Randy Blythe
Appearances
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Coming up next on Passion Struck. Fear is a real MF-er, a top shelf grade A son of a bitch that will let you ruin your whole week if you let it run the show. That's a sentence in the book. And in this world of so much information coming at us all the time, it's hard to filter out what we should be worried about and what we shouldn't.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And just started externalizing that anger. And that's why the punk rock scene so appealed to me because most of the lyrics were political or societal based around social issues at the time. And I can transfer that anger in a righteous way to what I view as valid or just causes, things you should be mad about.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Yes. And I think it was a combination of things because I came a little bit later to drinking than you did. I drank and did drugs pretty heroically for 22 years, right? I mean, Olympic level drinking, especially for a skinny dude like myself, I could... put away a case of beer a day, no problem, along with shots and whatever else I managed to shovel down my gullet because I was a garbage can.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Right about my senior year in high school, a couple of things happened. I got my first real serious girlfriend. And she was an extremely pretty girl. And everybody was all of a sudden very confused. They're like, how did you get that? How did you pull that off? And I'm like, she's an artist. We're talking about the cure. She and I listened to the cure together. So. I got my first real girlfriend.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I'm going to this art school. I'm becoming more and more involved in this sort of underground music culture. And I'm finding my people. But at the same time, during that same time, I started doing some drinking on the weekends with some friends of mine who we used to party in their garage. And that really made things better. Finally, I felt okay.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
You mentioned talking to girls or feeling comfortable in social situations. That did all that for me. It removed this self-consciousness or this feeling like these people are looking at me and judging me to where I don't care. So what if they are? I'm having a good time. And at first, alcohol provided that sort of relief. It lifted that horrible feeling.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
blanket, that wet blanket of what I felt was societal judgment on me to where I did not care. And it was wonderful for a little while. And that's a very common thing you hear. I know a lot of sober people. I've been sober for 14 years now. I know a lot of sober people and almost all of them will say male or female, whatever.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
All of a sudden I was a, I could talk to members of the opposite sex or if they were gay to the same sex, I could hang out and go in public. And I felt a part of, I felt as if something had changed. And that was very much the case for me. It just made life easier. It was an answer to this unnamed issue. I had this unnamed problem because it wasn't,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
At 17 years old, I was not sitting there analyzing myself through a Freudian eye. Well, you're excluded. You have societal anger. You're self-judgmental, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was just like, something is wrong. Something is wrong here. And then all of a sudden, these few things happened and things started to feel right. And alcohol was definitely a big part of that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I realized that more and more. The more I stay sober, the longer I stay sober, I look back at my earliest drinking and I realize it was fairly abnormal even for like people go to college and they drink some or they drink a little bit in high school. Mine was a bit more intense. And I'm realizing that and seeing the signs now only with the benefit of hindsight.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I've seen them. I don't think we have them in Virginia.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
A recreational beverage distribution manager.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I bet it did. I was a... recreational pharmaceutical salesman myself for a little bit.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Through miscreants and criminals, they brought you to this world.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
In the beginning, we were booking our own tours. We weren't traveling around on a tour bus or anything. We were in a series of constantly breaking down condo line vans. I mean, we've literally changed the transmission in a van in a Walmart parking lot before. Crazy stuff. And we were playing mostly like VFW halls or people's basements, punk rock squats, things like that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And hoping for maybe enough gas money to get down the road. and maybe a plate of spaghetti to eat for dinner and someone's floor to sleep on. That's what we'd say. Hey, on stage, can anyone give us a place to stay tonight? Because there was no money for a hotel or anything. At that time, it was very exciting because you're doing this, you're doing this not, certainly not for any reason,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
hope of monetary compensation whatsoever it's for the love of playing music it's for this thing you want to express yourself that's how this was a manner i had found by loosely call it singing by singing in this band it was a manner of me expressing myself and surprise after a while for the first time in my life people i didn't even know started to
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
enjoy the manner in which I was expressing myself artistically. So it was very gratifying, but it was also a very big adventure in those early days. Because like I said, we were not exactly making any money. It was just like, we're going to go out and wow, I get to go to Chicago and see what Chicago is.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
That was about the furthest we made it before we eventually wound up going in tour buses eventually. And we wound up going to California and so forth. So it was very exciting, but it's also a great place to really develop and hone a taste for alcohol and other substances. Because you're not beholden to getting up in the office. And if you are drunk on stage, that was expected. That's the norm.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So you could get away with things that people at a normal job simply could not get away with. Right? I mean... Alcohol is my one true love. I managed to never get strung out on drugs. I do not know how because I get a ton of them. But I used to stand on stage and be like, who's got the drugs? Who's got the pills? And like magic, people would... come up and hand me drugs.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And that's not something you can do in a normal job. If you were going to go into your job at a law firm, you can't just stand up on desk and be like, all right, I want some cocaine. And who's got it? You'd be fired immediately. HR would come in with a security guard and carry you out. So live existing in that sort of environment was a great place to develop my alcoholism.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And it was a lot of fun at first until it wasn't.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I mean, the part I'm talking about, as you mentioned, I really look at the history of where I'm going and so forth. And I... really love on going on tour i love going to go see where uh writers lived when they were back in their early days of their career for instance ernest hemingway a huge fan very obsessed with his
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
sort of lost generation period when he lived in Paris with Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein and all that stuff. So I'll go to Paris and I will walk the left bank and I will go have a coffee in the Dome or the Select, all the cafes where he wrote. And I'll go see where he lived and
