.png)
Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma
2024 British Podcast Award Winner & Radio Academy Award Nominated Podcast
Believe in People explores addiction, recovery and stigma with different people.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction then this podcast can help.
Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma
#55 - Chris Tait: Electric Six, Alcoholism, Passenger Recovery, Detroit Music Scene, Sobriety Transformation & Metropolis Records: A Call To Action
What happens when the highs of the music industry intersect with the lows of addiction?
Join Matt as he speaks to Chris Tait, keyboard player for Electric Six and founder of Passenger Recovery, about his journey through addiction, recovery, and personal transformation. Chris provides an insightful perspective on the challenges of addiction, drawing from his personal experiences within the music industry.
He reflects on his teenage struggles with alcohol as a coping mechanism and examines how the cultural landscape of the music scene both enabled and exacerbated these challenges. Chris shares key moments that led him to embrace recovery, offering an objective look at the complexities of substance use within creative industries.
The discussion also explores Chris’s evolution, from overcoming personal struggles to founding Passenger Recovery, an inclusive center supporting individuals on their path to sobriety. His story highlights the potential for growth and positive impact when lived experience is directed toward fostering community support and purpose-driven action.
🎹 Metropolis Records: A Call to Action 🎹
Passenger Recovery is proud to collaborate with Metropolis Records on the Metropolis Records: A Call to Action campaign. This initiative brings together unique contributions from the Metropolis roster to raise funds supporting musicians in recovery from addiction and providing assistance to those seeking help.
Honouring Dave Heckman’s Legacy
This campaign is dedicated to the memory of Dave Heckman, the founder of Metropolis Records, whose passion for music shaped the industry. Dave faced his own battle with alcoholism, a struggle his family and colleagues now share to confront the stigma surrounding addiction.
Addiction is a pervasive issue in the music industry, often hidden behind the glamour of the spotlight. The pressures of constant touring, performance demands, and creative stress can drive individuals toward substance use as a coping mechanism. Acknowledging these struggles is critical to breaking the cycle and offering meaningful support.
About Passenger Recovery
Passenger Recovery, founded in 2016, is a Detroit-based Recovery Community Organisation. Initially focused on connecting touring musicians and crew with support meetings while on the road, the organisation has grown to provide peer support, events, advocacy, and resources to the local recovery community. By using music and the arts as pathways to heali
Click here to text our host, Matt, directly!
Believe in People explores addiction, recovery and stigma.
For our full back catalogue you can visit our website ⬇️
www.believeinpeoplepodcast.com
If you or someone you know is struggling then this series can help.
You can see selected clips from the series on social media: @CGLHull ⬇️
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
We'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Christopher Tait of the band Belle Ghoul & Electric Six for allowing us to use the track Jonathan Tortoise. Thank you, Chris, for being a part of this journey with us.
This is a Renew Original Recorder. Hello and welcome to Believe in People, a British podcast award-winning series about all things addiction, recovery and stigma. My name is Matthew Butler and I'm your host, or, as I like to say, your facilitator. Today, I'm with Chris Tate, a multifaceted musician and advocate whose journey is as inspiring as it is transformative. As the keyboardist for the band Electric Six, he has travelled the world, captivating audiences with his music. Beyond the stage, chris has channeled his personal experiences into founding Passenger Recovery, a Detroit-based initiative supporting touring musicians, artists and local communities in their recovery journeys. His story is one of resilience and reinvention, showcasing the power of creativity and connection in overcoming personal challenges. To begin our conversation, I asked Chris about how his addiction shaped his life during Electric Six's rise to fame and what led to the turning point that inspired his recovery.
Speaker 2:As much as I'd love to hang my hat on rock and roll, making me into somebody who was an alcoholic and an addict and I use that language openly. Because I talk about it openly, I don't mean to offend anybody. I can say substance use disorder, whatever anybody's comfortable with, but I'm okay with saying that and that's what I am and it's okay it's saying using that language. It's just a general reminder to me of who I am and I'm totally comfortable with that. I have no shame attached to it. I'm sure we'll talk about it later, but I don't believe that my life would be what it is today without having to. I don't know that there's a version of me that doesn't go through that struggle, and I don't know that my life would be as incredible as it is without having been informed through that journey from substance use to recovery. So anyways, yeah, it started a long time before rock and roll or music or anything, not necessarily before music, but I guess you know, when I was a young person, I think like a lot of people, you know I felt like something wasn't right. I had weird dreams about people in my family being murdered. There was a little bit of indoctrination happening. There were things that made me feel like things just weren't right. And as a young man I went to parties, sat around the bonfire, put Led Zeppelin on, drank beer with people. That was one thing. Drank beer with people, that was one thing. But specifically in 1992, on the opening day of the Detroit Tigers baseball season, I skipped school with a friend and we got into some hard liquor. And that was the day that I remember things changing. I was 15. And when I say things changing, anybody who has been in my situation will know exactly what I'm talking about. Like magic in a bottle, it wasn't a beer here or there, it was. I felt two feet taller. I was communicating with people. Girls were interested. You know it did the thing that alcohol did for me early on, I guess. A few years down the line from that, it progressed, like, I think, anybody in my situation. Like it progresses if it's good once, it must be better more often, and if it's good on the weekends, it must be better every day, you know, or weekdays or whatever.
Speaker 2:And there was a point when I was in high school, which is I was a point when I was in high school, which I was a 17-year-old junior in high school, where I was making what we called road pops to go to high school to have on the way into school. And I was driving to school in the morning and I realized that I had left it like the you know the vodka and soda thing. I'd left the bottle on the bed at the family house and, as it hit within a split second of that, before I even really knew what was going on, I was turning the car around to go back, car around to go back, and it didn't. It did signify something then. It definitely did.
Speaker 2:But when I look back on it now, that was really the first time where I said, whoa, what's going on here? Like, how am I? Why? Why did that just happen? And was that the beginning of? Um, I need this as a coping mechanism. Uh, so that was the first time when it was like, okay, something about my actions just now didn't kind of surprise me, but by the time I got out of high school, which was only a year and a half later, I couldn't go to sleep without having a drink. And so for me personally, I believe that for all of us, our issues or our vices are the solution before they become the problem and I know a lot of people say that. But why would we bother otherwise? Whether it's a social thing, whether it's a trauma thing, whatever has happened that we need relief from when find it, why would we go anywhere else? You know?
Speaker 1:so your sounds like. It sounds like a social thing in the way that it's helped make you feel. But you talked a little bit about family life and indoctrination and things like that. Was it an escape from things that was happening like at home was? Was there anything there that was bringing you to that point of you know finding that, that release, I suppose in alcohol, what it was giving you there?
Speaker 2:uh, my, my family, my, I was very fortunate because my, my family was a. They're incredible people, um, they're just working class detroit folks. My dad, my uncle, had a little machine shop. My grandfather was a Scottish immigrant, strong work ethic, but also very in the family. So I'm going to kind of go all over the place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it was absolutely fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I completely understand that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what I've learned over the years, and should I save this for later?
Speaker 1:No, honestly, just say it as it comes to you.
Speaker 2:That's probably the best way. Yeah, our family had a great work ethic. My folks are religious people but when they do maintenance around their little town that they live in, they do hot dog giveaways. They work on their church. It's a very different their actions. That's something that they taught me is that they let their actions speak for them. But around that for sure, there was a little. You know inherently. I think, with any kind of organized religion there is some stuff that goes on.
Speaker 2:I don't really want to get into the details of that, but something did happen to me. Two things happened to me, that kind of shaped uh where I went with alcohol. Um, one was that we kind of moved out of a town where I had existed and really loved because we were very close to what it was a town in the middle of nowhere, but it was right next to ann arbor, and ann arbor michigan is where everyone would go for import records and records, and that music has always been my first passion so um, and I had a.
