MACHINE HEAD Frontman Talks About His Days On Speed

UK's Rock Sound recently conducted an interview with MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn for the cover of the magazine's 102nd issue — the first time MACHINE HEAD has graced the front page of the publication. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Rock Sound: How do you look back on [the Eighties when Flynn dabbled in drugs]?

Flynn: They were great times, it was not a self-destructive thing; we were just partying a lot and I was doing a lot of speed. We were seventeen-year-old kids going to thrash shows and everyone did speed there; it gave you balls to go crazy and go stagedive. All our idols and all the bands were doing it and it got to a point where it became bad for me but it did not ruin my life.

Rock Sound: Was that the stuff that followed?

Flynn: Speed was the gateway, definitely. But I just look back on those times at crazy.

Rock Sound: Did anyone get hurt back then?

Flynn: Somebody was probably getting low while we were high. I know we fought a lot when we were taking speed a lot, but it was always someone at a show who was on speed wanting to fight us back, so it was not like we were hurting people who did not want to get hurt already. The one thing I think about speed that I used to think was a bad thing but have now come to realize was a good thing was that I was never a person that could stay up for days and days on speed. I had friends who would stay up for a week on speed and not sleep.

Rock Sound: A week?

Flynn: My wife's brother actually stayed up for a whole month on speed. He was fucked up by the end of it, bugs were on the wall and the FBI were after him in his mind so we had to actually force him to sleep. This was before MACHINE HEAD days but I could never last more than two days on speed. I would start at 9:00 p.m. one night, party all night then by 6:00 p.m. the following day my body was shutting down and narcolepsy would set in and I would fall asleep mid sentence for three hours then wake up and perfectly continue the sentence I was in the middle of before I passed out. I think to a large degree that was beneficial for me as I could not get that much into it.

Rock Sound: How does your past affect your parenting?

Flynn: I still struggle to wonder how I am going to explain my past to my kids when they are old enough to understand. What am I going to say? Daddy was an asshole, so don't be an asshole. I don't want them to see their father in that way. I don't want them to hear all the swearing I am doing now at the age they are at. Even as out there in my beliefs as I am I still have some of those very strong and simple desires for my children as they are now.

MACHINE HEAD performing "Clenching the Fists of Dissent" at UK's Download festival in June 2007: