those feelings can become overwhelming, particularly if they're rooted in anger. And for me, alcohol and drugs were a way to numb those feelings.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  You know, it's, it's also, there's, there's, once you get a little success, like it's a pressure cooker, I think. If you allow people's views of you, if you allow external, how, how people think and view you to affect yourself, it gets more and more and more pressurized. So for me, I think, and for a lot of artists and musicians and, and writers and actors or whatever, numbing those feelings is a way to function in the world. And it works for a while. Yeah.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  For a while, it does. And then depending on how far down the road you go, it, it, it becomes very counterproductive. I know it did in my case. But I certainly bought into the cultural myth of the hard drinking musician, writer, even, even partying, like photographer. It's, it's where it is, it is. And, and all the, when I When I was younger and I went to write, I read Bukowski and Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. This supremely male canon of authors, all of whom were lunatics.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  And so I wanted to be a writer. So I did a lot of the things the great writers did. I was drinking my face off. I did a fair amount of womanizing, you know, gotten a few fistfights. Like a writer, I was doing everything that all those writers I liked so much did, except for the writing.

• 21:50Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  That's the key thing.

• 21:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  A lot of the, these sort of people that are held up as these brilliant artists that, that died so soon, you know, too soon. Or, or killed themselves eventually, such as Hunter S. Thompson and Hemingway.

• 22:05Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Like they're, they're trying to deal with pain. They're trying to deal with emotion and they're using these substances to do so. And then eventually it stops working. Kurt Cobain.

• 22:16Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  You know, he's frozen, this frozen genius in time to, to a certain generation. The dude was obviously in immense pain.

• 22:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  You don't like blow your brains out with a shotgun because you have a stubbed toe.

• 22:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  This is an existential pain of a massive scale.

• 22:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I saw, I don't remember what or where, but I saw like a small documentary or short documentary about him a year or two ago, maybe. And it was interesting because, you know, as a nineties kid, Kurt was like God was everything, you know, like growing up in the mid nineties and Nirvana was everything. And, uh, you know, you kind of revered, there was again, a romanticism about his pain and his suffering and his addiction and the suicide and everything. And, uh, it was interesting watching this documentary and they had a bunch of old footage and interviews with his old friends. And I think maybe even Dave Grohl was in it. And, uh,

• 23:23Mark Manson?

  it was just, I, it was interesting watching it as a 40 year old.

• 23:28Mark Manson?

  How sad and pathetic it was like it was just it was heartbreaking, honestly, like how weak and fragile and completely dysfunctional he was, not to mention a lot of the people around him. Uh, and I, I don't know. I just had this moment of like, I can't believe this guy was like a cultural icon, you know, like it's what a strange time.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  It was very strange to me at the time that it was occurring because I'm a little bit older than you.

• 23:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  You know, I'll be 54 next month. Um, when Nirvana broke, I, I didn't quite understand the whole major label system yet. It was just like a dirty word to me, major label coming from the, the punk rock world. I, so I didn't pay any attention to it, but I remember I loved their first record, Bleach.

• 24:19Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  It's like they recorded it for 600 bucks and a case of beer supposedly. And they're like these dirt bags from up above Seattle, somewhere like Aberdeen, I think. Um, and I love that record and it was, it was they're, they're a cool band, like, oh, another sub pop band, like, you know, Soundgarden was at the time. But then before Nevermind came out, I remember going to the record store and seeing posters everywhere and free Nirvana stickers and Nirvana mobiles hanging from the ceiling above the cash register. And I'm like, like the dudes from Seattle, like the guys who, who wear flannel? Why are they, you know, what is going on? Why did all of a sudden they care about them?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Because their T-shirts, uh, that they wore, they, they sold on the first, like the Bleach tour, it said smoke crack and worship Satan or something on the back. It's like, it did not compute, you know?

• 25:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  And then they had that cultural moment when Smells Like Teen Spirit came out and I was just baffled by it. But then years later, when Green Day happened, I was like, oh, this is what's happening.

• 25:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  You know, because I knew their first two records, they were on a small label called Lookout. And I was like, oh, this is happening. The Nirvana thing is happening again.

• 25:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  You know?

• 25:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Coming back to the, your experience with addiction, when you got clean.

• 25:44Mark Manson?

  Did that change your relationship with your creativity? Did it change the process?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:51Mark Manson?

  How so?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  It made it overwhelming at first. Because it was, I used to love to take pills and to write.

• 26:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  You know, I'm like, I need, I would tell my ex, like, because I wouldn't be drinking at home for a while because she had had enough of my drunken nonsense. But I'd, I'd be like, I need to take some pills because this will put me in the right mind state. Really, all I was doing was sitting in my shed, listening to Black Sabbath and nodding out.

• 26:24Mark Manson?

  Just getting fucked up.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Just kidding. And I'd look at some lines I wrote the next day and just like, ugh. What is, I can't even read this shit, right?

• 26:34Speaker 01

  And so I felt like when I, when I got sober, when I removed all the substances, it was like I'd been in a hole with it, with a cover over it for years. And then all of a sudden, the cover was removed and I came out and there's sunlight. And if you've been in the dark for 20 years, it hurts your eyes. So I'm like, oh my God, what is going on? Everything is bright, bright, bright. But after that leveled out, the, the sort of like dampening filter that alcohol and drugs had been, had had placed over my, my, the creative side of my brain was removed and it's just constant ideas.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  It's, and it's something, that is the biggest problem with me today with my creativity is not, is not looking for something. It's trying to decide what, I have so many different things I want to do.