Speaker 2:You know these are kind of gold-plated problems, but what that led to the same year, when that we kind of moved across the county that we were in, was that I got into a really bad car accident and I was in a coma for a week and I remembered, you know, all of this, like there was a lot of surgery that had to be done and, um, internal brain and head damage and, uh, this had all been kind of split and destroyed and I just remembered waking up going there's nobody looking out for me. You know, with regards to the religious things that were taught to me and a lot of fire and brimstone kind of things that had happened early on in life, it just sent me further down the path of something isn't right, and the way I view the world is being informed by something that I can't really explain, and why?
Speaker 2:when I say that, what I mean is, by the time that I reached alcohol, it was one more thing that was just removed by that you know yeah so by the time I was 15, you know, the two things I really cared about were music and escape one way shape or form.
Speaker 2:Um, so before I even met, you know, really had that significant change with with alcohol use. Music was an escape for me. You know I love bands like Blondie and the Cure, bands that were really theatrical, that kind of created their own worlds. But what I wanted to say about the family is it's interesting because I have a great relationship with the people that I didn't talk to for decades now thanks to sobriety recovery. But it's been interesting talking to them about what happened in the history of our family before I was even born.
Speaker 2:Because my grandfather was an alcoholic and he died very young. And when he died, my dad and my my uncle, who had both been through vietnam, my uncle had issues to the end of his life with drinking and my dad was basically forced into kind of working on the family business and he wanted to be a history teacher. And none of this is explained. You know, the family dynamic isn't really explained to you. Well, it wasn't explained to me, I kind of had to seek it out. But learning what happened, why it happened, and learning more about the characters that shaped me as a person really made it so much more clear why things were the way they were when I was young and what led to me becoming an active alcoholic.
Speaker 1:Just on that topic, then I think it's always an interesting argument when I hear people talk about the inheritance of alcoholism or being an alcoholic as a disease that is genetically passed on from our parents, from our grandparents. Based on your experiences, would you agree with that, would you think that was the case, or do you think it was social circumstance, that, and just the habitual thrill that you got from it? How, how would you have viewed that alcoholism and being an alcoholic?
Speaker 2:I think it's all of those things you know. Uh, I think it's. It takes a perfect storm, but when it, um, it's, it's a lot of variables that go into somebody having that gene versus somebody being an active alcoholic. I know a lot of people, myself included. I would say I was a dry drunk before I was an actual active alcoholic. Excuse me, the same thing like the, you know, the, the, the moods, the sense of dread all of those things that alcohol took away were there before I started drinking. The music that saved my life also probably didn't help, because I listened to a lot of very, sometimes heavy and dark stuff, but it was what I needed at the time.
Speaker 1:I certainly don't regret any of that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so anyways. I mean, with regards to the reason I bring up the family, is because, like I believe, with sobriety, I have learned things in stages and chapters, and that was something that I didn't even really get into until I met somebody who suggested I do it. And the idea of you know, you keep your mouth shut, you go back to work, you get things done, dot, dot, dot dot, you don't talk about things. I'm not going to say that that was like nobody browbeat that into me, but it was definitely a thread through the family, and when I delved a little bit further into the history of the family, it was very easy to see why that was. It was because a lot of people that were working very hard through things and to keep food on the table for the family, um, anyways. So to go back to my teenagers, yes, that's me.
Speaker 1:I'd also go on continue uh, yeah, sorry, kind of a crazy sidebar there.
Speaker 2:But um, but yeah, I, you know, by the time I was out of high school I couldn't, you know, I, I was a kind of functioning alcoholic already and uh, so flash forward a few years. Um, you know, I, along with a slew of other kind of detroit garage rock people, um, I was playing in three different bands and and working at a brewery and kind of had surrounded myself with alcohol and drugs and music, because those three things that all go go together. But um, half of the people I'm sure this is the truth in any major city half the people who are in bands, are also working in restaurants and that kind of thing, but I was living with the drummer for Electric Six at the time.
Speaker 2:Then the band was called the Wild Bunch. Then this was about 2001. And everybody was like I, I was playing in a few bands. The wild bunch needed a keyboardist, um, so I started playing with them and then basically like a few months later and I I had gone to see. You know, everybody kind of went to see each other's bands in town and the Wild Bunch slash Electric Six was kind of a welcome break. You know you're talking about the town that gave us Eminem, mc5, iggy Pop, madonna, all of Motown. They take music pretty seriously and I took music pretty seriously and I took music pretty seriously.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time I went to see the band it was only one of their first couple shows, but they played a place called the Shelter, which is below St Andrews in Detroit, and it's these guys with leather jackets. They didn't have a keyboard. It was on stage. It was guys with with leather jackets, they didn't have a keyboard. It's on stage, this guy's black leather jackets and aviator sunglasses, and then the singer has like a Jamaican shirt on and you know they're doing their thing and he's doing. He starts doing pushups on stage and he's sweating profusely and he tears the shirt off and he's not exactly in shape and he throws it at a guy in the audience and then when the song you know ends, he's like thank you, I'm going to need that back at the end of the night.
Speaker 2:And that was Dick Valentine slash Tyler and I was just mystified. It's like I didn't think anybody down here had a sense of humor about music, you know, but it was great.
Speaker 2:So the drummer and I worked together at the time anyways, and so I would go see their shows, because it was always something fun like that, and when they needed a keyboardist I was thrilled. So but, um, I was playing with the group at the at the beginning of what became like the pre-fire, which was our first record, so it was the record that produced hits over here. So we went from playing the logger house, which is a venue in Detroit that holds about 250 people, to six months later mixing the first record at Abbey road. Again, I'm not going to blame that kind of meteoric rise or descent after. I can't blame my use on that, but it certainly was not something I was prepared to handle, and so because of that, it was that much easier to increase my usage to get through the amount of touring and recording and everything that we easier to increase my usage, to get through the amount of touring and recording and everything that we had to do.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean I was really fortunate. The things that we got to do in that first year, you know it, it was a combination. What happened that you know? The white stripes happened and then that kind of put the spotlight on Detroit and at the time there was a DJ collective from over here called Too Many DJs and they started playing Electric Six. Once we did the name change and then they put us on a comp where they did a mashup of the band with us with the Kramps, us with the cramps, and so there was all you know there were all these things that happened at just the right time, um, along with detroit kind of having a spotlight on it.
Speaker 2:And that's nothing to take away from the band.
Speaker 1:I think we're a great band, yeah, but, um, you know it, definitely there is a huge amount of chance or fate or things happening right place at the right time I'm glad you've said that because I think when I, when I look at success stories, so many people tend to mitigate that being a key point to any form of success and it's like, oh, you know, follow this guidance, follow these rules. But a massive part of any amount of success is is luck and chance, and I think so many people you know you read self-help books or something and it's like try and do this and do this and I was successful because of this, completely mitigating the fact that so much of this can just be down to almost right place, right time in some way as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I. I think we have a very unique thing because of our singer you know, it's like a game show host on stage. He's a very unique character, um, but there were a lot of great bands happening at the time and, truth be told, at the time, personally, uh, there were probably three guys that I could point to in town that were better keyboard players than I was so that it is.
Speaker 2:You know you can say, yes, we put ourselves forward, yes, we busted our butts, but that doesn't necessarily. It's not like a collegiate pathway where you're going okay, I've taken these steps. It's not, I think, an expectation, is created by ourselves, but it's not really founded on anything, because you do have to have either a certain amount of luck or the right connections, or X, y and Z, for things to take off.
Speaker 2:And for us it was definitely like the too many djs comps and the fact that jack was on high voltage, because the white stripes had, were in the process of putting seven, seven nation army out which is you know, I mean they were already huge, and then it just so it was really it was. It was a great opportunity and time for us, you know to it was a great opportunity and time for us and we're very fortunate to have been there. But yeah, I agree with you, that's not to take anything away from us or any other band.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course it's just looking at it from, I guess, a point of view of knowledge, I suppose, really, which a lot of people don't do.
Speaker 2:That's a lesson in humility too.
Speaker 2:I mean there's so many of those in involved with, like my relationship with the band before and you know, but before and after, getting into recovery from drugs and alcohol. But even before you know I might not have been willing to give those demons up, but I, I mean, I had to admit like I wanted to be my whole life. I wanted to be in a very serious band. I listened to serious bands and it was humbling to be lucky enough to get into any band that's been able to do what we did.
Speaker 2:But it's also very it's called like friends of mine in the program called it Godwink where somebody's giving you a nudge, like you may not have expected this to be your path, but you're about to be able to get to do the things you always dreamed of doing as a kid, like getting to play glastonbury and jules holland and these things that like were barely even. It was hard to even get to watch them. Yeah, you had to stay up to watch the, the show on MTV to even be able to kind of see some of these bands and stuff. And we were having this opportunity to back then yeah, yeah, absolutely, anyways, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's been, it's definitely been a lesson in humility that a band that I never thought. You know that was something I'd be part of has really like paved the way, but you know, I never thought I would still be, doing this 22 years later.
Speaker 1:We've been really, really fortunate um to have the fan base that we have I remember seeing these things in in, like, say, early 2000s, those music videos and and being a fan of like uh, you know karang music and watching those channels. It was just so different from everything else that was on there that you couldn't help but take notice of it because it didn't mix with everything else. But it still kind of hit those notes to be part of what you'd have maybe on your mp3 player. Do you know, like that sort of genre of music. But it was so different as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think I've just got a quote here on the topic of the music and and alcoholisms. One of your quotes here it says well, I know I certainly can't blame music for my drinking habits. All of my addictions got worse being in an accelerated musical environment. Talk me through through that. Then the culture of music you know, like you said earlier about these things going hand-in-hand, working in bars, you know, being in bands, all these sort of things. Talk me through that sort of acceleration of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, well, that kind of ties in with what we were just talking about with regards to, like you know, it being very much, uh, the success at least with, with us personally being a list of variables. Uh, at the time it was well. Of course this happened. This is the way things were supposed to go you know, like there was still a huge amount of ego.
Speaker 2:yeah, and I knew better. But you know, I mean, everybody has their golden god moments and that stuff is fueled by alcohol and drugs, right, but while we were out touring the world, you know, I was getting in trouble with the law back home. So for eight years I didn't have a driver's license. Yeah, and that's another ego related thing. You know I looked at it as a right, not a privilege, and when I got sober I really had to work to get that back.
Speaker 1:yeah, and it changed another.
Speaker 2:That was another thing that really changed my perspective did you use?
Speaker 1:did you lose the driving license from drink? Or did, yeah, yeah so what was that situation?
Speaker 2:uh, I mean it was. It was the second time I got in trouble with the law. Um, I'd spent some time in jail and when I got out it was. They were like you're gonna have to go through the process of probation and then maybe get your restricted license back, and I was at the time I was like, well, I'm not gonna stop drinking, so I better just stop driving. Yeah, which is really. I mean to say that now that's something that's cunning, baffling and powerful. That's where I was at with it, but that's where we get.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you talked about alcohol giving you the feelings of feeling two foot taller, the increased confidence, and there's something in that. You talked about something being the solution before it becomes the problem. I guess there's something in alcohol can give you so much, but it can also take so much away. You know, I've got down here on my notes that you was hospitalized, that you lost your driving license, you lost relationships with family and friends. That's all those things that it does take away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and by the time those things start happening, it's the problem. But it's got its claws in you. You know what I mean. So it's not. I think it's very enticing. Early on, I can see very clearly how and why I became an alcoholic, but by the time the consequences were starting to step on my neck, it had its claws in.
Speaker 2:It had its claws in, um, so yeah, and and it was interesting, you know so while we were on tour, these things were happening, those consequences were starting to pile in at home, um, and I was still working as a bartender, because I you know well, hey, I can drink as much as I want and work work at the same time. Why? Not you know, it was one of those things, uh. But when I lost my license it was like okay, well, I'm not going to be able to drive to work anymore, so I better just move in behind the bar, which I did you know, so I was literally like alcohol. I was shaping my my life around alcohol, you know music was even kind of just something that was happening along with the using.
Speaker 2:Um, excuse me, and yeah, it was hospitalization. Uh, I still I don't want to go into war stories, but I I actually, as of yesterday, had a bout with pancreatitis. It still flares up sometimes if I'm super stressed or too much caffeine or you know, I go wrong with my diet.
Speaker 1:Um, and that's even after 10 years of sobriety 14 years, 14 years, excuse me, 13 years, 14 april 4th so the the long-term effects of it are still there that you're having to to deal with now.
Speaker 2:And I had dealt with it many times and I, you know, as a sober person. One of the cool parts about that is I get to go to the doctors and I get to, you know, talk to a dentist and, you know, do the things I never did as somebody that was active, yeah, but so I know better. I know how to deal with it now, you know, as, as opposed to the way it was then, you know, just kind of pretending it's it'll go away if I keep drinking through it, or, you know, waiting for it to heal itself, and then going straight back to what I was wanting things to change without changing anything. Yeah, uh, I know how to take care of it now, but, um, it's, I've had a lot of stress in my life and I let things slip and, you know, you get into tour mode and start eating like shit and it's whatever you can eat and when you, when you're on the road and everything, suddenly it's like, yeah, that's a good idea yeah, so it's.
Speaker 2:I mean, nowadays it's nobody's it's. You know, it's absolutely my issue and I also know how to deal with it.
Speaker 1:It's up to me if I'm going to make the right choice, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 1:So, going back to you know, first being introduced to alcohol at a young age, at what point did you realize that you was physically dependent on the substance? You told the story about having to go home to go get. You know the mix that you'd made and whilst you was in high school, um, and that is is kind of like that mental you know I've got to go and get it at what point did you realize your body was physically addicted to it? Like when did you first experience withdrawal symptoms and did you even connect the two, that the withdrawals were because of a lack of alcohol?
Speaker 2:uh, yeah, I mean, it would have been in college like I realized that I was. Well, it was anytime post high school really it was, if I wasn't kind of staying lubricated as they say, um, you know the shakes and whatever would start to creep in.
Speaker 2:And a couple years after that, uh, you know the band thing was happening, the working in restaurants thing was happening, so it was being normalized in my life. Anyways, it was like by the time I got to hamtramck, which is the town my wife and I live in now, it's in it's inside detroit and I'll talk a little bit more about it later, because that's where passenger recovery is too.
Speaker 2:But, um, at one point Hamtramck originally was a Polish immigrant town and it was all people who came to the United States to work for the automotive companies and so work hard, play hard. At one point Hamtramck had more bars per capita than anywhere else in the world. There's a lot of dive bars and makeshift home bars and that kind of thing. So when I got there and was introduced to the culture it was like oh well, I've arrived. You know, this is, these are my people, because there is no stigma attached to anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah so, um, and that's where I ended up after I was lost the ability to drive as I was just working in dive bars there. But yeah, I mean it was mentally and physically.
Speaker 2:It happened very early on, but I was given permission, basically by myself and the culture that I chose to be part of, to not have to ever deal with that, because I you know I was staying lubricated, have to ever deal, deal with that, because I, you know, I was staying lubricated and then, along with that, at the same time, you know, become part of a band where I was, you know, we were fortunate enough to get some real notoriety. Um and so that culture is absolutely, you know, not only is, it is, is substance use accepted, it's encouraged you know.
Speaker 2:It's part of every relationship. You know whether you're on stage, whether you're talking to fans, whether you're partying at the after party, whether you're being courted by a label you know, and that's not to lay blame to anybody, because part of my journey is being self-aware and and uh, accountable, you know, but it is, it's just the reality of it, is, it's everywhere, you know. Um, so that was a big part of it too. Is, again, I was just given permission to keep going down that path.