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Or I've been in Santiago in Chile and I will go to Las Chascona, which is Pablo Neruda's house in outside Santiago, one of his residences, and go through there and just look at the environment in which he created, in which he wrote. Or one of my favorite more modern authors, this guy Pat Conroy, who's a masterful storyteller from Beaufort, South Carolina.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I will go down there and walk through Beaufort, South Carolina and look up where he lived when he was a young school teacher there and was working on his first books, his beginning of his life as an author.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I will just look at these places and examine them and see the environment, or at least an echo of the environment that they existed in this place that brought forth this creativity from them. And I'll look and I'll examine it. And I get this feeling like, oh, I understand why. they would write about this why this place was so critical to them expressing themselves
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And it's just like a personal belief of mine that I think that sort of creative energy may linger. Maybe it's wistful thinking. I don't know. But I'd love to go and see these places and immerse myself in these places. And in my town in Richmond, Virginia, Edgar Allan Poe got his start there.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So I've been to where he had his first job at a newspaper and been to where his house was when he grew up and just sat around and thought about – wow, this place produced this person. And I'm thinking very much about the environment that they were in. And I look at what is there now. And then I think about my own environment.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I think, what is it about wherever I am right now that makes me want to create? And I think that that sort of energy maybe one day will linger from me. Hopefully some young kid will be
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
cruising through the alleyways in richmond virginia and they'll be like who won that dude randy from lamb of god he used to walk through this alleyway because i did all of them any alleyway you walk through in the fan that's me and maybe this is where he came up with this idea for this song it's just something i really enjoy going to go see where artists work i don't know if that answered your question
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Yeah. And you're talking about the Beatles, not the biggest Beatles fan, but I've been to made of ale studios who to do like the, what became the inheritance of the peel sessions. John peel is a producer there who used to, have his own radio show, very influential in spreading new music in England.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
But we were in there and his producer, the guy who inherited the peel show was showing, he's like, see this two inch tape. This is just sitting in the corner, dusty. And he was like, the Beatles did a record on that tape machine. And I'm just like, wow. It's so cool. I just love seeing the little pieces of history and inserting myself in that history in a way. That's also important.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
It's not just consuming these places, but I think it feeds my energy because like I said, I never thought we would ever make any money doing this music. My wildest, wildest dream was to play a club called CBGB in New York. Because that was the birthplace of punk rock. It's where the Ramones and Blondie and those guys got their start back in the early mid-70s, even before the Sex Pistols.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So I thought maybe one day we'll get to play CBGB. And in 1997, I believe it was, it's 97 or 98, we got to play CBGB for the first time. And I walked on stage and I... It's it was just a dump, man. But so many great bands played there and it was such a great place to play. And I walked on stage and I felt as if I was walking into history.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I inserted myself into the noble history of that smelly, smelly club. And I did. We got to play it several times and no one can ever take that from me. It's something very dear to my heart.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Sure.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Okay, so I remember precisely when it happened because, like I said at first, alcohol really enhanced my ability to be social, to not feel like such a freak, and to feel more comfortable in my own skin. And so, naturally, I pursued that. I pursued that to great lengths, to Herculean lengths. And then
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
It stopped working and it stopped working a lot sooner than I thought, but because by then I was addicted to it. I was an alcoholic, so I drank and drank and drank and it would shut up my head a little bit. The voices in my head, because the head is the killer. You can't sit up here too long. My head is a bad neighborhood that I should not go up in without adult supervision.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So I just tried to shut it up by drinking, stuffing down these feelings and this horrible feeling. miserable existence that i was living and one night we we were on tour with metallica and we were in australia and we were mains we we did about a year over the course of two years of as main support for metallica which is the biggest metal band in history and one of the biggest
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
bands on the face of the planet period when we were in australia which is an absolutely amazing place i don't know if you've ever been but it's just so cool and i had money in my bank probably 20 times to live there for a period of time so yes i know australia extremely well Yeah, it's great. It's great. So I had money in my bank account. I was still married at the time. I had my band.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
We had fans. We're on tour in Australia opening up for this band that most metal bands could only ever dream of meeting, much less being main support for. And I went out on the night of October 17th, 2010. And I went out with some friends. And I went drinking. Started at an Irish pub in Brisbane. And ended up alone in my hotel room drinking beer. And I drank and drank and drank and drank.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And it stopped working. I was left with nothing but myself. And I was miserable. I'd already... Been through a lot of consequences. I've been to jail for being stupid and drunk. I've been suicidal. I tried to kill myself. I wound up in a mental ward while drunk. I've woken up in the hospital with broken bones on tour because I got drunk and walked off a roof at a house party.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I almost killed myself. I did that drunk. I got divorced once. I got drunk. I did drugs. broke before because I drank everything up. I just drank through all that, right? I just drank through it because I could drink at people. I could drink at my problems. Like this is the fault of everybody else but me. And then on this one night, I drank and drank and drank and drank and it stopped working.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I woke up on a hotel balcony on October 18th, 2010 in Brisbane, Australia. And I walked out on the balcony and it was sunny day and Brisbane Botanical Gardens were down the street to the left and they're beautiful and they have awesome plants and weird animals. And then across the street was one of my favorite bookstores I'd ever been to. And I love books. I'm a huge nerd.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And then down the street were all these great restaurants. And I looked at all this stuff and I had this feeling that I did not want to exist anymore. I didn't feel like I wanted to kill myself. I just felt I just wanted to cease being, period. I felt utterly empty. And I'm on tour with Metallica. You should not feel that way. You should feel like this is a huge part of my career.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I felt completely empty. And I finally came to the realization, maybe what other people have been telling me, maybe there's a bit of truth to it. Maybe I ought to try and quit drinking and things will get better. So I looked on this table, on this balcony, and I saw all the beer bottles from the night before. And because I'm OCD about things, I had arranged them extremely neatly.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
