DOOMS CHILDREN // Straight Outta Rehab

ICYMI: On April 6, 2020, Wade MacNeil posted a photo of himself captioned “drunk. miserable. depressed. august 4, 2019” on Twitter.

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A follow-up: “The day after the alexis tour ended in January I went to rehab. I’ve struggled with addiction issues and depression for a long time. I’ve never spoken about it in any public way because I felt guilty and ashamed.”

drunk. miserable. depressed.
august 4, 2019 pic.twitter.com/R9Wxn9kZit

— Wade MacNeil (@wade_macneil) April 6, 2020

When asked how the Twitterverse reacted to this tweet, Wade MacNeil – whose debut, self-titled Dooms Children album was half-written while messed up pre-rehab then mostly completed while in rehab – says, “It was crazy. Honestly, like the amount of people that reached out kind of privately to say ‘what’s up?’ was really, really touching. And also a lot of people in music that I’ve known and would run into from time to time, but had no idea they had gone through similar experiences, shared that with me so, yeah! I’m glad I did that and I think it kind of set the stage a little bit for me to think of finishing this record [Dooms Children] and making it the way I did. I mean, I’ve always lived the life I sing about it, and the music I put out, but this is a lot more personal, that’s for sure.”

“My father cried when he dropped me off at rehab/ Caused so much pain I didn’t even know…” – the opening lines of Psyche Hospital Blues paint a distressing picture. “I’ve probably seen [my father] cry, like, three times,” MacNeil says. “So it shook me, that’s for sure. I mean, that whole experience – it’s just interesting in terms of, you know, I’m always writing music and I have been since I got a guitar. But the trajectory of the songs over the last few years was very strange for this record, ‘cause a lot of them were written initially when I was struggling and feeling very bleak about things, and really trying to escape and doing a lot of hallucinogens to just try and be on another planet. And then a few more of those songs, like [Psyche Hospital Blues], were written in rehab. And then a few more of them were written after that; they kind of tied up the record. So it’s a very personal and serious emotional journey, lyrically, for me in this record and, yeah, really follows a timeline that’s pretty intense.”

If you were imagining Psyche Hospital Blues as a heartfelt ballad, think again: candid autobiographical lyrical content is offset by the song’s upbeat, jangly rock’n’roll vibe.

Treatment facilities typically enforce very strict policies about what you can and can’t bring to rehab, but MacNeil rocked up with an acoustic guitar. “I feel like it wasn’t allowed but, I dunno, I got away with it somehow,” he reveals. “And then someone who knew who I was gave me an electric guitar and an amp… I mean, I was certainly very, very lucky that I was able to find a place to put that energy and those feelings, and find a space to maybe allow myself – at first – to even begin to understand how I was actually really feeling about stuff, and working through it in what ended up being these songs. Music has just been the one saving grace in my life. It was then and it continues to be now.”

But MacNeil’s decision to check into rehab didn’t sit well with him, initially. “I think at first I looked at it like, honestly, a bit of a failure that I’d kind of arrived at that space and needed to do that but, you know, I certainly look at it now as something I’m glad I had the courage to do in order to try and change things for myself, and it was just me taking the time to work on myself and try to find a better way.

“I was there for two months and was doing therapy all day every day, surrounded by people going through the exact same thing who were in a very non-judgemental zone. And it was a really profound experience and I’m really glad I did it, you know?

“I think generally there’s a lot of stuff I’ve been pushing down my whole life – a lot of it I didn’t even realise and a lot of it manifested itself in, like, different behaviours – and my best solution for all of that was getting fucked-up. And it was not a great solution,” he says, laughing. “It was, like, seemingly the only time I felt a little bit of peace, even though that was really fleeting, and, I dunno, I think you need to go through everything to get on the other side of it. I mean, not to say that I fuckin’ solved anything, I’m just continuing to work at feeling okay, but, yeah! I dunno, like, in that film The Descent where the rock climbers are crawling through the caves and they find the demon aliens, and they realise they need to crawl deeper into the crevice to escape – that, but with therapy and the booze.”

The Dooms Children recording sessions took place in co-producer/bassist Daniel Romano’s living room and MacNeil recounts: “I’d sit down, I’d show him and the other guys [drummer Ian Romano and guitarist Patrick Bennett] the song on the acoustic guitar. We’d start playing it a few times, talk through it and then we’d record it. And so it was not really too refined, it was very much, ‘Here’s the way these four musicians play the song and what it sounds like in a room.’ And even in the way I approached doing the vocals, I sang it once or twice and just let it be – like, that’s the way my voice sounds – so if it cracked or if I ran out of air or if it was flat or sharp, I was like, ‘That’s cool, this is it!’ And in allowing there to be those rough edges – and recording it with Dan and Ian and Pat in such a loose, non-refined way – I think it sounds a lot more like the records from the ‘60s and the ‘70s that I wanted it to sound like.”

