Mike Doughty and the Book of Drugs

Indie singer songwriter Mike Doughty had big success as the frontman for the group Soul Coughing in the 90’s.  But as he writes in his new memoir he felt anything but successful.  Since then he quit drugs and alcohol, reinvented himself as a solo artist, and wrote a memoir, “The Book of Drugs.” His new album is “Yes & Also Yes.”  He stopped by the SiriusXM studios earlier this week to talk with Ron Bennington about leaving the band, recovery, and embarking on his new solo career.  Excerpts of the interview appear below.

Ron Bennington: Mike Doughty is in with us and we’re going to be talking about his memoir: The Book of Drugs. First of all, congratulations on getting something done. (Mike laughs) It’s always impressive to me– the amount of people I know who say, “oh I have a book on me.” But to be able to finish one…

Mike Doughty: Yeah I had to fool myself into writing it, basically.

Ron Bennington: …and particularly with yours, you’re kind of laying yourself open.

Mike Doughty: Yeah, pretty much. I’m definitely telling some weird shit about other people so I was meticulous about telling weird shit about myself and my own dark behavior.

Ron Bennington: What is it about drugs?

Mike Doughty: Well for one thing, it’s a love story. So, you know, like the book of love…and yeah, drugs are just shadowing everything in the book. Either doing them or conspicuously not doing them.

Ron Bennington: Now are you one of those people who now in hindsight you can look back and say, oh the addiction was always there, even during the earlier fun times?

Mike Doughty: Oh heck yeah. Well, with Soul Coughing there was no earlier fun times. It was always dark. But I’m an addict at my core and no matter what I was going to get there.

Ron Bennington: Multiple addictions…

Mike Doughty: Anything you put in front of me…anything you put in front of me.

Ron Bennington: Now you said with Soul Coughing, it was always dark. And this was interesting…the other day, Billy Corgin said this thing, “we were the generation that changed the world and all the young kids now are posers.” (Mike laughs) But for you, even while this was happening, you don’t look back on it with a single bit of fondness in the book.

Mike Doughty: No, certainly no the music. My music– Soul Coughing’s music– was not what I wanted it to be. I was writing songs and my band mates were kind of messing stuff up. Out of spite. And it was crazy. And we were like a big band that didn’t give ourselves the chance to be the Beasties or Beck or Sublime. But we were like that kind of a band but my band mates sunk the ship. Dashed it on the rocks.

Ron Bennington: So where did they fuck you up. Where did they fuck the band up?

Mike Doughty: Well they were all ten years older than me. I was 22 and they were all in their 30s when we did our first show. And they basically just resented the hell out of me. It was just this incredibly dark environment, and anything that I said, they tried to trash it. Looking back on it, it was crazy! For all the darkness and all of the bitterness I have towards them, I’m even angrier at myself for taking it. For not basically saying, fuck you guys and going and making a record with the Dust Brothers.

Ron Bennington: But if they were all twenty-four and you were twenty-two, it would have maybe been easier for you to say, well fuck you guys I know what I’m doing. But when everybody’s been around for longer than you…and maybe in the back of your mind you did think, well maybe they’re right about some of this shit.

Mike Doughty: Sure. They were definitely better players technically than me. I was like punk rock kid scratching on a Telecaster. I just didn’t give myself the credit. I didn’t think that what I was doing was very special. And they told me all the time– “you know what? You are lucky to be here. It’s us that make this happen and you are kind of a side dish on this.”

Ron Bennington: You were living like an abused wife.

Mike Doughty: Exactly. And the thing is, if you are fucked up in the way I’m fucked up– came from a dark household, dark family of origin– I’m bipolar, I’m depressed, I’m an addict at the core of my being. If you’re me, you’re going to find that messed up relationship no matter… If those guys had vanished in the rapture I would have found three equally fucked up side men.

Ron Bennington: They’re all part of your addiction. You’re looking for people who could reflect this thing back to you that you’re looking….

Mike Doughty: You’re just a magnet, if you’re that guy. And it’s so funny looking back on it. I had all kinds of opportunities to just get the hell out of there and get with healthier people, and just didn’t do it.