• 27:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Constantly. And it's like, okay, I, now I'm, have to focus. I'm, I'm working on this book, but I want to go do this killer photo shoot. These people ask me.

• 27:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Or, or this guy asked me to be on his record and I've listened to him since high school. I got time to squeeze that in. It's a matter of. Figuring out how to focus. I think the ideas flow much faster, much stronger and with more clarity.

• 27:58Mark Manson?

  Yeah, but there was like an adjustment period.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 28:01Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  And I was definitely afraid a bit that once I got sober, the creativity would abandon me. It's the opposite.

• 28:13Mark Manson?

  It's, it's funny. You mentioned the, the ideas thing. I've, I've actually found that I think the most common question I get from people who don't work in a creative industry to me or to other creatives is where do you get your ideas?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Where do you get that?

• 28:32Mark Manson?

  Like I get asked that so many times and I always thought, I'm like, the ideas are never the problem. Like it's never, there's never, I never worry about ideas.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:39Mark Manson?

  Ever. It's, it's always what are the good ideas?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 28:44Mark Manson?

  And how do you get the most out of them? How do you actually execute on them?

• 28:47Speaker 01

  I think that's a misperception people who do not work in creative field have. It's that we have this idea. I have this idea. I'm going to write a short story about the time I did Mark Manson's podcast. And I sit down at 2:00 PM and I tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap for two hours and ching, there it is. It's perfect. You know, that happens every now and then. And most of the time it's like chucking out garbage until you find, you know, the diamond ring that you accidentally threw in the garbage.

• 29:20Mark Manson?

  Or you start writing that short story and that reminds you of the dime in 2013 where you like did this interview in London and this crazy thing. So then you start writing that and then that remind, that gives you two ideas for fiction stories and you start writing those. And then it's like, it's like this tree, these like, like a decision tree that you follow.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 29:40Mark Manson?

  To, to, till you get to the end.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  The important thing, I think for anyone struggling who's like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do is to start.

• 29:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  It's the hardest thing for me as a writer, putting ass in chair.

• 29:53Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Start, engage in the process. Thinking about everything is, you know, we all think all the time. I forget how many thoughts we have a day, bazillions of them, but like, like thinking about all that you're going to do is never going to get things done.

• 30:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Sometimes it didn't, it actually inhibits.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:13Mark Manson?

  Things getting done. Coming back to the alcoholism, I just kind of went on.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Get that full story.

• 30:19Mark Manson?

  Was there a specific moment that you decided to stop? Or was it like?

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 30:23Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:24Mark Manson?

  What was that?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Want me to tell you about my last day drinking?

• 30:28Mark Manson?

  Sure. Let's go there.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  October 17th, 2010.

• 30:34Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Him of God was on tour with a band called Metallica in Australia. Yeah, you've heard of them, I think. Most people have. And I went out with some, we were in Brisbane, Australia.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  And I started out the evening with some friends. We had a day off at a pub in, on this street in Brisbane, an Irish pub. I went and saw it like a few months ago when it's down there. I'm sitting there drinking with two of my friends and then this fan walks in and he just sits down at the table and just stares at me. And I'm like, this is really weird. I'm like, how are you doing, dude? He's like, I'm drinking with you tonight. And I'm like, oh, God.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  So I, I'm like, it's nice to meet you. I get up to go take a leak and I look at my friends. I'm like, get rid of this guy, you know? He's just staring at me and I come back and he's, he's sitting there and my friends are like, he, he won't leave. So I'm like, well, all right. If you're gonna, you're, you're, you're gonna hang out, you're buying.

• 31:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  So I'm like, order some shots, bro. And he brings some shots and pints and I'm like, again, again, again. And I am trying, we went to like three or four different bars. It was not fun, dude. I tried to, I burned up every single Australian dollar in that dude's wallet, trying to get him to leave. And at the end of the night, we drank, I remember, and I was mean to him. I feel bad about it to this day. He was weird.

• 32:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Right? But like, I was just an asshole to this guy. I'm like, come on, shot boy, get another one, you know? And he would. And it was horrifying, man. And at the end of the night, we had been, I drank, started in the early afternoon, drank until like midnight or something. So all day, just drinking on this guy's tab. The end of the night, we walked out of the final bar, my friends left and this drunk guy is like, he can barely walk. And I remember very clearly him standing under a street light, just like.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Weaving and I, I did not feel drunk at all. I was mad and I looked at him like, go home dude, go home. It's over. And I went back to my hotel room and, and left him weaving and standing on the street. It was just awful. Um, and I did not feel drunk. And I'd done a bunch of drugs too, that night too, by the way, some, some sort of molly or something.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  And I didn't feel anything and it finally stopped. Like there was these intense feelings I had in my head, the alcohol and drugs no longer numb them. I woke up the next morning, October 18th, 2010, and walked out on my balcony because we had like a hotel suite. It was nice with the balcony. Have you, you've been to Australia? It's awesome. So I'm in Brisbane and we're one block away. Down to the left is the Brisbane Botanical Gardens, which are beautiful. And they have, you know, weird plants and Australian animals, you know, whatever undetermined nature with things in the trees. Across the street was one of my favorite bookstores of all time.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  And then all down the street to the right, uh, were all these great restaurants. And I just woke up and walked out on this sunny balcony and I was like, I do not want to exist anymore. And I didn't feel suicidal. I didn't want to kill myself. I just wanted to vanish from existence. Poof. And, uh, and I, I was like, oh my God, dude, I, I'm in Australia, which is awesome. I'm opening up for Metallica. I have money in the bank. I had a wife still. I got a house back at home. I have a career. We got fans and I feel utterly empty. And I looked