All the labels were facing the same way. And they were in a very neat row on this little table. And I looked at these beer bottles and I realized they were a metaphor for my life because I had become nothing more but an empty container to pour alcohol into. And while everything on the outside of my life, like I had a job, had a wife, had money, everything looked orderly like those beer bottles.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
But all it would take would just be a little push and everything's broken. Everything falls and shatters. So. It was not a big dramatic thing like you. It wasn't like I woke up under a bridge in a trench coat, you know, clutching a bottle of rock gut wine with no money in my pocket. I just woke up on a hotel balcony and wanted to cease to exist. And I'm like, I have to try something different.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I haven't had a drink or any drugs since that day.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
The entire continent is nailed down by pubs. There's one on every corner.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Yeah, sure. If you're a guy, Jean, you're over there doing business, but that's interesting that the relationship of alcohol and the Japanese culture.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
corporate culture because you'll be in tokyo or osaka on a weeknight and you'll see these businessmen in these suits just completely trashed unable to walk and it is my understanding that within that what they call the salary man culture if the boss says we're going out drinking then you are expected to go out to drink
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
with the boss and they get it in they get it in and i think they have a different view of the state of intoxication as well because i've heard that from several different places if you're drunk and the boss makes you come out and and drink with you and you say or do something rude or embarrassing It's not talked about the next day. Oh, he was drunk. That's okay.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So it's like a pressure valve, I think. There's tightly constrained social roles. There's many beautiful things about Japanese culture. I don't know if you've been there as well, but it's one of my favorite places on earth. Yeah. they have a saying, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. I don't think I'd make it too long as a native Japanese guy.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Wow. That's beautiful country as well, man. We've been there two or three times now. Crazy shows there for us.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Well, that's the thing. It's trying to numb the chaos. It was, I keep on talking about the voices in my head. I'm not schizophrenic. It's not literally like I had someone saying this or that or the other. And just speaking of the constant state of emotional agitation within me and upset at the fact that the world is
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
continued to behave in a manner that i did not see as acceptable so i would drink a drink to numb that and but it was also numbing and dumbing me and i got away with that for a long time also because i believed in the cultural myth of the alcoholic slash
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
addict writer slash musician slash artist artist that's a great cultural myth and some of my favorite writers were these masculine dudes like Hemingway and uh Hunter S Thompson and Bukowski like every other angst riddled 20 year old male or whatever I love these writers and I still do so I did all the things that these great writers did like I drank and they but
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Did a respectable amount of womanizing and even got some fistfights from time to time. I did all the stuff that those great writers were doing, except for the writing part. Right? I'm practicing to become an artist. So I bought into that cultural mythos of the damaged artist, the alcoholic artist.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And it's certainly, that's a fear, I think, amongst musicians, writers, artists of all sorts that become alcoholics or drug addicts, that when they stop doing whatever their preferred poison is, their creative abilities will abandon them. I have found it's complete nonsense. In fact, I did not become a published author until I became sober.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I talked a lot about writing a book one day when I was drinking, but it wasn't until I stripped away that poison I was putting in my brain that I was able to exert myself creatively long enough to complete a book. And it's, as you well know, it's not an easy task writing a book.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I think for me, I didn't have much choice but to jump into the chaos as a sober person because I realized on that day, I realized when I woke up on that day in Australia that I'm going to die if I keep doing this. It's going to kill me because I did not drink just a little bit. I drank a lot and I had tried to quit drinking while at home a few times and it didn't work.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I would not drink but still take drugs of some sort to to level out until i could go back on tour and get drunk again so i'm on tour in australia with metallica and i have this moment and i'm like i have to stop and i have to stop now it cannot wait anymore i cannot push this to the side anymore and i
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
my first day sober i woke up and at this sort of realization that i had to at least try and there were some sober guys on the tour from metallica's crew including james hetfield the guitar player so i went i didn't drink until i got to the show that evening and i'm like please help me please i don't know what i'm doing i'm losing my mind and
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
there were actually three of us got sober on that tour, three or four of us from me and some of Metallica's crew. So there was these group of dudes who were sober and I'm like, please help me, please help me. I know you guys quit drinking, please. And they're like, just breathe, dude. And, and talk to me and calm me down and told me I could do it and gave me some advice.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And so I walked on stage that night with a banging hangover, um, on stage in front of 14,000 people. And I had, luckily I had long hair still then because it was in my face because I was weeping uncontrollably on stage in front of 14,000 screaming Australians. And I was just like, my life. And then luckily I'm not Pavarotti. I scream for a living. So...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
It's screaming out these lyrics in front of 14,000 people, just crying for the whole 45 minutes I was on stage with my hair and my face and nobody noticed. I got through it, but that was my first day sober. That was my first day sober. I think it had to happen that way for me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I think I had to inject myself into, I had to raw dog reality right from the start on tour because I think in order for me to understand that I could do this, I have to get sober. I have to maintain that sobriety no matter what my surroundings are. And if I can get sober on tour, surrounded by free alcohol and free drugs, uh, Anybody can do it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I know guys who've gotten sober living in a crack house before too. There's different levels of difficulty, but if anyone is having a problem, you think you can't get sober because this situation isn't right or this condition isn't right. It's nonsense. If you have a problem and you know this and you want to change, you can't wait, but only so long because it might kill you.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