Of his decision to include a Grateful Dead cover, Friend Of The Devil, on the album MacNeil says, “Grateful Dead were such a huge inspiration for me making this record, and trying to make something a little bit softer, and that song in particular got me into the Dead. But it’s also a song where I have this very visceral thing that I remember of, like, having been up for a few days and listening to the Dead and it starting to get light out, and not in a nice way, you know? Like, I can hear the birds and that’s making me feel like everything is wrong because I’m still up.

I think you need to go through everything to get on the other side of it.
[ Wade MacNeil ]

“And I was listening to Friend Of The Devil and I know that song – I’ve heard it a lot of times – and there is a line in there that’s “If I get home before daylight/ I just might get some sleep tonight” and it definitely really hit me different at that moment. And I got rid of all the drugs I had on me and, like, made my way home and, yeah! I dunno, I kind of felt in that moment that I just need to get through today and I think I can figure out a way to turn this all around and, yeah! That’s something I really associate with the Dead and so I feel like it was kind of the inspiration, in a lot of ways, for this project and so I thought it would be important to include that one.”

“Everything was beautiful/ And nothing hurts”– Lotus Eater, a standout album track, washes over like a soothing caress, before a lyrical shift casts a shadow (“Nothing was beautiful/Everything hurts”) alongside riffs that conjure wrestling demons. “It’s certainly one of the gloomier ones on the album,” MacNeil allows, “and, as someone who plays in heavy bands there is a real urge to just go full Black Sabbath when you’re writing a song. And that’s the one time we allowed ourselves to do it: at the end of that song. We restrained ourselves on the other 10 songs or whatever, but we just went full [Tony] Iommi (Black Sabbath) on that one.

“[Lotus Eater is] an association with Greek myths, about the people that lived on this island eating the lotus flowers that bloom there and essentially being trapped on the island, because they were addicted to these flowers. And being essentially held captive by this desire. I’ve always thought that was a very poetic concept of something that obviously people have struggled with forever. The song itself is certainly not about heroin use or anything like that, but that’s where that concept comes from.”

We discuss how much touring and booze/drugs tend to go hand in hand and MacNeil says, “Definitely in doing Gallows, like, the way I was trying to play the shows and how hard I was trying to play – I’d, like, split my head open or stage-dive or whatever – I definitely felt like maybe I couldn’t do that show [sober], like, I started putting that in my head: ‘Oh, it’d definitely be easier to jump off the balcony if I had a few more whiskeys.’ And then just suffering the next day as a result of being really hurt, after jumping off the balcony, and being like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna drag my arse on stage and do this again, but I really fucked up my shoulder last night,’ and it’s a bit of a never-ending thing.

“But I can certainly say that after stepping away from it long enough, I’m definitely feeling the shows are just gonna suffer. Like, maybe there can be a different type of chaotic energy, but, you know, I’m certainly not at my best and especially with a guitar in my hand. I mean, fuck! Nobody plays the guitar better after they drank a bottle of Jameson [laughs], it’s science.”

MacNeil doesn’t wanna come across as preachy however and acknowledges “everyone’s relationship to [substances] is different.

“I certainly wouldn’t tell a young band going out on their first tour to not drink or do drugs – if you wanna do that, that’s your choice to do – and certainly I think, like, people aren’t me, either, you know? I know, personally, it became really self-destructive: it was not a party, it was me, like, really numbing out and it hurt! And I’m glad I don’t feel that way today.”

So what was the last IRL gig MacNeil actually played?

“The last gig I played was at the beginning of 2019 in Seattle: Alexisonfire and The Distillers played together. And the next day I flew to rehab, actually. And that was the last show I played. And my first show back – which will almost be two years [later], yeah – is coming up at the beginning of December. I’m doing a Dooms Children show in Toronto and then one in Montréal and, yeah! I mean, being nervous about a gig is something I have not felt in a very, very, very long time. But [playing shows has] been the one constant of my life, you know, through the last 20 years. And I’m certainly excited, too. But it’s gonna be a weird one.”

Dooms Children is out now through Dine Alone/Cooking Vinyl.