• 34:38Speaker 01

  over, there's a table on the balcony and I saw all these beer bottles that I had carefully lined up the night before because I get a little OCD with things. And all the labels were pointing the same way and they were lined perfectly up, very neat, all empty. And I looked at the beer bottles and I was like, that is a metaphor for my life. I am just an empty container to pour alcohol into and on the outside, everything looks well ordered. Yeah. But all it would take is just a push and they would fall and break. You know, so I was like, that's my life. I don't want to exist anymore.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  So I thought maybe, just maybe, if I don't drink into drugs, like a maniac, I'll feel a little better. And so I went to the gig that night and Hetfield was sober. And there's four, like three or four other guys on their crew that were sober. Cause they had talked to me. Cause we'd been on tour with them for about two years off and on. And it was obvious I was in rough shape. Yeah. You know, I, many different continents, completely shitfaced. Yeah. They had kind of mentioned it to me. So I went to these dudes and I was like, help.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  How do you do this? And they calmed me down, you know, but they're like, you just have to worry about today, man. You don't have to worry about tomorrow. You can get through this. And so they, they calmed me down a bit. And then I went on stage in front of 14,000 people and weeping profusely. Wow. And my hair was long at the time, so nobody could see. But I'm like, have my hair down in my eyes and the ban is chung chung chung chung chung. See you, God, so fuck. Oh, my God. In between like. Oh, my life. What is happening? Just weeping. It run up 14,000 people uncontrollably for 45 minutes. Oh, my God.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  But somehow I got through it and that was my last day drinking and my first day sober. And so since then, you know, the next day I just didn't.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Drink again. I was like, I'm just not gonna drink today. I'm gonna try, man. I'm gonna try. And day after day after day after day, 14 years later, here I am with you.

• 37:09Mark Manson?

  How hard was it that initial stretch? Like, when did it start getting easier? Or like, were you like, less raw and emotional?

• 37:16Speaker 01

  It was very strange. Like, I was in Australia for the whole first month of my sobriety. So we had 17 days off.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  And everybody else flew home, but I stayed there with some friends on a sea island south of Melbourne called Phillip Island. And I had my own car and it was just magic. I just drove around and went to the koala sanctuary or went to the ocean. We went camping in the rainforest. It was amazing. And I had this, some people refer to it as the pink cloud. When you get sober, everything has been so horrific. Now that you're sober, everything's, oh, wow. You wake up, you don't feel like killing yourself. Isn't that great? I was annoyingly happy to be sober for the first month or so.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  I was like, I'm sober. I'm like, this is great. And, you know, some guys are like, maybe you ought to have, I liked you better when you were drunk. You weren't up my butt so much about how awesome everything is. And that level of stoke is not sustainable.

• 38:27Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  So of course I come home and then about two months into it, all of a sudden I fall into an immense depression.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  And intellectually, I knew my life was way better. I knew that everything was getting better, that I was fine, but...

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Emotionally, I remember going into my backyard and just weeping and like being in the morning, being unable to tie my shoes. I was like, I can't do it. Looking at my shoes, like, I can't do this. So I talked to a friend who was sober and he's like, look, dude, ride it out. If you see if you can make it like six months. At one point, I went to my family. I was like, y'all are gonna have to lock me up. Something's wrong with me. I'm not gonna drink, but I feel crazy. And a friend of mine told me, he's like, look, dude, you drank and did drugs and I, a lot of drugs, a lot of alcohol for 22 years. That

• 39:32Speaker 01

  changes the neural pathways in your brain. Shit gets fucked up. So the synapses were no longer connecting without alcohol. And he's like, it may take a little while for you to level out, but see if you can make it six months without going on drugs, because a psychiatrist is going to have a hard time accurately assessing what's wrong with you because you scrambled your brain for 22 years. You know, sometimes it's just tough and you gotta ride it out. So I waited, I made it to six months and I was still just overwhelmingly depressed. So then I went to a shrink and they prescribed me, you, they explained to

• 40:15Speaker 01

  me like, look, you may need a little, your brain needs a little kickstart producing serotonin again. You've abused it so long that the synapses will no longer connect and you might not have to be on it forever, but you might just need a little kickstart. So they put me on this drug called Pristiq at first, which I, it just sounds so posh.

• 40:39Mark Manson?

  It sounds like a Louis Vuitton.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And it's the Louis Vuitton bag of antidepressants, right? And I wasn't depressed, but I felt like I was coming down from cocaine all the time, like, and I was like, this sucks. So then he put me on this other drug called Lexapro and I was on that for about a year and a half and I leveled out. And I haven't had to take it at all. It just like. I, you know, that that was the thing you don't think about when you're partying so much is like you are doing very real, you're altering your brain chemistry.

• 41:16Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  And then when you do it for that long, it can have permanent, permanent pathways get burned.

• 41:23Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I've read that if you, if you're a chronic drinker for a long period of time, from the time you quit, it can take upwards of a year to even just for your brain to kind of get back to like default.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:37Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, bro. It, you know?

• 41:39Mark Manson?

  I believe it.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  I was also an acid dealer when I was younger. So like.

• 41:44Mark Manson?

  There's a lot of.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  There's a lot.

• 41:46Mark Manson?

  There's a lot going on.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  When I stopped doing that stuff, because I did that, you know, I, there was a good year or two where I was taking acid all the time. It took me about a year to come down.

• 41:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  For like the, I mean, I was functional. I didn't think I was, you know, in, on a different planet or anything, but the floor was still moving and the walls are still breathing. It took a while for things to get back to normal. So if, you know, you put stuff in your psychoactive substances in you, it's, it's going to mess with your brain.

• 42:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah. In your book, you talk about how you kind of have these two sides of yourself, like this, this eternally optimistic side and this kind of bleak nihilistic side.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:30Mark Manson?

  And how much, how much of the drug use and abuse was like an attempt to manage balancing those two sides? And then like, how have you managed those two sides of yourself since?

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Well, I think the drug and alcohol fed both sides. Particularly in the beginning, it fed the optimistic side, you know? It's like. Sure, you don't have any money, but you have a great buzz and it's a beautiful day. And you know, you'll figure out how to pay rent later. It's not that big of a deal. But as it progressed, it more and more and more fed the depressive side. So for me, being an active addiction to alcohol, I don't think I ever got strung out on drugs. I don't know how I avoided that.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  It wasn't for lack of trying, you know? But alcohol was was my baby. For me being in that, it was a constant roller coaster. It was up and down, up and down, up and down. And, you know, Buddha talked about the middle path. That sounded dreadfully boring boring to me. Who in the hell wants to walk down the street, the street narrow down the middle of the road? But for me, it's something I have strive, I've tried to strive for ever since because the the alcoholic or drug induced highs are wonderful.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  The lows are crushing and you don't, you can't live your life on a roller coaster. So now that I've been sober for 14 years, it's a matter of me self managing those two extremes to the best of my ability. And it's very much a process for me to this day. If I get angry or depressed about things, I really used to kick my own ass severely.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  I still do, but I'm, I'd be like, why are you depressed? Yeah. What's wrong with you, dude? You know, like your life is great and you're a piece of shit, which makes you even more depressed.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Now I've tried to come to the conclusion that, hey dude, this is, this is a temporary state. And of course, you're going to feel depressed because like the fire's out here. I was talking to you before we started this. Obviously, it was nothing I was experiencing directly, but the whole time those were going on for about a week. There was this constant low level hum of anxiety going on. And the optimistic guy would be like, what are you worried about? You're, you're in Virginia and nothing's on fire, you know? And that's not cool either. Right. Right? Yeah. That's not cool either.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  But the, the sort of depressed guy is just like, the world is ending. And I was constantly, I texted you to make sure you're okay, like constantly contacting all my friends out here.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Because that was so like anxious to me, at first I started kicking my butt a little bit, you know? I'm like, dude, you're being counterproductive now. But then I came to the conclusion like, yes, you're, you're going to have some anxiety. You have a lot of people you care about out there. Yeah. You know, and you, you shouldn't beat yourself up because you feel this. That in fact, the fact that you feel anxious shows, shows your humanity, that you have some compassion, that you are not an entirely self-centered asshole. Right. Entirely. Partly. Partly, but you're not entirely.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  So I've tried to, to learn to accept both aspects of my nature because they can both be useful. I think being too negative when happy moments come, it's a.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  I don't want to embrace them to the point that I ignore anything around me, but I should allow myself to have those happy moments.

• 47:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  And knowing, just like these sort of negative moments, this too shall pass.

• 47:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  And that's why the middle path is much more appealing to me now. It's constant work, though, constant, constant, constant.

• 47:19Mark Manson?

  You get pulled off in both directions all the time. It was interesting reading that chapter of your book, because it actually made me think about metal and metalheads. Because as a lifelong metalhead, my observation, and I think this is true about myself as well, is that metalheads are actually, I think most non-metalheads would be surprised at how nice and friendly metalheads are.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  They are.

• 47:43Mark Manson?

  If you go to a metal show and hang out around a mosh pit, people are actually much more polite than if you go, I don't know, to like a Taylor Swift concert or something like that. Like, people are incredibly conscientious and aware and caring in a way. And my observation over the years is that I think what draws a lot of people to metal is that they are very nice, friendly, caring people, but they have this darkness in them. But because they're so nice and friendly, they don't really let themselves access that darkness. And it's like metal's like a socially appropriate format to like access the darkness. Like, that definitely feels-

• 48:25Speaker 01

  It recognizes reality.

• 48:26Mark Manson?