You're eventually going to have to try it. And For me, it was on tour. And so I didn't really have a choice about how, not if I want to continue being a musician. And I got sober when I'm 39 years old. It's not, it was a little bit late for me to go back to school and become a lawyer or something. My career choices are limited at this point.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So I'm just grateful I was able to do it and I did it with some help.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
100% fear. Can I cuss on this? I like, I'm trying not to be vulgar. I mean, you can. I won't let's just say I believe there's a sentence in the book right since I am here to talk about my book in a way there's a sentence in the book and it's about fear and it talks about how fear is there's a whole thing about different fears that I have faced so there is
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Fear is a real MF-er, a top shelf grade A son of a bitch that will let you ruin your whole week if you let it run the show. That's a sentence in the book. And I think in this world of so much information coming at us all the time, it's hard to filter out information. What we should be worried about and what we shouldn't, I think, in one way.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I think that's apparent in the rising level of anxiety in young people as well. But it's affecting people our age, definitely. I feel it myself. There's so much information and there's this 24-7 news cycle. And much of it is horrible. And much of it is bad. And there's just conflict and natural disasters and chaos.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
political instability and warfare and and it's just like this constant bad and it it causes this automatic sort of reaction in in our um our nervous system the limbic system starts working up and you start internalizing these things and feeling them and after a while it becomes you know this constant grinding state of low-level anxiety i think and
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I think once something has passed, a danger or whatever, something that you should be afraid of, let's say a crocodile attacks you or something. Once that danger is passed, the adrenaline dumps down and you move forward. I think now. the fear has been ratcheted up. And in fact, Lamb of God has a song called Engage the Fear Machine.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And it's about this constant media doom and gloom, like constant negativity. And it is true that there are bad things happening in the world at all times. There is no doubt about it. And right now I'm experiencing quite a bit of anxiety and fear for friends of mine in Los Angeles, because we're recording this while Los Angeles is on fire. And I spent the last few days
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Every day I remember someone else who lives out there. I'm like, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay? Is your house there? And it has been this overwhelming feeling of anxiety. And that is really happening. And these are not abstract people to me. These are people I care very deeply about, friends of mine that have had long-term relationships.
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All that being said, I'm over here on the East Coast. I'm not in the middle of a wildfire in California right now, right? So this feeling of fear and anxiety has been ratcheted up within me. And if I do not dial it back and I do not take stock of the reality of my situation, which is I'm sitting here in my study with all my books on the internet doing this lovely podcast with you.
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If I don't stop that anxiety, it's just going to ruin everything. And I think society in general is riddled with anxiety, perhaps not entirely because of, but I think...
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Thank you so much. I'm first and foremost, a music fan, and I've gotten to know almost all the bands I listened to growing up and in my twenties. And it's just so cool for me to hear those stories as well. So I'm glad to talk to you, man.
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this constant to negativity is accelerating this sort of anxiety hangover we all wake up with every day i think and it's for me it's a process of trying to stay present and trying to stay cognizant of what the reality of my situation is and looking at that realizing that in this moment i'm okay and then
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If there's anything I can do to alleviate the suffering of other people, then I can take action, right? If I'm calm and looking at myself and looking at my situation with clear eyes, then I can actually take action. think and plan and do something to actually make the situation better rather than just sit here clutching my pearls and wringing my hands. Like, this is so terrible.
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This is so terrible. And I'm guilty of that. I am, but I'm trying so hard to fight against that. And I mean, right before this conversation, we're talking about the wildfires in LA and I, for the last five, six days, I've constantly checking on my friends and remembering someone else, as I said, and I've felt like this overwhelming anxiety and I've wanted to make things better.
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And I was talking to my girlfriend right before this and we've donated some money trying to figure out what I can do. But I realized, oh yeah, I'm going on this book tour. And it's hard for me to promote, to feel like I'm promoting a book tour and I'm promoting my new book when all these horrible things are happening. Then I realized she had this great idea.
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She's like, donate the proceeds from your Los Angeles show to one of the charities that is helping people right there. And then I talked to my manager and he's like, yeah, you could do the three California shows because I'm going to do three California shows. And then I contacted my friends at this podcast, The Dollop, and I asked them about it. What charity?
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So I'm like, what do you think about Habitat for Humanity for Los Angeles? So now I've got these three shows in California that I'm going to donate any money I make to Habitat LA. And I can only do that because I'm thinking and remaining calm and looking for a solution, not completely consumed by fear and anxiety. But it's a process, dude. It's a fight every day. It's a fight.
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Well, it started out that area, Malibu, the Palisades is extremely wealthy. The homes that were on the beachfront were destroyed. These belong to wealthy people, but there are also normal people that live out there too. And there are working class people who were displaced. It's not just movie stars and so forth. And I think that's something that is a bit of a misconception.
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I have friends who live all around there. And luckily, none of my friends have lost their house, but they've had to evacuate. I have a friend who's on tour right now as a comedian. And His house is under fire watch. It's like, okay, I hope my home is still there when I get back. And this is a working class comedian. He's not a bazillionaire or a rich guy. It's heartbreaking.
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And no, I'm sorry to hear about your house. I am from a coastal area myself. I grew up in Tidewater, Virginia and Cape Fear, North Carolina. And hurricanes come. They definitely come. I've done some. Once again, it's a matter of looking at what you can do. A few years ago, Down in Brunswick County, North Carolina, in Cape Fear, a hurricane came and ripped through and destroyed a lot of things.
