Royal Blood interview: ‘I hit the self-destruct button the moment I started drinking’

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. His lockdown has been “liberating”, productive and “the best thing that could’ve happened to us”, his idle noodlings around new ideas developing into “five of the best songs” on their new, third album Typhoons. “There’s still time.” Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 4 month free trial Sign up Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 4 month free trial Sign up Over the years, Kerr has joked in interviews about his on-tour intake, recalling having to hide from long-term Blood champion Josh Homme in a backstage toilet to avoid being plied with tequila and dragged onstage with Foo Fighters to down bottles of champagne. “I essentially did it through the help of friends and family and support…I’m really grateful that I’m sober and clean this young, because I think it could have taken a lot longer to get to that realisation that I needed to stop.” open image in gallery Mike Kerr: ‘Part of this process for me is realising that I’m the problem' The record ends on a supportive note, with “Hold On”, a message of solidarity to a struggling friend and austere piano ballad “All We Have is Now”, “another example of us not censoring ourselves,” says Kerr, and a fatalistic vow to make the best of a flawed life while he can. “I feel like I’m at my own rocket launch.” How, two years sober, did he get so light?