  Yeah, like, that definitely feels true for myself. Like, I definitely, like, it's, I've thought for a long time, like, for me, the appeal of metal music or just heavy aggressive music in general, it's like, it is, it's a context where it's okay for like my inner nihilistic asshole.

• 48:48Mark Manson?

  Shithead demon face person to like come out briefly in a very specific venue and format. And then like, okay, now I'm back to like be nice, friendly Mark.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:59Mark Manson?

  You know?

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And you're 100% correct. Like, I mean, the satanic panic of the eighties, you know, everybody like Judas Priest is getting sued and all this crazy shit, you know? And they're like, these people are evil.

• 49:19Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Evil. I think there's still a bit of a cultural hangover from that. But my mom has met

• 49:28Speaker 01

  a lot of, you know, really well-known metal musicians and people from the hardcore scene as well, that some of them look pretty freaking scary, you know? And she's like, honey, your friends are so nice. And I'm like, yes. Yeah, they're great dudes.

• 49:47Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  You know, because I think it's a matter of not having to walk around with this sort of front that everything is okay all the time.

• 49:56Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because everything isn't okay all the time.

• 50:00Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  You know, that doesn't mean we have to spiral down into this pit of despair, but we should recognize it.

• 50:07Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I love a lot of different types of music, but there is something cathartic or like almost therapeutic about metal. At least for me personally, I'm sure.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  For many people.

• 50:19Mark Manson?

  I'm sure people feel this way about other types of music as well, but it's like, I think it's, there's a certain kind of aggression or anger that is relieved from you.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:31Mark Manson?

  After a good metal show.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 50:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Everybody walks away, you may walk away with a black eye, but you'll be smiling, you know? That's just the way it is. I think people look at it from the outside and it looks like this violent, chaotic thing. And it's, there's physical expression, you know, of those emotions, but, and there are jerks and whatever.

• 50:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  But for the great part, man, people are so cool.

• 51:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  And everybody walks out stoked.

• 51:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's, I guess, I mean, if you think about the role of music in human culture in general, like it's. Probably to help people process and express emotions that they normally aren't

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:18Mark Manson?

  able to like process and express like that is that is the fundamental purpose. You went through a fucking nightmare situation. About 12 years ago, I believe.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:32Mark Manson?

  12, 13 years. The Czech Republic.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:34Mark Manson?

  If you're open to, I'd be curious to like dive into that story and hear a little bit about those experiences of what you went through.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Well, basically what happened is we played a show in Prague in 2010. It was our first show. And it was in a small club. It was a nightmare. There was, they had a barricade, but it was pushed flush to the stage. So it's basically a bicycle rack plus pushed flush to the stage, which became a ladder. It was a small club. We had, because we have a security agreement with every club that we play, even the smaller clubs and our tour manager will go through what we expect. And there's a meeting. He did all that. Security showed up and just stood on the side of the stage and did nothing.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  So for the whole show, there are all these kids on for the entire show coming off, on and off the stage. It was just a nightmare, dangerous situation.

• 52:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah, climbing up and then stage diving.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, within, there's video of most of the show within 15 seconds. Like there's kids running on stage and we have equipment everywhere.

• 52:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  And you can't do your job. So there's just lots of.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  I should have stopped the show, right? In retrospect, should have stopped the show, but then if you stop the show, they get mad.

• 52:58Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  You know, so we got through it. It was not fun. And so we split and then, you know, everybody was like, that sucked. And then two years later, we come back to play our next show. We flew from, I believe Norway to Prague and landed at the airport in Prague. And I got off the plane and my band did. And I was very excited because Prague is a beautiful city. And I'd walked around it the day before and I wanted to go and and go get a coffee and go to, go to like some of Kafka's haunts or whatever. So I'm very excited. We get off the plane.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  And there, this woman is collecting, looking at people's passports as we're getting off the plane, which is kind of weird, but whatever. And I saw they took, they took my bass players and they were taking some of our crews and I handed her and they were diverting me and everybody in our crew into one room and everybody else got off the jet bridge, you know, at the end of the jet bridge to walk into the airport. They diverted us into one room. I walked in this room and my bass player was in there first and there were, I think, eight people, eight or nine people. There was a woman who turned out to be a detective and like three big, like Slavic plainclothes, like tough guy cops and then like five, four

• 54:25Speaker 01

  or five guys in masks with machine guns and the whole, yeah, they looked like they were there to get Bin Laden, basically. So, once they had all of us in there, this woman comes up to me and, and she has my passport in her hand and she says, "Are you David Blake?" And I'm like, "Yes." She goes, "This is for you. I need you to gather any medicines you have or anything you may need. You have to come with us." And I looked at this piece of paper and it was in English, kind of broken. It was a legal document, obviously, and I was being charged with the Czech equivalent of manslaughter because after our last show,

• 55:07Speaker 01

  apparently a young man was on stage. The charges said that I purposely threw him from the stage. He fell, hit his head, went to a coma, died a month later. And that had been two years ago. We had zero clue anybody had been injured, much less someone had died.