Ron Bennington: I’ve read so many rock and roll books where everything went great until this point…but yours was from day one.

Mike Doughty: From day one. They sort of like…this was like hardscrabble days on the lower east side, and everybody was playing in thirty-five different bands. And what I meant to those guys, was basically– my gigs were like Monday nights, at 11 and it would be like twenty thirty bucks plus cab fare for each of ’em, once the money was divided up. So they weren’t really that interested until a record company came sniffing around and all of a sudden they were like, “oh this is our band.”

Ron Bennington: What was it like, during all that, to stay a songwriter. Cause you’ve always been a very fine songwriter. That had to be rough.

Mike Doughty: Thank you. Yeah, I had to fool them into playing stuff. There was sort of a spectrum in the band. Some of them are hustlers and some of them are really delusional. My interpretation of what I saw is, that the keyboard player thought that he was subliminally controlling the band. Like really, he would sit there playing quietly in the corner. And he really thought….I think….that he was controlling our minds. So thus, everything that I was doing was a product of him controlling my mind. I honestly think he thought that.

Ron Bennington: And as you came in with songs, almost immediately they started to tug and pull at some of these songs.

Mike Doughty: Yeah, and listen if I had just been dicked out of my money, I’d be happy. But those records are just…so disappointing to me. They could have been so great.

Ron Bennington: And you don’t even like to play those songs anymore, right?

Mike Doughty: Not really, but that’s largely because I’m a crazy person. Songs that I remember everything about having written– like I remember where I was, who I was with, what I ate for breakfast, who it was about– there’s all these different nuances of the process. Nonetheless…if I would start to play one and people would be like “whoop” I’d be like, fuck you man. I’m crazy. I’m absolutely insane about this.

Ron Bennington: Your song writing seems to come from such a confident place. And yet one of the things in the book that really got to me, is you said that even after you got straight, and off drugs, the receptors weren’t there. They were kind of charred, you said, for song writing.

Mike Doughty: Yeah, it took a couple of years for that to re-blossom.

Ron Bennington: Was that a fearful time?

Mike Doughty: Oh my God yeah. Since I was a kid– since I was sixteen years old– I needed to get fucked up on some level just to not beat the shit out of myself for everything that I wrote. Just so much self loathing. When I discovered getting high, I was able to do stuff. And that progresses to a thing that you need. It’s like the Viagra of song writing. And when you get rid of it, it’s terrifying. You’re like, I don’t know how to do this. But then once you get into it. Once your soul gets into it and your heart gets into it, and every part of you gets into it, it’s like you’ve been training with weights. Suddenly, it’s like you’re a real writer. Because you don’t need the stuff anymore.

Ron Bennington: And to most people who don’t have that talent, that would be the high for them. Just to be that guy who could write that song. If I think of all my favorite performers of all time, it’s not about how many records they sold…just to be that guy that fucking started...

Mike Doughty: Now I like being myself. I like everything that I do. I don’t have a video on MTV anymore but every record that I make is exactly what I meant. I’m proud of it. The audience that’s digging it is exactly who I want to be talking to. So yeah, now it’s beautiful.

Ron Bennington: And you do have an audience.

Mike Doughty: Oh yeah. But I had to be a dick for a bunch of years and be like, no, I’m not playing Soul Coughing songs. And some people got mad. What happened is, actually, I made a solo record-an acoustic record– that got rejected by Warner Brothers. It broke my heart. It ended up on Napster, so when I started playing solo, people had stolen the songs, and they knew the songs. And that was the nugget that started my crowd that I have as a solo guy.

Ron Bennington: So Napster was actually helpful for you.

Mike Doughty: Oh yeah. Big time.

Ron Bennington: But that’s because people knew to look for you. Some guy who is eighteen years old, how does he get his shit out there?

Mike Doughty: I dunno. To me, my career is based on the fact that Warner Brothers paid for a van and some hotel rooms. Like Motel 6 hotel rooms. As far as I’ve seen, the only way to do it is go around the country four or five times. And then you have an audience.

Ron Bennington: And you’re going around the country four or five times with guys that you don’t like…and don’t like you.

