Legendary Extreme Metal Drummer NICK BARKER Is Working On His Autobiography

In a new interview with "Reckless" Rexx Ruger of the Pod Scum podcast, legendary extreme metal drummer Nick Barker (LOCK UP, BRUJERIA, DIMMU BORGIR, CRADLE OF FILTH) confirmed that he is working on his autobiography. "I'm in the middle of doing it right now," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "I'm just in the CRADLE years right now."

Barker went on to say that writing the book has been a "very cathartic" experience so far. "We focused on my childhood and how I started playing drums, how I got into music," he explained. "And my high school thrash band, who, we supported a few of the U.K. thrash bands at the time, RE-ANIMATOR and XENTRIX and LAWNMOWER DETH. And then, obviously, my musical taste started to evolve as I grew older. So I got into death metal, and I formed a death metal band. And that was when I was tape trading, in the late '80s, early '90s. And that's how I discovered CRADLE OF FILTH, through the underground, by the demo, 'Total Fucking Darkness'. And it was at a time when death metal was starting to stagnate. My band was called CATALEPSY, and we had to change the name to MONOLITH. And it was kind of like generic death metal, NAPALM DEATH meets OBITUARY meets ENTOMBED. And we recorded an album called 'Tales Of The Macabre' for Cacophonous Records, but it got shelved. And there was eight tracks. And a lot of people now from different record labels are sweating me about it, like, 'Can we release it? Do you you have the master tapes. We'd like to release the album.' It's funny because it's ironic — that band is more popular now than what it was 30 years ago."

Barker, who is suffering from stage five chronic kidney disease — where the kidneys have lost nearly all their function, and dialysis or a kidney transplant is needed to live — went on to give an update on his health, saying: "It's going good. I'm on the slimming pen, the Mounjaro, to help me get the weight off because I'm a foodie. It's difficult. And when you're in your fifties, it's even more difficult. Because of the side effects from renal failure, one of them is chronic fatigue. So, I'm fucked just getting dressed and taking a shower and doing some housework. It knocks the stuffing outta me. But it's going well. I passed all the pre-surgery assessments, so I'm on the transplant list. It sounds horrible, [but] I'm just waiting for someone to die so I can get the kidney. But I've been told I have a rare blood type. I'm type O. And apparently it's kind of rare; it's not the usual. And also my wife, she signed up for the paired donor program, which means she's gonna donate one of her kidneys so I get pushed to the front of the queue."

He added: "I can't wait to get the transplant so I can really start getting back doing stuff and get my health and build up my stamina again. It's one day at a time, but I've ticked all the boxes, jumped through all the hoops. It's just a waiting game now. Because I live in Prince George [in Canada], which is in the north of British Columbia, the renal unit is down in Vancouver, so I'll have to fly down to Vancouver for the operation… I've got a weight review at the end of March, because I've still gotta drop a little bit of weight, because they have to make an incision in the stomach. And that's where the concentration is. So I've got a weight review in the end of March, and my surgeon, the nephrologist, he's hoping by the end of the year, things will be good."

Barker added that he is "truly humbled" by all the support he has received, with his GoFundMe having raised more than 70,000 pounds (approximately $95,000) so far. "I really am. My parents weren't the most loving parents, so to get all the love from fans and the metal community, it really means a lot to me. It really does. I owe so much to those people and the people that donated. So, I'm really focused on getting my health back and getting back beyond the drums ASAP [as soon as possible]."

Asked if his "rough upbringing and a rough childhood" was hard to write about in the book, Nick said: "I didn't really focus so much on it. There was a basic outline. I don't wanna give those horrible people any page space. So we just covered it lightly. It was a shitty upbringing, and music was my escapism."

Aa for what the impetus was for writing the book, Nick said: "A lot of people in the industry were telling me, especially with this downtime that I have, it's, like, 'Why don't you just write a memoir, write your autobiography? You've played with so many bands and done so much shit. People wanna hear about it and where you come from, how you came up,' et cetera, et cetera."

He added: "Yeah, it's fun. It's a lot of fun, actually, going back and talking about it."

Asked if he has read any of the other musician and celebrity autobiographies over the years, Nick said: "Some of them. Yeah, I do read a lot of autobiographies. The Ozzy [Osbourne] one was great. He was a fucking lunatic. When you read his book, '[I Am] Ozzy', you can hear his voice, when you're reading the anecdotes. You can hear his voice telling it to you. And also the Mike Tyson autobiography was very good as well. I've got 'The Dirt' by MÖTLEY CRÜE. But you know what? I don't want my book to be another one of those just 'sex, drugs and rock and roll'. I mean, it does touch on that because there was a lot of that throughout my career. But I don't want it be just all about that. I want it to be about the different bands I played in, the different time periods. And I got fucked over here, I made some money there, and in between there's the sex, drugs and rock and roll."

Barker admitted that not all of the events from his life were easy for him to recall. "There was a few parts I was kind of hazy on, so I reached out to some friends, bandmembers and crew guys that were there, and just, 'Hey, remember this?, and get their take on it," he explained. "And then it kind of spurred my memory a little bit."

The 52-year-old Barker started playing drums at the age of 13 years old, but his professional career began back in 1993 at age 20 when he joined U.K. black metal icons CRADLE OF FILTH. After four albums and numerous world tours that followed, Nick went on to join the ranks of Norwegian black metal rivals DIMMU BORGIR in 1999 and went on to enjoy even greater commercial success with them up until 2004.

Nick has also been a busy session player in both live and studio environments, lending his skills to the likes of such heavyweight metal acts as TESTAMENT, OLD MAN'S CHILD, EXODUS, BRUJERIA, GORGOROTH, GOD SEED, ANAAL NATHRAKH and BENEDICTION, to name a few.