• 55:26Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  So I'm like, "What the fuck?" You know? So, they put me in a car and carried me off to the jail, the city jail in Prague. And I was there for three days and then they took me to Pankrac Prison, Remand Prison, which was, I think, 127, 137 years old at the time. This crumbling prison that the Nazis had when they had control of the Czech Republic. And I was there for 34 days. So, I was locked up for 37 days total.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  They gave me bail, which I paid. It was almost a quarter million dollars. We, my band paid it. Jeez.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  But then unlike America, where if you pay your bail, it's like, okay, cool. You're out, show up at the court date. There, the prosecuting attorney objected. He's like, no, we want to keep him in prison. So they doubled it. So you're pushing half a million dollars by this time. Luckily, we have some wealthy friends who loaned us the money he had offered to help us. So I got out. After being locked up in Prague for 37 days. We didn't let the prosecuting attorney know that I kind of, I kind of snuck out of the country because he could have objected again and I would have been rearrested.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  And I left and flew back to America and went on stage like 10 days later at Nott Fest in Iowa. And then we had to go and tour because I had to pay for the five lawyers I had. Six months later, I went back to Prague for a month, month and a half. Yeah. To stand trial and was found not guilty. So, uh, yeah, it was a very sad situation.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  The American government had been contacted by the Czech government after this young man had died and like, we want to investigate this guy. Maybe in connection with this young man's death, talking about me because there were people saying I had run and shoved him off the stage. And the American government said, yeah, this sounds like nonsense. No, we won't cooperate with you. But the American government never let me know. So it's not like, oops, you got a parking ticket.

• 58:02Mark Manson?

  Yeah, right.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Someone died.

• 58:03Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  You know, and had I been aware of that fact, I would have gone there to deal with it.

• 58:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  You know, um, but they didn't let me know. So I wound up in prison doing, going through all this nonsense. And, um, I felt compelled to go back, uh, to go to trial because they wouldn't have extradited me. Government would have, the American government would have, would not have cooperated with that.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Because I felt obligated to try and provide the family of this young man, the answers, any answers I had, the best of my ability.

• 58:44Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Once again, it's not like a parking ticket.

• 58:47Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  All these, these poor people, they lost their son. All they knew is that he had gone to go see my van and had died a month later. That's very serious. So also I wanted to be made aware that if I held any sort of responsibility in this matter, I needed to face up to that and be held accountable. Because, um, you know, I hate to tie everything back to drinking and alcohol, but like I was, and I wasn't drunk the night of the show. I knew that for a fact.

• 59:21Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  For so long, I ran away from my problems and my feelings and my issues by putting drugs and alcohol on top of me. So when I was arrested, I'd been sober about a year and a half. I went to prison sober.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  I knew that if I did not go back and do my best to provide these people with some answers, then I would have just been running from a problem. And if I can convince myself that I don't need to be held accountable in this situation, then it's only a hop, skip and a jump until I can convince myself it's not a big deal. Take a drink, you know, and then I would have probably just killed myself.

• 59:59Mark Manson?

  Yeah. What was your, your state of mind going into that prison? Like what, did you know what was going on? Did you, how long did you think you were going to be there? Like?

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  I thought it was all a huge mistake at first. But the, the weird thing, we've been talking about ideas and being an artist. The weirdest thing was, is when they arrested me at the airport, all of this happened very quickly. I can't say. Exactly how long it took from them handing me this warrant and then to me getting in the car, but you know, no longer than probably three or four minutes. But when it started occurring, wow, time slowed down and I had a conscious thought. I was like, you need to pay very close attention to everything that is happening to you right now.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  You need to be taking notes. It was like a camera in my brain just start clicking. Not only because this is important for your well being, but this is going to be something you're going to write about later. And it seemed strange and almost inappropriate to have that sort of thought process going on at the time I'm being arrested, but that's the way my brain works now.

• 1:01:18Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  You know, everything comes in and I'm like, this is something that might potentially be output in some form or the other artistically later. So I was very hyper aware of my surroundings and time seemed to slow down. But it, when I went in, I felt, oh, man, I don't, it's, it's kind of hard to put words on, on the feeling. Just, I tried not to have expectations of this is going to be resolved in a, in a couple of days, which I thought it would be at first. But then as time stretched on, and I didn't get out of jail, I stayed in

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  prison and they, you know, it looks like your bail isn't going to work out. I tried really to stop thinking about leaving and tried to stay really focused and stay in the moment as to what exactly was happening right there. And no, I didn't know half of what was going on. Very few people spoke English in there. I didn't have a computer, no internet, no cell phone. My lawyer, my Czech lawyer would come to see me sometimes. And there were a few prisoners that spoke English in there, but not very well. Like, we went out to the yard one day and this prisoner, I remember he comes up to me and he goes,

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  He's trying really hard to form the, the English words. He's like Ozzy Osbourne. And I'm like, yeah, I know Ozzy. What about it? He goes, Ozzy Osbourne says good thing for you. And I'm like, what? He's like, Ozzy Osbourne says good thing for you. And I'm like, okay, maybe Ozzy said something, you know? And, and him and Sharon had, and they had actually written a letter to the judge that, which I still have a copy of it, that said, you know, we've known this guy since 2004.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  He's a good dude and we're not asking you not to charge him, but please just honor his bail and let him go. And we will come and we will put on an Ozfest at our expense in, in the Czech Republic. And you can donate any, all the money to whatever charitable proceeds you want. Just let this dude go. Let him get a chance to stand trial. So, you know, there was a lot of people in the music community speaking out for me, but I had zero clue.