Mike Doughty: Oh they hated me. For as much as I didn’t like them…yeah man.

Ron Bennington: Even knowing that, there was no sense that you pick up in this book, that you were ready to quit.

Mike Doughty: Well, you know, it was all I had ever dreamed of in life. And I wasn’t going to let go. I didn’t realize that I could be worthwhile without that band. Everyone around me was fucked up; it wasn’t just a fucked up band. The A&R guy was fucked up. And the producer was fucked up. Everybody was fucked up.

Ron Bennington: And I come from a place like that too. We didn’t know anybody had a problem for a long long time. And then we thought it was just some of us that had problems. But that is life and at a certain point you were able to see where you were at. I saw the video of you when you were on Conan and you were Jim Carroll skinny. You were at a point where somebody had to be saying to you– dude–

Mike Doughty: Yeah I was a skinny man (laughs). I wasn’t even really that bad that year. If it’s the only good thing you have in your life. Even if it’s like– yes I’m going to die– but what’s worthwhile about living if I don’t have this one good thing. All I have is getting high.

Ron Bennington: But then when heroin comes in, as they say, you’re coming close to the end of the story.

Mike Doughty: Yeah, yeah. But I got lucky, in that I got desperate. I got lucky in that I almost died. It was a gift to be desperate. Because otherwise I would not have taken the steps to get a real life. I know plenty of people who just stay right above that line. So they don’t get desperate and subsequently, they’re just clinging on to this very grey, kind of mediocre life. Now, most people die, so I’m not recommending it. But I got to the point where it was either die or figure another way to live.

Ron Bennington: And a lot of people go into the rooms and kind of fall off and go back in and fall off. But for you, you were almost one of those first meeting guys.

Mike Doughty: Yeah. I was a first meeting guy. Well I had a shrink that hammered a lot of stuff into my head. And I don’t know why I was showing up for therapy, because I was like nodding out in the sessions. Literally like passing out, coming to in the sessions. And she was like, “eh, have you thought about going to a meeting?” “Ahhh fuck off, what do you know.” A lot of that, sort of, I don’t believe in God, it’s a cult, I only have a problem with one drug, not all drugs….I had sort of been through a lot of that stuff. But also, I found my people, man. As far as I’m concerned, if you want to explore the world of meetings you gotta look until you find the people, that you’re like– I want what these guys have.

Ron Bennington: And now you can find that with people who you’ve never even met before. You’re in Arkansas, you find a meeting and it feels like your tribe.

Mike Doughty: Oh yeah. Totally. Absolutely. And it’s freaky how you can sort of get inside a city, like in Bangkok, Paris, or wherever you go. Everyone else can only be on the surface, but because you can go to one of those meetings you’re kind of like, in the dark underworld of the people.

Ron Bennington: There’s nothing more fucked up than a drug addict. But a recovering drug addict, they’re always the best, most interesting people you can meet.

Mike Doughty: Totally. Awesome. Artistic, smart, funny. The thing is, we’re not fucking Dr. Drew. We are dark, funny, weird, freaky…uh…people.

Ron Bennington: So the darkness is still in your life.

Mike Doughty: Oh yeah. I mean, I don’t live in darkness. But I have so much appreciation for that, and whatever the sadness and the anger was from earlier in my life, that’s definitely what I’m drawing from when I’m making music.

Ron Bennington: What is it like for you when you meet some of these people and you bring up ‘types’ that are in meetings and you were able to lean on, and then they go back into the old life.

Mike Doughty: Terrifying. It’s absolutely like…the first time it started happening when I was like a year or two…and people I got clean with were going out there and dying, or ending up in places that you’re like, why would you want to be there? But you know…I’ve got problems with the word disease. A lot of people do. A lot of people who are anti-recovery hate that word. I’m not crazy about it either. But if you have been doing something that you have totally empirical evidence will destroy your life, and you go out and do it again….there’s something happening there.

Ron Bennington: And there is almost a madness of…in the middle of all this, lets break down and decide what this one word means. Same thing with God. Whatever…if you really think I’m going to be able to figure out God whether I’m in a church or a basement, that is such a long pitch. Let’s just see if we can get working toward something.