Speaker 1:Yeah I think the interesting thing is because it is everywhere, because it is legal especially. I mean, I'm sure you've heard, at least somewhat, some stories of how drinking is so culturally ingrained in here in the UK especially. Do you know? I think the interesting thing that I always find is people experiencing withdrawal symptoms from alcohol but not knowing they're related to alcohol Because alcohol is legal. I think so many people, in terms of alcohol awareness campaigns that we run as a service, don't know the impacts that it can have and when they're having withdrawal, they're thinking, oh, I've got the flu.
Speaker 1:And maybe they're not even psychologically connecting those two things together in the sense of, oh well, if I just have another drink, these withdrawal symptoms will go away, because the two are so disconnected. And that's partly down to, I guess, the legality of it and I think, something that, as you, as you've said in in your hometown, when it's everywhere, when it is so cultural, it's like, well, that can't possibly possibly be the reason why I'm feeling this way.
Speaker 1:I'm experiencing the shakes, the tremors, hallucinations you know, so I guess there's something in that and it doesn't happen very often. Most people will have some understanding that, okay, if I drink more, this will go away. But on the occasions where it does, I found it really interesting because of the cultural acceptance of it, because it's everywhere. So any would that be your sort of experiences as well?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean it was. It's funny you say that because my mind still does that sometimes, where not necessarily that a drink or a drug is going to make it better, but I create illusions about the way I actually drank or used. Excuse me. The way I actually drank or used, excuse me. For example, a couple of winters ago, I was driving down an alleyway near a place where I used to live that was kind of in squalor. It was near the end of my use, and I drove by the house and I lived there with some very dear friends, one of which is no longer with us due to this, and I drove through this alleyway next to the house and I was, you know, I'm looking at the house and it's winter, so there's snow on the ground and, like my, my mind starts replaying the tape of what it was like there and there's, like you know, a fire in the fireplace and a dean martin record on the record player you know, and the reality of the inside of that house was coke residue everywhere on every flat surface blackout curtains, dirty dishes that had been sitting in the the sink for months, you know, uh and and a toilet that was literally falling through the floor and
Speaker 1:you know, and it's just amazing, you know, somehow you've managed to romanticize that as something that was quite cozy and cute and it was like so far from the truth when you really think about it yeah, and it's, it's amazing that, uh, it's just amazing that my mind still works like that you know, it's like another example of that.
Speaker 2:There's a documentary that was made recently about the making the godfather films. It was pretty good and he was called the offer. You know, these guys are in uh, on the warner brothers lot in hollywood and they're drinking martinis and they're doing coke and at some point and this is like 12 years into recovery, it was a while a year or so ago I'm like you know, martini, I could probably handle a martini, you know, just because of the way I was watching it being consumed you know, and again same thing, me no sheets on the mattress, a jug of vodka next to the bed
Speaker 2:you know, and I guess that's for me, that's that's the the reason that I need to stay regular with the support that works for me and stay in the community. And that's easy for me now, because I've been fortunate enough to see things change in ways I could never imagine and the things that were working. Early on I couldn't really see results and because I was, so, you know, I had lived my adult life on reward systems, you know. And so when I got sober, it was like, okay, I've got to get the license back and I've got to get back into Canada because I've been banned from working in Canada, so I've got to get back over there.
Speaker 2:But while I was hyper-focused on these surface-level things, things were happening, like family members were starting to answer the phone again, people were starting to trust me, like things that would, long-term, be a real gift in my life were happening, and so through that, even though I couldn't see those things happening at the time, people just told me to stay at it and keep working with people and keeping communication with people and, um, you know, it went from what felt like a punishment to being an opportunity for growth and that was the mindset change that I needed. You know it was like it didn't feel like my life is just going to be this black and white.
Speaker 2:You know, thing forever because real changes were happening. And the further I got away from that and looked back, the more I realized that I was sitting in the dark at the end. Anyways, when I was using you know, I was afraid to change because I didn't know what it looked like. So much so that I was happy to sit in this black hole, you know, of just using and checking out and, you know, in the opposite of a social way, like all night alone, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:I think, going back to the martini story that you shared, then I guess that's something that does happen, and one of the conversations we explore and it's always interesting to get different people's opinions on this is when does, if ever, recovery become recovered? Do you know, talking about those thoughts of I could handle a martini now right, what is that like for you as a person to have to, I guess, to have those thoughts, and does it kind of like, as you said then, does it ever come into your head thinking I reckon I could go back to having just the one?
Speaker 2:Not in a real way, but that's only because I stay regular. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And for me, I mean this goes into a whole other conversation. Everybody is different. A guy, a good friend of mine when I quit, I went into programs that discussed the past and dealing with the past and dealing with the emotional immaturity that I had and dealing with the things, the baggage I was carrying around and all that shit, all that stuff. A guy that I was at the bar with on the regular was like well, I'm just going to start going to the gym every day.
Speaker 2:And that worked for him. So it's not for me to say what path works for who, because if there was a magic answer, magic ticket answer, all of us would be doing the one thing. But that's what worked for me. Sorry, where was I going with that? Good, whatever, when, when does it? If ever? Oh, recovered, sorry, uh, yeah, so that you know if there was yeah, exactly, if there was a magic ticket answer, everybody would be doing it. Um, it was a an early indicator to me seeing him do something else and it working for both of us in different ways.
Speaker 2:The recovered thing to me is kind of recovery versus recovered is splitting hairs. I'm not going to tell anybody whether you know, I believe that the longer I stay, personally, I can only answer for myself yeah, the longer I stay in recovery, the more my life has grown. Yeah, and so why would I go back to that thing? Or I mean, I know that I love to do that, I know I love to test the waters and I know I love to try to get away with things. I'm as addicted to chaos and drama as I am to coke and booze, yeah, but uh, I've got luckily enough time under my belt, enough distance from that last drink to go.
Speaker 2:I know what will happen if I do that, and it's not worth unraveling everything, because I proved to myself for like 18 years that I can't handle it. Yeah, um, and the beauty of being in recovery is that it has given me things that I didn't even know I wanted. You know I say this a lot, but if you would have told me 13 years ago or 12 years ago, you know, in the first year, if you would have told me you're going to eventually be married and have dogs and a kid, I mean I would have laughed and I wouldn't have believed it, because it wasn't even something I wanted, even as a sober person, you know.
Speaker 2:But that's again the opportunity to grow and change. Um, I didn't think I could handle those kinds of responsibilities. I didn't think I wanted those kinds of responsibilities.
Speaker 2:I certainly didn't then and I wasn't prepared to commit to anything that long term. I mean, I had to take the sobriety thing every 24 hours a day. But looking back on it now it's like, okay, well, things happened. I was tied to the job for an identity, the band, and then the pandemic removed that and I didn't know it until that happened, until the wheels stopped turning. I was like, oh wow, this really is like who I think I am still a lot more than I let on. I didn't know. I believe that us getting dogs conditioned me to have a kid.
Speaker 1:You know, I think if I would have gone from zero to kid, yeah, I think our little girl would not be, as you know, and people laugh at that but having I mean we had a when we had a puppy, I had to get up multiple times throughout the night, you know, and yeah, and when I've tried to, I've got, I've got a three-year-old daughter now almost three but yeah, I feel like it did in a way prepare me for those nights and that level of responsibility, because it is a lot. I think some people think, oh, it's just a dog For me, the amount of responsibility that that comes with.
Speaker 1:I think people underestimate sometimes.
Speaker 2:Well, and coming from a space where, for years and years and years, all I thought about was number one, exactly yeah, and it was like, okay, taking care of even just a creature or two, I had to do it. Baby steps, yeah, literal baby steps, yeah, in order to be prepared to actually be a dad. But having those realities and the realizations also like wow, this is something I actually want, and having the confidence to go, I can do this, yeah, I can. You know, if I say I'm because that's something that I've also learned in recovery is if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and that's a beautiful thing, it used to scare the hell out of me.