• 1:03:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Cause I was stuck in, in a, a misfit song, dude. That's what it was like. It was crazy. It would, they would never, that prison would never be allowed to be open today in America. They'd nuke it and turn it into a Walmart immediately. It was crazy.

• 1:04:14Mark Manson?

  So you really, your approach was just try not to have any expectation, focus on taking it day by day.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Day by day.

• 1:04:22Mark Manson?

  And.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  And to remain grateful for the things that I have in that moment, rather than upset for the things that I don't have.

• 1:04:30Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Including my physical freedom.

• 1:04:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  So I, you know, I'm sitting in prison and I'm like, this sucks. And food was horrible and nobody speaks the language. And I don't know if someone's going to try and stab me because I don't know how people are viewing me. Cheks are not very outwardly emotive.

• 1:04:47Mark Manson?

  Emotive.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  So when they're speaking and, and everyone knew I was in there, like the first day I walked into Population. And I wasn't in some sort of celebrity cell or either. I was in Population. It was like when the needles. On the record, like, everybody looks at me, ooh, there's the American rock star.

• 1:05:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  You know, and the Czech papers were, particularly this one tabloid, which is the biggest selling paper in the Czech Republic, was painting me as some sort of like murderous Viking American guy, you know, like, they printed all sorts of nonsense, like, they said I'd kicked a woman to death or some crazy shit, like, yeah, to where my lawyers had to threaten to sue them. So everybody knew, I think, more than me, at least what the external perception of my situation was.

• 1:05:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  So it was, I don't know, I really had no choice but to come to some acceptance and also to remain grateful, because I was like, this sucks, right? But I'm not in Afghanistan in a Quonset hut right now with, like, AK-47 rounds whipping over my head.

• 1:06:00Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  And there are guys going through that.

• 1:06:04Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  You know, there are men and women stationed, like, in those situations, and there's people somewhere going through something much worse than me. The food sucks, but at least I have food.

• 1:06:14Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  You know, and I tried to really keep that in the forefront of my mind. It helped me immensely.

• 1:06:20Mark Manson?

  What lessons have you taken away from that experience?

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  Don't go to prison. It sucks, bro.

• 1:06:28Mark Manson?

  Let's, we'll put that in the show notes, in case people, it's not clear for people.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  I think for me, you know, the further I stay away from, the further, the more time that goes from that until now, it's harder to remember, it's hard to remember just how bad it was, you know, and yet I somehow amazingly managed to stay relatively calm through it. So now, when I get upset over something relatively minor, and the big things in life, like, if a, some sort of catastrophe happens right now, I'm your guy, right? I'm good.

• 1:07:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  Right? We're gonna handle it because I'm calm and I'm level headed and I get focused. But if the coffee maker breaks.

• 1:07:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's all bets are off.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  It's horrible and I'm like, or if I, you know, I can't get my computer to work and I have to call the AI assistant and it's just like, fuck, fuck, fuck, I'm going to fucking lose my mind. Right? That's the stuff that gets me. It's the little things and the further I stay away, the further I move away from this horrible experience I have, I forget. So I have to remind myself sometimes like, dude, you were in prison.

• 1:07:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  You were facing five to 10. They don't give you time off for good behavior. You could have gotten out two years ago and you're flipping out over there being no parking.

• 1:08:07Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  You know, what the fuck is wrong with you? So I have to really remind myself of that. And, you know, on the bookshelf beside my writing desk, there's a picture of the prison. I went back and took when I went back for trial. I took this picture of this clock because there's a clock in the yard and the paint is all peeling and it's on the cover of Dark Days. This photo is. That was the only clock I had for a month, once a day to go out and look at the time for an hour, you know? And I keep that up there. I keep this picture up there to remind me, you were somewhere real bad.

• 1:08:46Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  And yes, whatever you're going through right now sucks. Sometimes it's real life things. Sometimes it's inconsequential bullshit that I let, you know, get it get under my skin. But you are in prison. Square yourself away, soldier.

• 1:09:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's, it's crazy and it is so interesting too, because like the value of keeping that reminder like front and center, even though it is probably one of the worst experiences of your life, you know, having that, that reminder consistently.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's also, I'm alive, though.

• 1:09:23Mark Manson?

  It sets perspective.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  I'm alive to, to remember that.

• 1:09:27Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  This, the family of this young man, their son's gone.

• 1:09:31Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  That's horrible, horrible, man. What I went through is nothing compared to that loss.

• 1:09:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  You know, so I have to be cognizant of that as well.

• 1:09:44Mark Manson?

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  If I want to have, you know, any sort of accurate assessment of myself as an empathetic, compassionate man with a correctly calibrated moral compass, I have to keep that first and foremost in my mind.

• 1:09:58Mark Manson?

  Totally, totally. It's an incredible story, man. It's fucking crazy.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  So don't go to prison.

• 1:10:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah, don't go to prison, kids.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Y'all don't do stupid shit that'll get you in prison. You aren't a gangster, trust me.

• 1:10:13Mark Manson?