Mike Doughty: You can be a straight up atheist and just absorb the kind of spiritual principles of it. A straight up hardcore atheist.

Ron Bennington: That is a beautiful thing that you’ve just said. And I’ve actually talked with some friends that are really hard-core atheists, and they do agree that there is some kind of spiritual connection to just being here. Alive on this planet right now. Music is perfect for that.

Mike Doughty: Music, laughter, light. The spirit of humanity. The ocean. Whatever it is.

Ron Bennington: That’s what I loved about you saying that the receptors were fucking charred on you, because, to say as a song writer, this is something that kind of comes through me…not something that you’re making by yourself.

Mike Doughty: That is the healthiest artist– looks at himself or herself as like– it’s going through me. It’s the water, I’m just the hose.

Ron Bennington: When you walked away from your band, you had no idea what you were walking to.

Mike Doughty: I didn’t have a choice of what to do, because I can’t do anything else. You know I had this record that had gone out on Napster, which was a huge Godsend literally, even though I don’t believe in God. But all I could do is play shows. There’s nothing else I’m really that good at.

Ron Bennington: And you sold records as you traveled around.

Mike Doughty: Yup. Sold CD-R’s off the front of the stage right after the show.

Ron Bennington: How was that for your ego at the time. Going from having a record deal, doing world tours, playing with some of the biggest bands of your era, and then doing that thing where you’re selling the record yourself.

Mike Doughty: Well it was kind of great for my ego in a sense. Because when Soul Coffin was famous, I didn’t feel good about anything. I did not notice a damn thing I had in life, all I saw was what the other guy had. If a guy had a bus I wanted to be on a bus. If a guy had lighting crew, I wanted a lighting crew. Never ever saw what I had. So, going out on the road and really meeting people and …. Humility is like a gift. It sounds like a punishment, but really, being right sized in the world is amazing. And it’s so much freer than feeling like you had to be something bigger than a human being, you know?

Ron Bennington: It’s hard to believe that you could write albums worth of material and not realize that you’re a songwriter.

Mike Doughty: I still don’t know. I still don’t fucking know. There was a lot of jamming that went on in Soul Coughing. There were songs that came from jams for sure. But the melody and the lyric, all the song parts of the song, were what I wrote.

Ron Bennington: Well we know that Robbie Robertson has gotten all the credit for The Band stuff. You know the other interesting thing, is to be able to sit around at your age and still feel connected to creativity. Cause a lot of guys, it seems to have disappeared when they were twenty-six, twenty-seven years old. Why do you think that is, man?

Mike Doughty: When people point at people who used to drugs, and then they stopped doing drugs and their music isn’t as good– I don’t interpret that as the drugs having been responsible. I think that’s giving Jimi Hendrix very little credit. If I took the same drugs, I would not be Jimi Hendrix. I think people burn their shit out. Their receptors are too damaged to recover I guess. I took a lot of inspiration from John Coltraine. If you read the liner notes to A Love Supreme which is kind of considered his epic moment– he’s speaking twelve step language. I don’t know a damn thing about whether or not he was a twelve stepper but it sure looks that way.

Ron Bennington: If he was, he would have been one of the earliest guys doing it, right?

Mike Doughty: Yeah. Cause he starts off, in the year 1957, I was given, by the grace of god, in gratitude… So he talks about the year he got clean, and he’s like throwing down this twelve step jargon. And as the years went by, from 57 on, he just got weirder. Weirder and freakier and I took that as, you don’t have to make weird fluffy soft rock records after you get clean. You can stay bizarre.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, and when you’re doing that, you’re being bizarre on purpose. You’re not accidentally weird. You’re making a choice, I’m not going to join in with the main stream. Again, you’ll meet some of the most interesting people you will ever meet in your life doing that. It’s been amazing to have a chance to sit down and talk with you.

Mike Doughty: Yeah, it’s been really great, thank you.

Ron Bennington: And you’re always welcome to come back anytime you want.

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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

You can follow Mike on twitter @mike_doughty_ or on his website mikedoughty.com.

Order Mike’s new Book from Amazon.com.

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