Speaker 1:Right, you talked about sitting sort of just in the darkness by yourself, drinking, you know, and that was when you start to make those changes or realize you need to make those changes. What was the I guess you know, I guess what was the rock bottom moment that did really turn the light on in your head and think right now is the day that I take on sobriety, after being in, you know, alcohol addiction for so long. What was it that happened that made you think, right, I'm getting clean from today. Was it something you ever teased or thought about? Or was it just like, boom, today's the day I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 2:Um, the last. The day of my last drink was April 4th 2011. Uh, I, we had been on the road for a month. I went on a week long bender and in Nashville, uh, that that was the last drink for me. Um, it had been a long time coming.
Speaker 2:Uh, that night there were all kinds of you know, I hadn't had a license for years. I tried to drive the van off the lot, I ran over a laptop, I tried to fight some guys that were involved in the band, like just checking all the boxes for somebody that no longer had control over anything. Again, not to go back into war stories, but these were all the things that had just been kind of happening to the point where, um, I woke up and our singer was, like I've been watching you do this for years, I can't do it anymore. And so they threw me off the tour, which also was a very humbling moment, uh, but if I'm being honest, I was, you know, I was kind of like a grown child that had convinced himself he could get away with whatever he wanted, because I've been playing with the band for nine years at that point, and I didn't respect it, but I still loved music and I, you know, I don't. On the surface, I don't know that I would have even admitted to that. I mean, I don't know, I was just checked out, but that rang a bell. You know, I had tried to get sober through the health issues in the past. I had been to treatment twice, but what I hadn't done is, um, or you know, health issues or whatever I never actually committed myself to it. I never made phone calls, I never started actually doing things to change my direction. Like I said, I wanted things to change without having to change anything.
Speaker 2:Um, this time I went away, uh, for a month. I went to a place in the middle of nowhere in minnesota called the retreat. Um, it was funded by music cares, because I didn't really I had a lot of tax issues and financial issues at that point. Um, I was very fortunate to have things lined up the way they did, so that when I genuinely wanted to change and was ready to commit to trying to make a change through action, that there were people there for me. That pointed me in the right direction. Yeah, so yeah, that was. What was different is I couldn't convince myself anymore that the consequences weren't happening and I also was just so tired of letting myself and everyone around me down. Um, I mean it's, you know, it's a little bit. I think I had a foot in wanting to die and a foot in being terrified of what life would be like without these things, you know, despite knowing what life had been like with them you know, and sitting in that dark place for so long.
Speaker 2:But I think that was the bell ringer. It was just like the idea of not being able to do this thing that I had already taken granted for a long time. Taking for granted for a long time, but, um, you know not, and just being exhausted, you know. So I get, you know I had that window and I believe a lot. I mean, over the last 10 years I've worked in treatment centers and I've worked with community mental health organizations between tours and that's kind of what led to passenger uh, and I believe that there is that window with people where you get the window where they are, they can contemplate change, um, and if you, if you get in there at the right time, you can really.
Speaker 2:You know the person has the opportunity to really make a change, but it's very easy for that window to be closed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a small window as well, isn't it, I guess? So you know you. I guess how old is you when electric six did really take off? 24, so very young age, and I suppose even trying to navigate, like you know, that level of fame at such a young age may have had it come with its own own challenges. But I think you know, doing an organization, creating an organization, I should say like passenger recovery, must come with its own pressures and expectations as well. What does passenger recovery offer and how important is music to the pathway of recovery?
Speaker 2:okay, um, I'll give you a little bit of background. Passenger, uh, it started a couple years into sobriety. Uh, I was we on tour with the guys again after I'd gotten clean and gone to treatment. Uh, I waited about eight months.
Speaker 2:I think that was reasonable, at least for somebody to be able to adjust the way, um, they prepare for tour you know in order to avoid those things and and getting a sponsor for me was something that was imperative, um cause I needed somebody to when I really want was going to make the effort. I needed somebody to say hey, by the way, you know you're going back into this. You need to address it differently. Like these bars are not your own personal studio 54. You're going in to do a job and sound check and then you go get coffee or you call me and then you go do the show and then you pack up and you go because that's a job that you are not now functioning in.
Speaker 2:It never occurred to me that that's how it was supposed to be done, but it was very helpful to have people you know that had had experiences before, and people who could guide me through the process. So a couple of years into sobriety, I was in Canada, in Saskatoon, saskatchewan, uh, and it was like a 10 hour drive from Calgary. So we're heading back into back to the East from the West. It was a long drive. Um, by the time we got there it was dark out, coffee shops were closed, everything was kind of shut down, and the bar we were playing didn't have a green room. So it was either it was a middle of winter, it was the midwest, so it was really just like you know, in canada. So no phone service. Um, for me it was either you, I have to sit in a bar and wait to perform a show or I have to sit in a freezing cold van with a trailer, and, and I don't know why, that was the moment. It was just like there has to be a better way to do this.
Speaker 2:You know there has to be something in the Midwest because there wasn't a lot at the time. So that was the beginning of trying to do something in the community with, you know, the little bit of juice that I had, you know, and that made sense in Detroit. So I, when I got done with that tour, I went back home and talked to a friend of mine who was an art therapist at a local treatment center that I'd actually been to when I was a younger guy. She was a dear friend who had also been in kind of the music scene, garage rock scene there, and I was like, hey, I've got this idea. I'd really like to help people who are on tour, who are trying to stay sober, because in Hamtramck I mean, a lot of the bands that come through town get their start. In Hamtramck it's a lot of dive bars, like I mentioned.
Speaker 2:But it also has a fascinating music history. You know it was a cornerstone for the Detroit techno movement. Before that, people like Carl Perkins and Jack Scott people from rockabilly, you know years 50s and 60s played places there um in the.
Speaker 2:You know I think the white stripes played their second show ever there so anyways, and it's like a mile and a half from the original motown studios, so it's a cool place steeped in cool musical history, um. But you know, so those are the people that we I wanted to cater to as people who who were coming through playing these dive bars that didn't have green rooms and didn't have tour buses and were really struggling. So I was talking to this art therapist friend about it. She was like that's a great idea, you're not ready to do that yet. So she suggested I come work at the treatment center. So I did. I worked there for three years as a miliotech, so like a community technician. She called it the glue, the people who was shared experience, lived experience that would work beneath the clinical staff and the nursing staff.
Speaker 1:And that was a great opportunity uh, really being on the front lines talking to people on a daily basis who were going through detox, convincing them, you know, uh, just sharing experiences that's so important, though, isn't it to have people, or have their shared experience, to see that visible recovery, as we'd call it, because I I remember having a situation so I I manage a team of what you'd call community technicians, those people's lived experience to help our help, our service users, and there was one guy before who was adamant that the volunteers that I had on board who were in recovery were paid actors, who was lying, because, he said, nobody gets clean and he said it was all.
Speaker 1:And he was adamant, 100% adamant, that nobody does it. And he said they said they've never done it. He went you're just paying them to say that they've done it or they're lying. And it was so interesting to be that closed off to the idea that a life without drugs, alcohol, was even possible, because to him he just could not see a way out of it and he thought if he couldn't do it, then nobody else could do it either. And it wasn't until that team really spent time with him that really started to break down those barriers and he started to say oh, so what works for you? And talking, detox, preparation, all this stuff. But clinical staff couldn't get through to him. Case coordinators couldn't get through to him. Right, it was the people with lived experience. So the idea of them being the glue that holds it all together. I am a hundred percent behind that. Yeah, because that person wouldn't have made even one step forward, I don't think, had he not had those people to work with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean the clinicians. Well, could be the, the people that save your life eventually, but there has to be somebody, or some way to relate to someone you know that in detroit I worked for this organization called face addiction.
Speaker 2:Now, that's a great organization. When our first daughter was, when our daughter was first born, I came off the road I wasn't touring nearly as much um to be with her and my wife and um we did this thing called QRTs quick response team, where we would go out like people, shared experience and the, the, the peer support specialists, would go out with the police to check in on people who had either gotten in trouble with the law for a drug or alcohol related offense or who had overdosed. And we actually went to the front doors say, hey, we're just here to check in with you. This is the police department it was. It was really interesting on a lot of levels, um, because the shared experience would get the person's attention, but also they would see the police in a relaxed manner, so it kind of like humanized the police and vice versa the police excuse me, vice versa the police would see people in a different light that were just kind of rinse and repeat participants in the community.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It humanizes everyone on all levels. Exactly, it doesn't hurt, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, when I first started working with them, I was making the joke, as I'm sure everybody else has like wow, I never thought I'd be, you know, not in the back of the car cuffed up the way I had been in the past. Um, you know not, shockingly, you get to work with local police and you find out that their addiction runs through their families just like everybody else's. You know, excuse me, and uh and and yeah, and going to meet with these people at their doorstep, it just like I think it was. Really it's also beneficial for the police because it's true, I mean, I think anybody who does a job where they're, you know they go through the same routines over and over and over again, without these tiny little changes that ultimately lead to a better direction. You know you get exhausted, you're overworked and you just, you just kind of follow the same protocol and so for that, it was getting to see people that they had just arrested and arrested and arrested.
Speaker 2:Trying a different take on it and trying a different approach was was beneficial, uh, but the the program was cool because the guy that trained me said you know, don't lead talking about substance use disorder or drugs or alcohol. Incentivize these people. When you go to their door, explain why you're there, explain that you understand their history, but then lead with something that's going to make them want to consider change. Whether it's getting a driver's license back, we can do that. Do you need food assistance? We can do that. Do you need medicaid or health insurance?
Speaker 2:okay, let's you know, because nobody is instantly wants to get vulnerable with a stranger you know, but if you can lead with something that they're interested in, then you've got a foot in the door and you can ultimately talk about real change with regards to the substance use.
Speaker 1:I think that's why smart goals for me are so important, those, those really small changes, because I think I could work with someone for a year and after year they, you know, I mean for opiate substitute medication and things like methadone. People can be on methadone for years and it might be 12 months later they're on the same dose of methadone and they're thinking I haven't done, you know, I've fuck all in like the last year. But then you actually list off all the smart goals that they have achieved, such as getting their driver's license, you know, rebuilding those relationships with family, attending more support groups, and you're like well, actually you look at all these little changes in comparison to where you are a year ago. Yes, you're still on, you know, 50, 60, 60, 70 millimethadone. But look at all these other things around you that have changed and and that is, I guess, the incentive, isn't it? Here's how, here's how you can improve your life in a much bigger way, but in very small steps building to that right, yeah, yeah, look at how everything else has changed.
Speaker 2:You know the bigger picture, sort of thing yeah, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I guess getting into the band at a young age and having these problems with alcohol there's a thing in relation to, I guess, substances and creativity. How has sobriety changed your relationship with creativity and what lessons have you learned about maintaining balance in such a, I guess, emotion, emotionally demanding industry?
Speaker 2:you know, I think that at the end of my years and I couldn't even convince myself that I was being creative anymore- I mean, I talked about it every night I talked about my grandiose plans um and this isn't. You know, I'm not whipping myself over my behaviors. I've come to terms with a lot of that stuff and it's fine. It's something that happened and it doesn't happen anymore. But there was a lot of on a regular basis, if not a nightly basis, whether anyone else was around or not.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of talk about change and like one day I'm going to do this, one day I'm going to do that with the music, and this is going to happen, and this is going to happen. And then it was just. The cycle of insanity would continue. So, if I'm being honest, nothing was getting done for the last few years, like I really wasn't. There was no creative output. And now my relationship with creativity creativity changes quite a bit, as it should, because that's a normal relationship right.
Speaker 2:Things change and things kind of ebb and flow. Um, when I first got sober, I uh put a side project together with some friends. It was a great experience Not an easy one, you know. As you, we're all friends but it turned out. Things didn't work necessarily as well on a creative level. So it lasted a couple of years and it was a great time, but it, you know, it ended when it should have, and that was fine.
Speaker 2:During the pandemic got together with a friend of mine and did another side project and it was fantastic. Uh, because it was just he and I. There weren't too many cooks in the kitchen. We kind of did it at our own pace.
Speaker 2:It allowed us to be as creative as we wanted to be. We also couldn't go outside, so it taught me a lot about how I create as an addict, because my what I learned was my um, my window of real creative, healthy activity is about three hours, but I would tend to spend more, like seven or eight hours of time, because I'm an addict.
Speaker 2:So you know if, if a little bit is good, a lot is better, you know, until my head's on fire. But yeah, and that's the truth too, that has definitely like I've had to be mindful about that, like my creativity, like treating it with addict behaviors. But this particular project was great. Uh, it didn't ever go anywhere but he and I ended up, um, it ended up doing well commercially with, like local with the, the motor car companies in detroit you know so we never even played a show.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, but had we not done it in the first place, we would never have had the opportunities to make connections, to do these behind the scenes commercial things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Great extra income, you know, and, and it, and. That was a cool project because it was just that there's nobody telling us to do anything. Yeah, Was you worried like oh God?
Speaker 1:I'm not going to be as creative as I used to be, cause I think, even though you said in those later days that do you know? Know, you might think you said you wasn't being very creative yourself, but you kind of convinced yourself. Did that ever cross your mind like, maybe I'm not going to be as good as this now I'm so, but what's it going to be?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. It's hilarious to look back on because you know I was thinking in janice joplin and jim Hendrix terms.
Speaker 1:It's just like you know.
Speaker 2:I'm the keyboardist for Electric Six.
Speaker 1:That's the reality of the situation. No, it's still, of course. That's the thing, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean it ties into the lessons in humility. I remember I was sitting with our singer at Soundcheck and we were talking about like self-obsession Because he was kind of just um, it was cool of him. He was cool enough to be interested in the process. You know that I was going through yeah so you're, we're sitting in the sound check.
Speaker 2:He's like so, you, you know. So you were kind of like, when you say self-obsessed, you're thinking that the the world revolves around you, right, you're the center of the universe. It was like, well, yeah, that's kind of the mentality that around you right, you're the center of the universe and it's like, well, yeah, that's kind of the mentality that's. And he looks at the stage, he's like, yeah, but you're not even the center of the stage and we both start cracking up because not only is that the truth, but how you know that's really.
Speaker 2:Is that the truth? But how you know that's really. That's the. That's the hard truth. You know, is that you know? Uh, but that's another thing I love about the band too is like not just I can trace back, that my attic behavior is not just through, like family history and everything else, but like the, the band. You know I'm the guy in the corner with sunglasses on, hiding behind two keyboards, wanting to be adored. But don't get too close. It was the perfect spot for an alcoholic. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean I didn't have to show anybody anything, but I still got the attention yeah it's just no, no, no, but you're still getting so reaping the rewards, sort of thing, aren't you? Without necessarily being under the microscope for it as well yeah yeah, that's interesting uh stigma around addiction, you know, obviously we know that can be one of the biggest uh barriers to recovering. How has your own experience with stigma shaped the way you approach advocacy and what advice would you give to others facing similar challenges uh?
Speaker 2:well, that's. I mean that that definitely ties in with what we were just talking about. Like in. In my experience with the music industry is the stigma is opposite. The opposite, you know. You are encouraged, like we talked about yeah, yeah to get into it. So when I got into peer support, specialist territory and community mental health, it was really like I don't really know as much about this world, you know.
