Travis Barker and More Open Up on Fighting Addiction and Depression

Travis Barker

Steve Baltin, writing for Forbes, interviews a variety of artists on fighting addiction and depression:

Travis Barker: Sobriety saved my life. My only my regret is it didn’t happen sooner. It was sad that it took a plane crash and almost dying to finally sober up. My second chance at life and my kids was enough to never touch drugs again. Being present and sober is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. Music is my drug.

And:

Anthony Green: I don’t have the answers for what we do, but I know that in Circa Survive and with my situation, the forefront with everything in the band is each other. That stuff comes before making money. From the beginning of the band we wanted it to be a family that cared about each other. So when I needed to go to rehab and I needed to have my mental health issues addressed, the band got put on hiatus and pause. I think that a lot of these guys are in situations where they’re afraid to stop the train from rolling because a lot of people depend on them financially. I think putting the idea of your mental health in front of making money is one thing you can do.

Today is World Mental Health Day and there’s some great insights from a variety of people in this piece.1


  1. I hate trying to use Forbes’ website though, so I’m sorry about that.

Travis Barker Talks Next Solo Album

Travis Barker

Travis Barker of Blink-182 recently talked with Music Radar:

A lot of people go, ‘Oh, Travis Barker has a solo album, I hope he’s doing drum solos everywhere.’ Well, unfortunately not every song requires a drum solo. Even with Blink it’s weird if I’m going crazy in every song. There comes a time with musicianship that you have to do what the song is asking for. […]

I am 70 percent done with my new solo album. The next part, the most important piece, is for me to go play drums on it now. We’ve got the programming, I’ve made all of the beats, the second step was to get all of the artists and find out which artists sound great on which beats. The third step is me playing drums on it, mixing it and then putting it out.

Travis Barker Appears on “The Doctors”

Travis Barker

Travis Barker of Blink-182 appeared on the TV show “The Doctors” on Monday to talk about recovering from a deadly plane crash in 2008. Some clips from the show can be seen on Huffington Post:

“The doctors said, ‘You’re probably going to be on most of these drugs for the rest of your life because you went through such a horrific experience, and you’re dealing with bipolar disorder. You’ll probably never play drums again, you’ll never run again,’” he recalled on the program this week.

“Then the challenge was in my mind just to prove them wrong,” he said. “I had to wean myself off of every drug, start playing the drums immediately, run, and then I became even healthier than I ever was before the plane accident.”