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And so I stopped and asked myself, okay, how can I help? And I have a buddy who is a member of a disaster relief team. He's a New York City firefighter for years. And in his spare time, he goes in and does disaster relief. And his team came down to North Carolina. to do some relief. And since I have a lot of connections in the area, I went on social media and found out
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through locals where things were most needed and set up a distribution center. Because the Red Cross is a great organization, but there's a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of red tape. It's very slow moving. And my buddy, he's a former Marine, New York firefighter. He has no time for all that. It's time to get supplies to people. So I went and used my connections in the area to set up the stuff.
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And then the next thing you know, we're in a flooded out trailer park delivering emergency relief. Boom, like that. And it's because I was able to think and use my mind. And I hate to keep coming back to alcohol. When I'm numbing myself from the chaos and the bad things in the world or whatever by just pouring alcohol and doing drugs because I don't like the way it is, I am combat ineffective.
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I cannot do anything. And it's not always fun trying to figure out a solution to these issues or at least a way to... help or try to make the world a better place. But for me, I have to have a clear head. I have to be able to face things, the good, the bad, and the ugly without that sort of substance filter over. Otherwise I can't do anything.
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I no longer feel, I think within the last 10 years, I had the urge to drink once and it hit me out of the blue at a traffic light. All of a sudden I was like, I want a beer. It was crazy. It just came out of nowhere. So I immediately called some friends of mine who are sober and I told on myself. I was like, I just thought about drinking and it passed. And it's like, of course you did.
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You're an alcoholic, right? You haven't had a drink in 14 years, but... It is my belief that once I drank myself into the state of alcoholism, I cannot safely drink again. Therefore, every now and then, naturally, an alcoholic would think about drinking. For me, except for this one time, I think in the last 10 years, I seriously had a slight urge to do it, and it passed. It's not...
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I'm fighting against this desire to drink, right? That sort of compulsion has been lifted from me. And it's just my normal state now is sobriety. And I don't think about it that much unless I'm discussing it in a context like this with someone else who has quit drinking or who wants to quit drinking. So for me, once I removed this alcohol, though, I did have to face myself.
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And there's a saying amongst the sort of sobriety community that what do you get when you sober up a horse thief? A sober horse thief. You still have to look at yourself. And not that I've ever stole a horse. I'm not that cool. I'd like to think I'm like a Comanche Raider or something. But the fact of the matter is that I'm still looking at myself when I'm sober.
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When I remove this alcohol, it's not like everything's immediately better. And I'm looking at myself and I'm forced to deal with my shortcomings. And I found myself... Particularly in the beginning, it's not as bad now trying to replace the alcohol with other things, which I justified as being not as harmful. For instance, for me, it's buying books.
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And I have gotten much better about this, but I used to have a very bad book problem to the point where I was going to the bookstore every day for a while and buying books because I'm looking. A lot of times about self-help books, right? I have a massive collection of which I've read 20 pages of each one. And I'm like, ah!
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this isn't going to fix me because I'm looking to some sort of external thing to fix this, this problem within me. And for me, it was buying books. It's embarrassing after a while because you show up at the bookstore and they're like, Oh, Hey, how are you doing? Randy's back.
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It's like when you drink, you hear alcoholics say this is like, they're trying to cover up the fact that they drink so much by shifting their alcohol purchasing location to different convenience stores. Like on Tuesday, I go to this one and get a 12 pack.
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And then on Wednesday, I go over here to this other one to get a 12 pack because you don't want the clerk at the convenience store to think you're an alcoholic. For me, it's like the bookstore. They're like, oh, this guy has a book problem.
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I'm a bookaholic, yeah. It's a problem to this day, I will admit, but I've gotten better about it. I've slowed down about it. I just love books. I love them. I can't help it. Well, I have to send you mine then. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah. I will definitely take that. No problem.
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For me, this sort of, and some people, like you mentioned earlier, like sex, gambling, all these things, these are external, these are attempts to use external measures to control ourselves, I think, to exert control, to make us feel better. And in the end, the only thing I have absolutely any control over is, is myself. And I don't even have control over my thought processes.
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I can't control some of the thoughts that pop into my mind. But I can, with practice, control how much energy I feed those thoughts. I can, if I am intentional about this, control my attitude towards things that are happening beyond my control. Outside of my control. It is completely outside of my control that there is a wildfire in Los Angeles right now.
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And it's even outside of my control that it upsets me and that I'm worried about my friends who live there. But what is in my control is me looking at the way I am reacting to that and rationally examining that and thinking, okay, it is useless for you to sit in this pit of anxiety. You need to think about what you can do because I have no control over it.
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See, I've never seen them. But I waited for their new record to come out. I heard the first two singles. I had it pre-ordered. And then I waited until the night it came out. came out and I got in my truck and I drove down this back road and listened to the whole record in its entirety. And it was just a magic moment.
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anything else in the world other than myself thank god because if i was control of everything it would just be a disaster right everything would be horrible i would make a horrible world dictator or whatever i but i can only control myself and my attitudes i think and and it's a constant work in progress it's constantly me reminding myself of that waking up every day and thinking Okay.
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Today it could be really screwed up. What matters is how you respond to that rather than simply react.
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Man, for one thing, it starts with how I start my day. I wake up, right? What I do every morning is I wake up and I make my coffee and I pour myself a cup and one for my girl and then I go into my study. And I do not look at my phone for the first hour I'm awake. I refuse to look at it. Absolutely. And it doesn't stay in the same room with me either.
