ARSIS Frontman Comes Clean About His Self-Destructive Behavior

Carlos Ramirez of Noisecreep recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist James Malone of the East Coast-based technical death metal outfit ARSIS. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Noisecreep: You recently released a press release trying to explain all of the cancellations and trouble Arsis has had in the last year. But it raised more questions and started more rumors than anything. Would you like to set the record straight once and for all?

Malone: This is really tough for me to talk about. I don't even know where to begin in all honesty. I just want to start off by saying that I don't have a drug problem of any kind. I know a lot of people were saying that when I released that press statement. The truth is I've had anorexia for the past year or so. It's not the first time I've gone through it either. When I was in college I struggled with it. I finally got past then I started having a drinking problem that I fought with for years. When I stopped drinking last year, the anorexia problems came back.

I have the kind of personality where I take things way too far. For me it wasn't about weight, it was all about control. I couldn't control everything in my life so I fixated on my weight. At my worst, I weighed 128 lbs and that's crazy for a guy who is 6' 1" tall. I got to the point where I was surviving on 500 calories a day and that's even with the rigorous exercising I was doing at the same time. Last year I lost 100 lbs in the span of 4 months. I think doctors say that a healthy weight loss pattern is about 2 lbs a week so that should tell you how messed up I was.

Noisecreep: That sounds like the kind of disorder that touring full-time won't necessarily help.

Malone: It was a nightmare. When you're on tour, the food situation is really bad. For someone going through anorexia, you need to control the food intake and that's nearly impossible when you're eating all that horrible stuff out on the road. We were out with KATAKLYSM and I think I lost 10 lbs in 4 days or something crazy like that. Arsis was out touring in Europe and my girlfriend came out and met us for a day. She was in tears when she saw how bad I looked.

Noisecreep: Did the anorexia isolate you from your bandmates?

Malone: The condition brought on a deep depression and I already have a seasonal depression to begin with. It has a tendency to make you isolate yourself from anyone like a druggie does. So yeah, it was hard on the band and everyone else around me.

Read the entire interview at www.noisecreep.com.