Speaker 2:But there's no question, of course, that's still a big part of it, Right down to the language you know and I guess that ties back in with passenger Like you know, we started out as this thing that was helping touring musicians. You know, we started out as a couple of people that were local musicians that wanted to do something. So we started telling promoters that we'll take people to sport groups, we'll figure out if they have, if they need information to take with them. We can do that.
Speaker 2:Um, the sport groups, we'll figure out. If they have, if they need information to take with them, we can do that. Um, and it was for seven years. It was a volunteer organization. It was just us giving people rides and then eventually doing like music mixer, advocacy events at bars, because that's our workplace and just saying you know, hey, we're not here to browbeat anybody, but here's some entertainment.
Speaker 2:But we'll be in the corner if you have questions or you know, want, want to talk about something or or need some information, and that was really effective. You have to. You have to meet people where they're at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't going to go ask questions. I didn't really want answers to, you know, when it came to addressing my addiction and I spent most of my life in the bars, so that was kind of the driving force behind that and then ultimately did a lot of like Narcan and harm reduction at local like sports and entertainment events. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Did a clean green room at local music festivals, which is just exactly what it sounds like, and then, ultimately, we opened the community center last year and what we've tried to do with that is create as neutral grounds as possible. We partner with organizations that are really like, you know, end the stigma and we talk about it all the time there, but it's not something that we really campaign hard with, because I think, you know, our community center is one foot in recovery. It's literally one foot in recovery, one foot in pop culture.
Speaker 2:And it is that are enticing to people, like we just talked about. People walk in, they're going to see De La Soul on the wall, they're going to see books about John Coltrane, they're going to be able to play some music, there'll be instruments, there are community internet hubs. So there are things that will be interesting to people that have never had a welcoming space, particularly for us, the LGBTQ plus populations. You know there were before we started in Amtramck. There were two meetings period a week there and a lot of the populations won't go anywhere near a church, never mind like having this kind of arts and cultures atmosphere to try and welcome people, um, and just allow them to. You know we have some paid support groups a week, but we also want them to just be able to feel comfortable existing as people that are making changes yeah it doesn't have to be about recovery, recovery, which is why we offer all the other things.
Speaker 2:So I guess, to answer the question, that's a long way of saying yes. We promote organizations that lean into the anti-stigma campaigns and what we try to do is just welcome people who may have experienced that and into an area that is as welcoming to everybody so that you know, I mean absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:So we've just I've just personally done some trauma informed training, as they called it, and one of the big things that we talked about in that training was a, a pie, which is a psychologically informed environment and the idea being that, as you've said, you kind of have to go out to people as opposed to expecting necessarily them to come to you. And there's a couple of things too, like I'm aware that even here, if you come into our reception environment, if you're someone who is neurodiverse, for instance, it's quite loud in there, the lights as well can be quite bright, all these sort of things can be quite off-putting. Lights as well can be quite bright, all these sort of things can be quite off-putting. So I guess what you've described there, to me that sounds like an environment that if I was, uh, struggling, I could go in there and I think, personally with me where I'm at, I'd walk in there and I'd feel at ease instantly. It sounds like it's very psychologically informed as we call it.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's the goal, and lighting was a big, big part of it, as were the, you know, the designs, the colors trying to make everything as positive and upbeat as possible without turning the whole place into a meme.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Like realistic like inspiring real confidence in people, absolutely you know, I do believe that stigma is a very real thing, but I also know that for me personally, the only thing that was going to make me be able to dismiss that kind of thing was more confidence in myself, but healthy confidence instead. Of self-obsession Okay, I can do these things, I've been able to do them. I'm plugged into a community of people who are very capable, people that had the same problems that. I did.
Speaker 1:The stigma thing is interesting, especially when you said you know, for for you as a musician it's the opposite. It's almost encouraged. You know, I guess with that was there any. I suppose concern isn't the word I'm looking for, but the idea of that.
Speaker 1:You're no longer going to be fun, you're no longer going to be um the chris, that everybody knew in those environments because so much of the fabric of what made you you was being like being under the influence of substances. So the stigma of being in recovery in those environments is almost like oh, he's boring now because he doesn't drink. Yeah, he doesn't. Did you experience that at all?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah yeah, yeah, I actually had a guy that I used to do some music with that had told a mutual friend you know Tate's no fun anymore. And he got back to me and was like luckily it was long enough into recovery. For me it was like he's right, yeah. I don't have to be Good Time, charlie, anymore.
Speaker 2:I don't have to be the chameleonon I don't have to be a different version of me to whoever is sitting in front of me at any given time. Uh, it definitely would have hit a very different way if I'd been earlier in recovery, for sure, and I think it did at times before when I tried to quit, because, because I never committed to it. I remember wandering around my neighborhood in detroit like trying to get past the bar, just walking around yeah, that summer trying to get past the bars without noticing anybody, or I just had no direction.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what to do with myself because I had surrounded everything, I doused everything in alcohol, like it had shaped my life, um.
Speaker 2:But once I made the commitment and had a little bit of time under my belt, it was easier for me because, yeah, that's definitely a real thing, yeah, and it did happen a few times with friends, and it's another beauty, beautiful side of the of the recovery thing is being able to say that's a real response. You know that this guy saw me as good time Charlie and a little bit of a clown show for a while, and I was a funny guy. I don't have to be that person anymore and I can. I can look back on that and it it doesn't affect me at this point. Yeah, because I've gotten more in touch with the person who I really am, you know, and the people you know, and the people the guys in the band had seen the real dark side too. Yeah, so they were. I was very fortunate in the respect that they were very gung-ho about me trying to make a real change because they knew how it was going to go otherwise.
Speaker 1:How did they handle the change then? Do you know? Was they cautious about the environments that they was in with you or anything like that? Did they make any changes themselves into how they acted around? Like so, I guess, um, one of the things you sometimes see is christmas, for instance. Do you know? Uh, you know mom's recently gone sober, so no alcohol in the house at christmas, sort of thing, so nobody else drinks because they're worried it could be a trigger for mom or something like that. Did any changes like that happen? Or was it just like you do your thing, we do, we do our thing?
Speaker 2:uh, with the band it was very much like the hard alcohol was either kept somewhere else or I didn't see it for a while, which is kind of a gift yeah you know, that was definitely what was my issue. Um, I think that they don't did well. I don't know that they really knew. Why would they know how to handle something like that? I think they were as kind of in the dark as I was, but they did what they could with what they had, what they knew.
Speaker 3:You, know what I mean. Like they, they, they hid the hard alcohol.
Speaker 2:They weren't really partying hardcore when I was around, and at the same time, if I'm being completely honest, I was around, um, and at the same time, if I'm being completely honest, another big moment of clarity for me when I sobered up was realizing that nobody else was really partying the way I was.
Speaker 1:yeah, so it goes back to that romanticizing things like so you've got all these memories, like it used to be like this. It was like no, it wasn't like this for us, that was just you who was in.
Speaker 2:I can see it.
Speaker 1:That was brilliant, right, yeah, it's nice that they did. You know, even just making small changes such a big thing. Because I think, in in sobriety, in a weird way, we found out, like, who our real friends are as well, because going back to the stigma, it could be like, oh, we're not going to invite chris anymore because chris isn't fun. But the friends that still do turn up and the friends that do make those changes, they, they're the real friends and I think there is something in in finding out that you know, I guess, who really is there to support you and really who really has your back when you make such such a big change like that in your life absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's my yardstick for that. One of them is the hampton amic labor day festival, because it was this four-day weekend of debauchery for years and years and years with me and some other people. Again, I don't know if anybody was going at it as hard I'm sure some people were, but for the first couple of years I was sober, I wouldn't go near it, and there was a period of I resented the people who could still drink like that. And then there was a period of I'm too good for that festival. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like the stages of grief or something. Yeah, yeah, no, I can see that yeah. And until you know, 13 years on or actually starting at 11 years on in my recovery we started doing Narcan tables there and harm reduction and passing along community resources to people.
