MGK reveals he used to be "scared to ever go into a studio" without having taken drugs beforehand – but now his "drug of choice is happiness and commitment to the art".
Despite creating this year's brilliant Tickets To My Downfall album while seemingly in the midst of a party lifestyle in Hollywood, Machine Gun Kelly has revealed that he's started going to therapy to address his past drug abuse, and is learning how to separate who he is as an artist from who he is as a person.
"I think I watched myself believe that drugs were how you attained a level, or unlocked something in your brain, and I’ve seen the pros and cons of it," he explains to Dave Franco in Interview Magazine. "Adderall was a huge thing for me for a long time. And I went from orally taking it to then snorting it, and then it became something where I was scared to ever go into a studio if I didn’t have something. I wouldn’t even step out unless there was a medicine man who was going to visit me and give me what I needed. And that’s where it becomes a problem. You’re telling yourself you can’t do this without that, when really it’s in you the whole time. If that pill did that for you, then everyone who’s taken that would just be making albums and writing songs. And so that limited me."
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In regards to these early stages in the process of getting out of old habits, MGK continues, "Currently, my drug of choice is happiness and commitment to the art, rather than commitment to a vice that I believed made the art. I’m taking steps. I had my first therapy session last Thursday. That’s the first time I ever went, 'Hey, I need to separate these two people,' which is Machine Gun Kelly and Colson Baker. The dichotomy is too intense for me."
As well as optimistically stating that this therapy seems "helpful" so far, Machine Gun Kelly credits friend and collaborator Travis Barker as a mentor who helps him through any struggles mentally.
"Travis Barker has been huge in the process of grounding me, because he’s lived it," he says of the blink-182 drummer. "It’s much different than a priest or something, where I’m like, 'How can you relate to me? It’s easy for you to tell me I can get through it when you’ve never faced these obstacles.' Whereas with Travis it’s like, 'I know for a fact that you went through what I’m going through.' And then obviously, which I’m sure is the same with you in your relationship, when you have a partner, mine being Megan [Fox], sitting there with you on those dark nights when you’re sweating and not being able to figure out why you’re so in your head, to help you get out of your head and put it in perspective, that really, really helps."
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