The frontman of alternative rock band The 1975 Matthew Healy has opened up about going to rehab for his heroin addiction during the making of the group’s forthcoming album.
Healy, 29, revealed how the band’s drummer, George Daniel, had discovered the singer had been smoking the drug ahead of the band’s headline set at last year’s Latitude festival.
He told his bandmates that he would stop smoking the drug when the group decamped to Los Angeles to record their third LP, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships.
Healy later found himself under the influence telling them over dinner why he would not be kicking his habit.
Paraphrasing what he said to them, Healy told Billboard: “‘Listen, everyone has to get onboard because I’m the f****** main deal. If you want songs, we’re just going to have to get on with it’.
“I realised that was absolute f****** bullshit. So I went downstairs and told George I should go to rehab.”
Healy, who is the son of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet actor Tim Healy and former Coronation Street star Denise Welch, is now clean after spending seven weeks in a clinic on the Caribbean island of Barbados.
// L O V E I T I F W E M A D E I T // L O V E https://t.co/JTHwmylqHd pic.twitter.com/O6JAjGe3Yf
— The 1975 (@the1975) August 1, 2018
The musician added: “People had started to lose respect for me, but not an irredeemable amount.
“The fact that I knew I was building on something that wasn’t destroying made me feel really strong. Because I knew that one more time and that’s it.”
Healy confirmed that the song It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You from The 1975’s new record is inspired by his battle with heroin.
The songwriter explained: “I don’t have things that I want to write about that aren’t exactly what I feel day by day.
“The problem I have now is that this is my truth, and I feel like I can’t negotiate properly with the world if I can’t tell the truth.”
The 1975’s new album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships will be released in October.