Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. details his former drug addiction

Albert Hammond Jr., currently prepping the release of a new solo EP, has revealed in a interview with NME the extent of his troubled past.

Hammond had previously revealed, circa the release of Angles, that he had battled some heavy drugs, without going much further.

Now, it appears, he’s ready to open up: “I’m just now being able to understand or speak about that time, and it’s been almost four years… It was, like, oxycontin and cocaine at 24, 25, 26.” He goes on, “And then I became heroin around then. So from 25, 27 till 29.”

Apparently things got particularly unmanageable from 2006 and 2009, the years between the Strokes’ First Impressions of Earth and Angles. Hammond said, “I mean, do you want me to get specific? I don’t mind, but yeah. I used to shoot cocaine, heroin, and ketamine. All together. Morning, night, 20 times a day. You know, I was a mess. I don’t even recognize myself.”

He also referenced some autobiographic moments in his forthcoming AHJ which include the line, ”I can’t believe I lost my mind” in the song ’Strange Tidings.’

In different NME interview from back in August, Hammond said he used drugs as a means to “get yourself out of your head, to think about things differently.” He went on to say, “Then it gets to the point where you’re just out of your head and not thinking of anything, and once it goes to that situation it takes away from the music, so what’s the point?”

As for the Strokes, Hammond had less to say: “I hold very dear what we have together as friends. I’m just very careful at how things get said, because I don’t want something to be misunderstood and then become the face of saying that stuff.”

About why the Strokes haven’t been doing any interviews surrounding Comedown Machine, he said, “We just made a decision to keep a . We thought it’d be cool to keep a quietness to it, to see what a record would do listen to it.” He added, “Look, I feel like get everything wrong.”

[via CoS]