  Before we, we wrap up here, I'm curious, um, for anybody, for young people out there who aspire to maybe have a career in music or as a writer or as photography, any sort of creative field, like what, what's your go-to advice?

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  Do what you want to do.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  Do it. That's the only way you're going to get better at it. Um, for music, it's always been the same advice for me is practice as much as you can. Practice, practice, practice, practice. We used to practice six days a week when nobody cared about us. Um, practice, practice, practice and play as much as possible, anywhere to anyone at any time. For us, that meant playing someone's basement for three people, you know, going on tour in a van, playing punk rock squats or whatever. That's the world we come from. We did not wait for someone to hand us something, you know? Um, I think.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  In some ways, because the internet and social media, the internet existed, but it was not nearly as prevalent as it is now. Not everybody had a laptop. Smartphones didn't exist when we started doing this kind of thing. In some ways, it's easier to get your, your stuff out now. And for young people, I think the democratization of, of recording technology and all that stuff is great. It's easier to get your stuff out now, but I think there's also in the younger generation, this sort of feeling of constantly being judged.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  Right? And I think it produces a sort of anxiousness in them.

• 1:12:06Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  You know, and you can't give a fuck about that.

• 1:12:09Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:12:10Mark Manson?

  It's interesting because it's, you know, you mentioned playing in a basement to three people. That night, if you guys sucked that night, the stakes pretty low because it's only three people are gonna know how, how much you sucked. Whereas today, theoretically, if you put something out and it sucks, theoretically, you know, the whole world could know tomorrow.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Right. But let's look at the reality of the situation here. This is, I think that's the sort of, the problem with, with this feeling of being judged on the internet, right? It's not real.

• 1:12:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  It's not fucking real. You know what is real? Playing in a bar and having a beer bottle smash against your head.

• 1:12:48Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  That's fucking real, bro. That happened.

• 1:12:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  You know? If I can handle that, if you can handle 50 people screaming, "You fucking suck," and throwing shit at you, or fist fighting the audience, or whatever, just total chaos in real life, that has real world consequences. Someone writing, "You suck."

• 1:13:13Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  On, you know, Instagram or whatever is that's not reality. They aren't in your house yelling at you. You're a failure. They just aren't. You have to be able to disconnect from that. If, you know, obviously we want people to like our music and we want people to come see us or whatever. But I do not give a flying fuck who doesn't like our music. If I did, I would never leave the house.

• 1:13:43Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  You can't give a fuck. I hate to keep saying it, but you just can't, bro.

• 1:13:49Mark Manson?

  It's well said, man. It's well said. What did you do in those moments with the, the people shouting and the beer bottles breaking?

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Keep on fucking rocking, bro.

• 1:13:58Mark Manson?

  Just a big middle finger back at the crowd.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  That's right. Very combative, man. Some, I mean, sometimes because it was, you were asking, you know, in the early days, it was just like, destroy.

• 1:14:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Like, that's part of it, you know? Someone's gonna huck something at you, you know?

• 1:14:13Mark Manson?

  I think part of it too is just make something that you love so much that you're willing to be hated for it.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And if you do, if you do get some sort of measure of success or recognition, you have to be prepared. People will hate you for that.

• 1:14:31Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  You pay your bills, fuck you.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  You pay your bills doing something that you love, so fuck you, buddy.

• 1:14:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  Well, I don't.

• 1:14:40Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  I think that's where that comes from.

• 1:14:42Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:14:43Mark Manson?

  A little bit of envy, yeah.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, or, you know, just, you know, if you want this, if you want this life, this life as an artist or a writer or whatever, you have to want all of it.

• 1:14:55Mark Manson?

  Yeah, there's no world where you create something and everybody loves it. So it's, you, you have to get comfortable with the, the disapproval as early as possible. I think, I think that's like a probably a good piece of advice.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  100%.

• 1:15:08Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Become accustomed to that.

• 1:15:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah. The sooner, the sooner that gets comfortable, the better off you are.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, the more you're going to continue to focus and push and work on what you want to do, what's important to you.

• 1:15:21Mark Manson?

  Well said. All right, Randy, the new book is out. It's called Just Beyond the Light.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15:28Mark Manson?

  Your memoir, Dark Days, also covers some of the stuff that we talked about. That's in bookstores everywhere. Thank you for so, so much for coming on, dude.

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me. It's a blast, man. It's been. Over the years, seeing your book in, you know, in bookstores and then finally figuring out, oh, wait, there's a connection. It's been a trip.

• 1:15:49Mark Manson?

  I have to say, the, the night we, we hung out at your show, seeing how many metalheads were, were fans of mine.

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Of you, yeah.

• 1:15:57Mark Manson?

  Was like, I, it was so, it made me so happy.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  So great, you dude. Our drummer Art was just like.

• 1:16:03Mark Manson?

  Oh, he fanboyed to me.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He's like, Mark Manson's really coming. I'm like, yeah. And then you were so kind to send him a book, you know, signed.

• 1:16:11Mark Manson?

  Great dude, great dude.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know?

• 1:16:13Mark Manson?

  It was a blast, dude. Thank you.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:16:15Mark Manson?

  Yep. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck podcast is produced by Drew Burney, edited by Andrew Nishimura, Jessica Choi is our videographer and sound engineer. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.