There’s been a reversal of fortune for Thy Art is Murder frontman CJ McMahon. Back at the end of 2015, he’d left the band, stating that he just wasn’t making enough money. They continued on for another year, but at the beginning of this year, McMahon rejoined the band onstage at the Unify Festival, then made it official by dropping a single with them and stating he was back in the band. Money was the main reason he said he’d left, and now we know why he was so broke – apparently, he was putting a lot of his money up his nose. The singer recently sat in on the Hard Noise Podcast, where he opened up about his leaving the band and his decision to return. Here’s what he says:
“The main thing was money. Not just me, but everyone in the band and other bands out there. We get paid like shit. We do have a cool lifestyle at points but you know, the money is like extremely hard to deal with. Not being able to buy Christmas presents and anniversary presents and help pay my mortgage with my father in law and my wife.
And then knowing I was getting married in a year and a half and then at that point I’m like fuck… I can’t even afford to pay for even half of the wedding. So, the money thing was really hard. I had a pretty bad drug addiction as well. Cocaine and weed consumed me very quickly and that just was not good for my physical and mental health.”
“After recording ‘The Depression Sessions‘, I had like a pretty crazy night after that and day. When I landed in LA, I was sobering up and getting angry and aggressive and overthinking everything. Thinking, I don’t got any fucking money, just finished fucking four months of touring. Gonna go home… I might get paid $2,000 for the last fuckin’ five months.”
It’s two and a half weeks before Christmas. I don’t know how I’m supposed to buy Christmas presents for my wife, my father in law, my mother in law, my brother in law, my brother, my mother, my father, my sister in law, my niece… what the fuck am I supposed to do? I had really no options. I found that I’d been saying it for so long, like for years, ah fuck this… I just wanna have a normal life and have normal money. So then it just hit me, I landed in LA and I was like you know what, that’s it. One e-mail and it’s done.”
It’s not like things got awesome after he made the decision to leave, either. He said that although he was fine with the band continuing on without him, seeing them succeed without him “didn’t sit well” with him. He goes into detail about the meeting with Sean Delander that led to a reconciliation; The whole podcast is here.
[via theprp]
