During a recent appearance on The New Man podcast with Tripp Lanier, Randy Blythe talked about how he got sober on the Metallica tour.
The Lamb of God frontman said the idea that creative people need alcohol or drugs is a myth. Early in his career, alcohol helped with stage fright, especially in chaotic shows. But over time, it became a problem. He now believes musicians don’t need substances to perform well.
Blythe reflected on how he realized that, saying, “I had to get beat on the head repeatedly that I was going to die if I didn’t stop drinking. I can tell you about my first sober show if you want [to hear it]. We were in Australia, and we were on tour with a band called Metallica. And we had been out with them for about a year over the course of two, two and a half years.”
“And I had a suite. It was very nice. We’re in Australia. I’ve got money in the bank. I’m on tour with f*cking Metallica. It’s the biggest heavy metal band in history, not to mention one of the biggest bands in the world, period. I’ve got money in the bank account. My band, I’ve learned somehow to function well enough, drunk, that I can still do my job,” the singer continued.
He went on to say, “I still had a romantic partner at that time, a longterm romantic partner that ended eventually, but at that time I still had her. And everything on the outside was good. And I looked out over this street and all this cool shit and I realized I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to exist.”
“And I was, like, ‘Hey, I have to quit drinking.’ And so I asked the universe, I was, like, ‘God, please help me.’ Whatever’s out there. I had this moment where it wasn’t, like… I didn’t have a picture of a bearded dude in the sky or anything, but I just asked — I use the term ‘God’ for lack of a better term. I asked, ‘Whatever is out there, please help me because I don’t know what to do.’ I knew then, like, ‘Let’s stop and try drinking,’ and a peace washed over me, like immense calm in that moment,” Randy further shared about his mindset at the time.
He then added, “When I was just, like, ‘I’m f*cked,’ ’cause that’s the only way, if you have a problem, you’re ever gonna get better, is if you realize that you’re f*cked. It was a realization of reality, to put it simply recognizing that I was indeed totally f*cked.”
“So I went to the gig, and I showed up early and I found a couple of those guys. I’m, like, ‘Look, I’m f*cked. Help me. I’m trying to be sober.’ And they were, like, ‘We got you, bro.’ And my hair was still long then. I walked on stage that night in front of 14,000 people, falling to pieces, weeping hysterically. Luckily, like I said, I had long hair, so I kept it in my face. … I made it through that show. And that was my first day sober,” Blythe also said of his path to becoming sober.
Blythe’s second book, ‘Just Beyond The Light: Making Peace With The Wars Inside Our Head,’ will be released on February 18, 2025, through Grand Central Publishing.