Speaker 2:And, by the time, by the time we started with those tables and tents, it was like you know what these people aren't trying? It just is, yeah, you know, I mean, I see people walking by that I used to party with. Some of them are partying now, some of them aren't. Some of them are still friends, some of them aren't, and it's all okay, it doesn't matter. Maybe booze or drugs were the things that tied us together in the first place and we don't have any connection without them.
Speaker 2:That's okay. Maybe I have a stronger connection with some people that I wouldn't have had had I still been partying. All of it is okay. It's to try and figure it out is pointless. The the important part for me is to let all that go and to stop carrying that shit around yeah, because it doesn't matter no, you know it's like I'm not going to move forward but it, but those realizations are really important. They're really cool because it doesn't matter like it and and and.
Speaker 2:I understand thanks to like making a change, but having awesome people in my life that I can reflect with, I understand why I went through all those stages you know it makes total sense and you know, I was 34 when I quit drinking, so there was a huge lack in emotional maturity and so I'm feeling like I'm missing out and I'm resentful of it. And then I'm self-righteous about it and yeah, and all that's okay because I have a better life now. And even if I didn't, it would be like chapters of change. Yeah, you know to where I get? To a point where it's like that's okay for them, it's not okay for me anymore that's all and accepting that as well.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, I get that. So Metropolis Records has recently launched a campaign, a call to action, in partnership with Passenger Recovery. Can you tell us more about this initiative, how it came to be and the impact you hope it will have on musicians struggling with addiction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Dave Heckman, who was the founder of Metropolis, passed away recently, in the last couple of years, and um Metropolis Dave Heckman also was the person that found was a big fan of electric six Uh, and we had been in in the first few years of our existence. You know there was the big first record and then we were dropped and that was a lesson in humility because we were still doing like top of the pops.
Speaker 2:You know we're still doing shows like wait a minute we're at the peak of things, but and the people that record the same thing, the people that record label, were fantastic to us. They were great human beings, but it's a business and they were and we're like we're still doing these. You know, having success with these songs and their response as business, people were like, yeah, but that's all we think.
Speaker 2:You, you know, you got in the canon was that first record and so we're gonna let you go. And then we signed to warner brothers for the second one and then got, you know, dropped from there and I mean, the reality is I, it's the same thing. It's like it's just a change in perspective. Yeah, of seeing, and anyways, I'm going off on all kinds of tangents here like me going. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:we're a one-hit wonder and they're going well we've decided you are, or we've decided we want to go in a different direction. It doesn't like me going. What do you mean? We're a one hit wonder and they're going well, we've decided you are or we've decided we want to go in a different direction.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter. You're not going to talk us back into working with you, even though they were super cool people. That's just life and that's business. But you know what again, like the you know these winks that were happening in my life, a big one was, while all we were stressing about all that stuff, the fan base was just growing and growing and growing and people were handing those records down to their nephews and nieces and little brothers and sisters. So I think the established cult fan base that we have now is due to that kind of long-term fan base beyond the big hits that we had.
Speaker 2:Anyways, a couple years in we got a call from Dave Heckman and he was the founder of Metropolis Records, which is a goth industrial label. So Electric Six has always been like the redheaded stepchild of this label.
Speaker 2:But they're one of two big american gotham industrial labels. Um, they just last week they put out a duet with boy george and peter murphy from bow house. So they still I mean, they're you know, they have been around for a while and they're a terrific label and, and for whatever reason, dave was like a big fan of Electric Six. He's like I want you on the label and he was great in the respect that he gave us a career with longevity. He was great in the respect that I would send him side projects and he would give me the truth, which is like I'm not interested in this. I'm interested in this, but it needs X, y and Z.
Speaker 2:He was very real, yeah, you know, and even with criticisms criticisms I really appreciated that. You know, instead of just kind of writing it off or not responding to emails, he would take the time to go. This is why I don't like what you're sending me. But also, he was a real mentor for the band and he, uh, he was like I mean, he was always like that with his artists. So he passed away a couple years ago and we had become very close with his wife and his daughter, gail and Nina, who now run the label and when I was talking to them after we'd opened the community center, it was a really natural conversation about losing people in the pandemic, the struggles of dealing with touring the lifestyle, the culture around the music industry, all those things and we realized that we had so many all had so many friends that were dealing with so much and they were impressed with what we'd done with the community center.
Speaker 2:After seven years of pretty hard work, you know, we kind of finally got the recognition from the state of Michigan to be able to support something like that, and so they wanted to do something in Dave's honor and to kind of celebrate his legacy and try to bring awareness to the issues that that musicians and crew and anybody who is part of a music industry touring lifestyle has to face. That I believe that we all have different versions of the same story people in recovery but there are specific things to that lifestyle that you know, I mean start with the workplace right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we've been working on it for a little while and we're really excited they're they're going to do a cd compilation with some rarities from some of their artists and those uh the tracks will be released in the coming weeks, kind of like one by one. Electric six will be on there. There's a we did a remix a few years ago that was never released, that kind of thing. But the money is going to go towards expanding our services, which we're really excited about.
Speaker 1:That sounds really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the moment, like I said, we do peer support services. We do eight support groups a week, connect people with food assistance and health insurance and treatment or detox if they need it for touring musicians. Um, we do everything I mentioned, like harm reduction, silver, clean, green room, drive people to meetings, but with the community center, it would allow us to have more space to do things like music therapy or something on a regular basis, that would be impactful in a different way it sounds amazing.
Speaker 1:I just trying to imagine having something local like that here. I know obviously we cover some of those things, but the way that music can be related to, I guess, helping people move forward in that way is so important as well.
Speaker 2:You know, looking at people's individual passions as well and bringing that forward as well yeah, opening the community center was a real moment for us because we had helped touring musicians, people who were obviously passionate about music, and it allowed us to pivot to keep that mission going but also use music in the arts just to enrich the lives of people who were interested in exploring recovery.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant, chris. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you want to go over before we wrap it up? I really appreciate your time. No, honestly, it's been absolutely fantastic. I like to finish all of my podcasts that we do in honor of James Lipton. We carried on the tradition of asking 10 questions at the end and they are unrelated.
Speaker 2:We're doing that inside the studio. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. Okay, refresh me.
Speaker 1:What's your?
Speaker 2:favorite word. One of them is curmudgeon. What. Curmudgeon, curmudgeon. I've never heard that in my life. You don't know what a curmudgeon is. No, it's like a Grinch.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice, yeah, Brilliant.
Speaker 2:Least favorite word, god, that's a good one. That's my least favorite word these days, winter tell me something that excites you uh god, I'm really failing at this. My, my daughter is into the movie coco. I'm very excited about that because that's a terrific music movie with a beautiful story.
Speaker 1:I've seen it a few times now and every time it gets to the end I watch it with my daughter. I always cry at least there's always a little tear out, that last sort of lullaby. I just feel my eyes well up a little bit it's so intense, man, and I realize she's not even watching at this point, it's just me and yeah, there we go, but no, absolutely love it. Um, what doesn't excite you?
Speaker 2:yes, it's funny. This all kind of goes to the relativity and perspectives thing that we've been talking about this whole time.
Speaker 2:What doesn't excite me at the moment? Because I've made poor choices in the last few days with regards to caffeine and diet. The idea of getting back on the road, having come off a ferry, does not excite me. 20 years ago, I would have been like, oh my God, I'm getting on a. You know, I'm getting on a ferry from the Netherlands to go to the UK to play, so I'm grateful for all of it, but yeah, at the moment the travel is wearing out. Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1:What sound or noise do you love the rain? What sound or noise do you hear? Hotel fire alarms? What's your favourite swear word? Shit. If you wasn't a musician, what profession would you like to attempt? Zoologist, what profession would you not like to do?
Speaker 2:Mortician.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Speaker 2:You did your best.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant, chris, thank you so much for coming on Believe in People. You have been fantastic, thank you.