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It stays in a different room when I wake up and I don't have to look at it, use it as an alarm or anything. I do not touch it for at least an hour after I wake up. So I wake up and I read some meaningful literature, whether it be philosophy or an inspirational memoir or something. I'm not just waking up and reading nonsense.
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Normally I like to read a bit of stoic philosophy, whether it be Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius or Seneca. And then I journal a little bit and I start off the day intentionally, no matter what is going on in my life by reading. placing myself firmly in reality and not looking at all this chaos that's coming at me through this screen, through this digital world.
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Because if I do that, if I wake up and immediately check the news or check social media, then I have started off my first few moments of consciousness at the mercy of the dictates of others. I have not decided what I'm going to think about, what I'm going to work on today, how I would at the very least like to attempt to approach the issues that are going to face me this day.
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I did definitely become deeply involved in the punk rock scene, but at the same time, listening to The Cure. The Smiths came later. My best friend from middle school loved them and When we graduated high school, he actually gave me the Smith's greatest hits compilation. The orange one, I think, louder than bombs is a joke because I was like, the Smith sucks. But now I like them.
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I just start off looking at stuff. I'm a passive sponge. I'm immediately inputting all this other stuff and let's face it. a lot of it is negative, whether it be social media or the news. It's just a lot of negativity. That is no way to start off the day. I will be an ineffective human being because I'm starting off the day consumed by anxiety.
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Then what I'm trying to do throughout the day is remind myself that I'm just one person. I'm just one human being. And I can only use the tools I have at my disposal to try and make myself calm, to improve my life, and hopefully in doing that, make the world a better place. For me, my tools, I'm an artist, right? This is the one question I would...
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i hope people will take away while they're reading this book they will look at this book and ask themselves what am i that's a very broad question what am i the meaning of life the universe and everything but what is my function what am i most effective at doing at what are the my tools at my disposal i can use to improve my life and make the world a better place and for me
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At 53 years old, it's a little late to become a doctor or a scientist or any of that stuff. I'm a writer, a musician, and a photographer. I'm an artist. As bizarre as it is to me to this day, I'm a professional artist. So I'm looking... at what I do that day and trying to create art that matters and that can be of service to others. Because it just, it feels better to me. It just does.
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It's primarily a mode of expressing myself, admittedly. That's why I was drawn to this life. Even when it was not profitable, no guarantee of monetary compensation or whatever, but I felt as if expressing myself through any of these three things, it's what I'm supposed to be doing.
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And now that I am lucky enough through a combination of luck and perseverance and hard work, I'm lucky enough to make my living this way. Like I said, I'm not a doctor. I'm not curing cancer or whatever. But I can use these tools at my disposal to try and improve things. And I find fulfillment and purpose in that. And sometimes I still question myself or I beat up on myself.
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I'm like, you're not really doing anything. You're just a stupid heavy metal singer. That's all you're doing with your life. And it feels meaningless. But then... every now and then I will meet a fan who will tell me your music saved me, man. I was going to kill myself, but this song you wrote kept me going. And I'm like, yes, I did it. I made a difference.
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And I remember how music made me feel when it, when I, as we talked at the beginning of this conversation, how I felt so different and outside and alone. And then I first heard this music, this punk rock music, this X feels, I'm like, These people understand. Finally, someone understands.
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And when I get told this by these fans, and I've been told so many times how our music or a book I wrote or even my photography has truly helped people get through difficult times, it is by far the most rewarding part of what I do. It's nice to make a living, it is true. But having someone tell you that you made a real impact in your life
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in their life it's supremely gratifying to me and it provides me what i feel like a sense of purpose and i think we're talking about how people feel lost and as if they don't matter not everybody is supposed to be an artist. Not everybody's supposed to be in a heavy metal band, but everybody has something that they can do to help others.
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And I have found that trying, at least trying to structure my life around beyond paying the basic bills, around allowing enough room for me to be of service to other people in other ways has provided me with fulfillment and a sense of purpose that chasing money or success or notoriety has never provided, ever. And I think anyone can be of service to others. They just have to look around.
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They have to look and look around their own neighborhood and see, what can I do to make this place better? Who can I help? Even if just by walking over and talking to someone. Like old people, man. Old people are lonely. If you are able to go and go to an old person's home and volunteer and talk to old people...
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who are spending the last of their lives alone you may a learn something from these people there's a lot of wisdom and b you will be being of service and that costs nothing it costs nothing to you to to engage with this other human being on a person-to-person level and and i think
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for all the supposed connectivity that the internet and social media provides, it's really in many ways causing us to separate from ourselves more and more. When my grandmother, I interviewed my grandmother right before, not right before, eight years before she died. She lived to be a hundred and a half years old and I was right by her side when she died. But I interviewed her, maybe she was 94.
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I can't remember when I interviewed her. And I asked her this question. I said, grandma, What do you think is the biggest difference between now and when you grew up? She grew up in the depression, so there's massive differences. But she didn't talk about computers or technology or self-driving cars or whatever. She said, I think people aren't as close as they used to be.
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I think they don't come and visit as much as they used to. Nobody knows their neighbors.
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and i think our society is feeling that and i think that lack of real person-to-person human contact is manifesting itself in these feelings of anxiety and not belonging and feeling alone and not knowing our purpose because we don't know the people around us we don't know our community um and therefore we don't have anyone to bounce these feelings off of so we're just stuck with ourselves
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I know a couple of people that know Robert Smith, but I don't think I have that much pull otherwise, otherwise I'd ask him for you.
