The Pretty Reckless frontwoman Taylor Momsen recently appeared in a Zoom interview and talked about a series of tragedies that affected the band’s career. Further on, Momsen stated that Chris Cornell’s death didn’t trigger any suicidal thoughts within her.
Formed in 2009, The Pretty Reckless stepped into the music scene with their debut album, ‘Light Me Up,’ which achieved great commercial success. Their fourth and latest studio album, ‘Death by Rock and Roll,’ was released on February 12, 2021. The album’s creation process was challenging for The Pretty Reckless members as they experienced some tragic incidents.
Chris Cornell’s death in 2017 was one of the things that profoundly affected them. On the night Cornell passed away, Soundgarden and The Pretty Reckless had played their tour’s final show. Thus, Taylor Momsen is probably one of the last people to see him alive. The band was totally devastated by Cornell’s sudden death. After a short time, their producer Kato Khandwala also passed away in an accident, which doubled the band’s struggles.
In the interview, Taylor Momsen reflected on these difficult times and said that they didn’t know whether they could continue their music career or not. She explained that she was in a depressive mode and had a tough time dealing with all these tragedies. Momsen added that she also had substance addiction at the time, but she didn’t feel suicidal. She then highlighted that she intended to overcome all the complex feelings, but she was just not ready to end her life.
In Taylor Momsen’s words:
“I fell into this extraordinarily dark hole of depression for a long time. I was devastated by loss and grief, and trauma, so I just checked out. Even thinking about music caused too many painful memories. Everything brought up something that I wasn’t ready to deal with, and things turned dark very quickly. I know now that I was not emotionally prepared to handle Chris’s death and that took me into the start of a tailspin of me falling apart.
The bookend of that was Kato, which was the real nail in the coffin. After that, I just said, ‘Everything I love is dead, so what’s the point of anything?’ Since I was so depressed there was substance abuse, which is just a part of what came with all the loss, grief, and trauma. I wasn’t suicidal. In the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to figure things out and get back out there, but I wasn’t ready yet.“
Undoubtedly, dealing with loss is one of the hardest things a person has to face during their lifetime. Luckily, Taylor Momsen was able to find the strength within her, hold on to music, and keep going.
