While on the campaign trail for his new solo album, Everyday Robots, Blur frontman Damon Albarn made some rather unfortunate comments about his undiscussed heroin use “at the height of Britpop,” lauding the drug as a creative aid and saying it “changed me completely as a musician.”
“[Heroin] freed me up,” Albarn explained to Q, via the Guardian. “I hate talking about this because of my daughter, my family. But, for me, it was incredibly creative… A combination of [heroin] and playing really simple, beautiful, repetitive shit in Africa changed me completely as a musician.”
“I found a sense of rhythm. I somehow managed to break out of something with my voice,” the singer continued. He explained that he began using the drug “at the height of Britpop,” after coming home from a tour and thinking “Why not?” when he found some “in the front room” of his home.
Addressing the controversial statements in a recent interview with Time Out, Albarn has elaborated and clarified his intent, and also explained that he does not regret his heroin use nor opening up about it. “I don’t totally see it as a mistake. That’s the point. It was part of me growing up,” he said.
“Look, I didn’t go out and look for it. I turned up at my house and there it was, made on the table,” he continued, via NME. “What should I have done? Leave my life and reject it or stay in my own house with my girlfriend and somehow assimilate it into my life?” The singer also echoed his sentiments from the Guardian, adding, “Once I’d tried it, I found it initially very agreeable, and very creative.”
Albarn discussed how his life is now much more mundane than that of a heroin-taking Britpop god, saying, “Life is very different in my home. I’m not taken very seriously, in a good way. I walk around in my pants, which my daughter finds highly embarrassing. I’m just a normal, down-to-earth dad.”
Watch: Damon Albarn – Lonely Press Play