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That opens up the book. It's a chapter called The Duke.
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which is a lamb of god song i wrote about this young man wayne ford and i've talked about this before wayne was a young man i'd met outside a show in phoenix arizona and he had been diagnosed with leukemia recently and was starting his chemo treatments and radiation and all this stuff and i had a talk with him and his wife outside the show and wished him the best of luck and i thought
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man good luck i hope this guy makes it and pulled away and didn't think much more of it and then five years go by and one of his friends wound up emailing me through my publicist and was like Wayne, I don't know if you remember meeting him, but he's not going to make it, dude. He's fought this thing for five years and he's done.
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So he's decided to spend out the last of his days at home, not undergoing any more chemo or trips to the hospital and enjoy his life. with his family the way he wants to, the way he's going to live the way he wants to, because he had spent the last five years in and out of hospitals, unable to eat what he wanted to eat, just a miserable existence. But he was fighting for his life.
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This guy wrote me this letter to let me know that Wayne was dying. And he said, can you get the guys in lamb of god together to say hello to him and i said unfortunately that is not possible because they were in california recording an album and i was in richmond virginia working on lyrics we weren't all together and they were in different studios i said look I'll call him though.
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I would love to talk to him for whatever that's worth. So I wound up setting up this video call where I was going to chat with this terminal young man, Wayne Fort, he's 33 years old. And before the chat, I became overwhelmed. We were talking about fear. I became overwhelmed with fear and anxiety that I'm not a grief counselor. I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't know anything.
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how to handle this sort of situation. And then I started worrying, well, what if I make it worse? What if I say something wrong or stupid? And this sends him, it shortens his life even more. What if I offend him? And it was, I had this realization as I'm thinking about all this, I'm not thinking about this young man. I'm thinking about myself. I'm thinking about myself.
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fear of looking ineffective or of doing the wrong thing. It's entirely fear-based. And I came to, I asked my dad who wasn't minister and had a lot of experience with grief counseling. I asked another friend of mine, actually he was a rabbi who had experience with grief counseling.
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I'm like, they both confirmed what I already knew is it's not my job to talk to this guy and make him feel better and be the front man clown and tell tour stories or whatever. It's just my job to be And so when I wound up talking to him, I approached it. We said hello. And it was normal conversation. Like, Hey dude, how are you doing?
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I approached it from this sort of way where I was thinking, well, there's this elephant in the room and this young man is going to die, but I don't need to beat him over the head over it, but I can open up space for that if he wants to talk about this with me. So I asked him how he was feeling. Which is a different than, it's very different than just like, what's up, dude?
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It's like when you're talking to a dying person, you're like, how are you feeling? And I figured if he wanted to move into that, explain to me what was going on with him, then I would listen. And he did. And we had these conversations. frank conversations. And I would, I'd ask him how he was dealing with things and so forth.
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So this went, we kept in touch back and forth for a while, mostly via text message. And at one point I asked him, I said, do you want to come and see me? I'll video
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chat you into the studio when i'm recording vocals which no one's allowed in the studio when i record vocals not even my own bandmates i just thought it would be neat for this young man to obviously he's an exception to be able to see me doing what i do and because we were his favorite band and he said yeah sure and so then i had the idea i asked him i said
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is there anything you want to say to the world or what you want to be remembered by? I could record you saying it or work it into lyrics and then you'll become part of our music on this record and you'll be immortalized on this record. He's like, that's really cool. He said, let me think about it. he never got back to me on it and he died shortly thereafter.
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He was such a, he handled his own mortality with such calm and grace, like just this outwardly like calm demeanor. And I'm sure he was afraid at times it's natural, but he did not, He had a very stoic demeanor, man. And it was so inspirational because having been around people who are dying before, an older person, they're coming to the end of their life.
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They generally come to a place of acceptance. And like my grandmother, she was 100. But when she went, she was ready, man. She's 100 years old. It's time to go. She'd had a good life. When this young man checked out, he was 33, and the way he handled this was so, for lack of a better term, inspirational.
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Because I would like to think that I'm going to face my own imminent end whenever it comes with that sort of level of calm and grace, but I don't know. However, I do know that it's possible because I witnessed it. It just, it also put my own, of course, these brings your own mortality into focus and it made me think about my own. I'm not a spring chicken. I'm 54.
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It's all right, though, because all we have is this moment right now. That's it. That's the only thing that exists. I'm seeing here that you lost your sister. I'm very sorry to hear that. I'm glad you were able to have a good conversation with her. What a blessing. And I really cherish my conversations with Wayne and try to take something from it because we're all going to go one day.
