High On Fire’s Matt Pike admits he’s relapsed

Posted by on July 14, 2014

Two years ago, High On Fire surprisingly pulled out of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Fest just a few weeks before the festival was to kick off due to frontman Matt Pike entering rehab for alcohol abuse. And while the band got right back on the road a few months later, recording a few shows for two live albums that came out last year. And while Pike told us in an interview last year that playing sober was like “being high on a drug that you haven’t been high on,” he admitted in an interview with AndrewHaug.com that he’s slipped up and fallen off the wagon since leaving rehab:

“I’ve fallen off the wagon a few times since I went to rehab,” Pike begins. “[But] I get better and better at, like, when I do have a drink or mess up, not being too hard on myself, but getting right back on the wagon. That’s kind of part of the process in getting sober. Every now and then, you have a flaw and you’ve gotta accept that you can’t be good at anything without practicing it.”

“You know, practicing being sober in my life, there is a lot of clarity, and with a lot of clarity, there sometimes comes depression and anxiety and you’ve gotta just accept that part of it too. So there is a lot to it, but I’m definitely a lot healthier and I definitely don’t write all my music in a blackout, like I used to, although I did come up with some good stuff in a blackout. I just have a different approach nowadays.”

It sounds like he’s slipped up as opposed to completely relapsing. And while that’s definitely not good, it sounds like he’s much improved from the person he was when he went into rehab. In fact, in the same interview that we did with him, he admitted that he hadn’t been perfectly sober, stating:  “I stuck to my guns about staying on the straight and narrow for the most part, but I can only do what I can do, I’m only human.” Here’s hoping that he’s got his demons in check. And he’s got the support of the music industry and comedian Rob Delaney as well.

[via Metal Injection]

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