NET : "That's a sort of cultural mythos, especially in rock bands, and even more so in a metal band. I believe that that mythos is sort of shifting, that paradigm is shifting, and the young kids don't think it's as cool to be fucked up anymore like we did when we were kids.
It was part of the deal. And it's a lie, it's definitely a lie that you need all that stuff to do what I do. But it's a cultural sort of mythos that I bought in to, not just with music, but with writing, because like any other angst-riddled something male American dude, I loved reading Hemingway , I loved reading Bukowski , I loved reading Hunter S.
Thompson , F. Scott Fitzgerald , all these members of this supremely male canon of authors who really reshaped modern English literature. And all of them had a few things in common β all of them were wild, did wild manly shit, which I'm for.
All of them drank to excess and generally got into some sticky situations from time to time. It's a cornerstone of your identity, it becomes so. So for me, in my twenties and thirties, I would talk about being a writer a lot and I was doing all the things that all those writers, Hemingway and Hunter S.
Thompson and Bukowski , all those guys did β I did a lot of drinking, I did a respectable amount of womanizing, I did some fist fighting here and there, I got into some crazy shit, I was practicing, I was doing all the things the great writers did except for the writing part.