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Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I refuse to ignore that fact. I think trying to hide from that only heightens anxiety. I'm trying to come to a place of acceptance and make the most of the time that I have.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So I really enjoy talking to you, man. And as far as if anyone wants to learn, if anyone wants to learn more about me or my book, the new one is called Just Beyond the Light and it will be out February 18th via Grand Central Publishing slash Hachette. You can order it wherever you order your books from. I'm going on a spoken word tour to support the book.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I'll be telling a bunch of stories from my life to illustrate the themes from the book. It should be pretty funny, a good time. You can go to randyblythe.net, R-A-N-D-Y-B-L-Y-T-H-E. And I have an Instagram and a sub stack, Randonesia. So look me up. Thank you so much.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
100% and I do to this day sometimes. I still feel like a space alien at times. Like yourself, I was a very nerdy child. I had a very deep love of books. I was not a sports guy. I come from a really small town where, you know, if you were... anything like you played football and I just sucked at that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So I wasn't interested in football and just suppose the normal regular high school teenage things. And I found myself gravitating more towards definitely books and stranger things and I felt like an outsider and was treated as such at times. It's like, you're a nerd because your social groups, when you're young, kids are trying to find their place. And I really couldn't find a place.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I just knew it was weird. And I, that's where i when i was really young i tried to fit in for a little while but it just didn't work i just couldn't i was like a square peg going trying to go into a round hole and i didn't understand i didn't understand why someone would be mean to me because I enjoyed reading books or they're like, you're a nerd. I'm like, but that means I'm smart.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Isn't that the goal to not be an idiot? This did definitely lead to a feeling of sort of separation from my peers. When I discovered punk rock music, that's when I first started feeling, oh, someone else understands me. Because by the time I had given up trying to fit in, I started to become mad because I was like, I just can't fit in and people are judging me. So I was like angry.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I was angry about this. And I didn't really feel comfortable in my own skin. And then I started here. I first heard the Sex Pistols, Nevermind the Bollocks, a tape in the seventh grade. This other guy I knew who was a skateboarder gave me. And I was like, these people understand. I heard the music. They're angry and they understand.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And I started delving into that subculture some and eventually going to shows and meeting people. And most of the people in that subculture were exactly like me. They did not fit in. So... as much as I would like to think of myself as I'm okay, I'm this stoic outsider sort of human beings are social animals. And the quote, no man is an Island is absolutely true. We need social groups.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
We crave social contact. And so I found that within the music scene, this underground music scene. And it was the first time I really felt I belonged until I My 11th and 12th grade year, I also wound up going to a high school for the arts half of the school day. And it was a bunch of other weirdos who didn't fit in. So I found my group. But for a long time, I felt very much an outsider.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And some of that may have been heightened by the very nature of being a teenager and going through hormonal changes and everybody feels crazy. But I think I definitely was an outsider and maybe just that teenage confusion that everyone goes through added to that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Depressing, highly depressing, which manifested itself for a long time in an outward expressions of anger. I was very angry that I could not fit in. And also at the same time, angry outside, but also very self-critical at the same time, pointing fingers at myself. Like I said, I didn't really feel comfortable in my own skin. And it's like, what's wrong with you?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Why are you... Something must be wrong with you. Why can't you fit in? To my view, everybody else was...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
okay which of course is also probably colored through the lens of a teenage eye where everybody looks at other people but it was depressing and i think as i get older i talk to my parents about this because i dealt with some depression and unsuccessfully few methods that i'm sure we'll get into in a bit i tried to deal with depression and i'm older i talked to my parents a few years ago i'm like
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Do you think I had some depression as a child? If I was, I suffered from that and they're like, yeah, I definitely think you were a very sensitive child. And I certainly felt that way. And I internalized that outsider feeling and it was, it was not good. It was not good. Angry and depressed. That's how it made me feel. How about that?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
Did you ever feel like that at all? As if I was putting on a mask? Like I said, I think we all wear masks to a certain degree. I think that's how we function in social groups. We have to, there's an unspoken social contract where you can't say every single thing that comes through your mind.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I don't know about you, because some crazy things come from my mind that I just shouldn't speak out loud from time to time. But for the most part, I gave up on the mask pretty much young, where I just didn't understand why people would care. I don't come from money.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So I never, when I grew up, I would wear hand-me-down clothes and those were not the most in-style clothes or whatever when I was younger. And people, they would make fun of me or they'd make fun of the neighborhood I lived in. And because it was not a wealthy neighborhood. And I, for a while, just did not understand why this was. I'm like, it's not my fault that I don't have the new clothes.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
And who cares? It's about being a good person. And that really affected me emotionally. I tried to fit in. As I said, it didn't work. I was just like, screw this. I am not changing myself.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
so i as i said as a sensitive very good natured child that sort of nature that the good natured sensitivity began transformed into a sort of external hard shell of anger i think and i don't know if it's so much a mask i was putting on is it was just a reaction to my inability to understand the way My peer group functioned at such a young age.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
I basically became a walking middle finger for a long time. I don't think it's so much a mask. It was more like a protective shell. And that's not sustainable either, though, after a while, because you grow up and who wants to hang around the constantly angry guy? That's not cool. You don't get a lot of, oh, he's always mad. Let's invite him to the party. That doesn't work either.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Randy Blythe on How to Make Peace With the Wars Inside Your Head | 574
So now I didn't really – past a certain – right around sixth grade, I just gave up. I was like, these people don't like me. I can't get a girlfriend like everyone else. They make fun of my clothes. They think I'm weird because I read books, which I thought was asinine even then. I even had teachers make fun of the way I read. And I was like, just screw these people then.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Katherine Morgan Schafler on Control, Perfectionism, and Letting Go | EP 572
Fear is a real MF-er, a top shelf grade A son of a bitch that will let you ruin your whole week if you let it run the show. That's a sentence in the book. And in this world of so much information coming at us all the time, it's hard to filter out what we should be worried about and what we shouldn't.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Why Mattering at Work Is the New Metric Leaders Must Track | EP 573
Fear is a real MF-er. A top shelf grade A son of a bitch that will let you ruin your whole week if you let it run the show. That's a sentence in the book. And in this world of so much information coming at us all the time, it's hard to filter out what we should be worried about and what we shouldn't.