Metal Anarchy

Nick Barker, who is known for his work with Brujeria, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Lock Up, and more, is currently working on an autobiography. This news comes amid his battle with chronic kidney failure.

Barker told the Pod Scum podcast the following:

“I’m in the middle of doing [the book] right now.”

He went on to say the process is “very cathartic”:

“We focused on my childhood and how I started playing drums, how I got into music,” he explained. “And my high school thrash band, who, we supported a few of the U.K. thrash bands at the time, RE-ANIMATOR and XENTRIX and LAWNMOWER DETH. And then, obviously, my musical taste started to evolve as I grew older. So I got into death metal, and I formed a death metal band. And that was when I was tape trading, in the late ’80s, early ’90s. And that’s how I discovered CRADLE OF FILTH, through the underground, by the demo, ‘Total Fucking Darkness’. And it was at a time when death metal was starting to stagnate. My band was called CATALEPSY, and we had to change the name to MONOLITH. And it was kind of like generic death metal, NAPALM DEATH meets OBITUARY meets ENTOMBED. And we recorded an album called ‘Tales Of The Macabre’ for Cacophonous Records, but it got shelved. And there was eight tracks. And a lot of people now from different record labels are sweating me about it, like, ‘Can we release it? Do you you have the master tapes. We’d like to release the album.’ It’s funny because it’s ironic — that band is more popular now than what it was 30 years ago.”

Barker also addressed his health:

“It’s going good. I’m on the slimming pen, the Mounjaro, to help me get the weight off because I’m a foodie. It’s difficult. And when you’re in your fifties, it’s even more difficult. Because of the side effects from renal failure, one of them is chronic fatigue. So, I’m fucked just getting dressed and taking a shower and doing some housework. It knocks the stuffing outta me. But it’s going well. I passed all the pre-surgery assessments, so I’m on the transplant list. It sounds horrible, [but] I’m just waiting for someone to die so I can get the kidney. But I’ve been told I have a rare blood type. I’m type O. And apparently it’s kind of rare; it’s not the usual. And also my wife, she signed up for the paired donor program, which means she’s gonna donate one of her kidneys so I get pushed to the front of the queue.

I can’t wait to get the transplant so I can really start getting back doing stuff and get my health and build up my stamina again. It’s one day at a time, but I’ve ticked all the boxes, jumped through all the hoops. It’s just a waiting game now. Because I live in Prince George [in Canada], which is in the north of British Columbia, the renal unit is down in Vancouver, so I’ll have to fly down to Vancouver for the operation… I’ve got a weight review at the end of March, because I’ve still gotta drop a little bit of weight, because they have to make an incision in the stomach. And that’s where the concentration is. So I’ve got a weight review in the end of March, and my surgeon, the nephrologist, he’s hoping by the end of the year, things will be good.”

Barker also added that he is “truly humbled” by those who donated to his GoFundMe:

“I really am. My parents weren’t the most loving parents, so to get all the love from fans and the metal community, it really means a lot to me. It really does. I owe so much to those people and the people that donated. So, I’m really focused on getting my health back and getting back beyond the drums ASAP [as soon as possible].”

He then circled back to the book when asked if his “rough childhood” was hard to write about:

“I didn’t really focus so much on it. There was a basic outline. I don’t wanna give those horrible people any page space. So we just covered it lightly. It was a shitty upbringing, and music was my escapism.”

He also explained why he decided to write a book:

“A lot of people in the industry were telling me, especially with this downtime that I have, it’s, like, ‘Why don’t you just write a memoir, write your autobiography? You’ve played with so many bands and done so much shit. People wanna hear about it and where you come from, how you came up,’ et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun, actually, going back and talking about it.”

He continued when asked about other autobiographies he has read:

“Some of them. Yeah, I do read a lot of autobiographies. The Ozzy [Osbourne] one was great. He was a fucking lunatic. When you read his book, ‘[I Am] Ozzy’, you can hear his voice, when you’re reading the anecdotes. You can hear his voice telling it to you. And also the Mike Tyson autobiography was very good as well. I’ve got ‘The Dirt’ by MÖTLEY CRÜE. But you know what? I don’t want my book to be another one of those just ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’. I mean, it does touch on that because there was a lot of that throughout my career. But I don’t want it be just all about that. I want it to be about the different bands I played in, the different time periods. And I got fucked over here, I made some money there, and in between there’s the sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

Barker went on to say some of the moments in his life were hard to recall:

“There was a few parts I was kind of hazy on, so I reached out to some friends, bandmembers and crew guys that were there, and just, ‘Hey, remember this?, and get their take on it,” he explained. “And then it kind of spurred my memory a little bit.”

[via Blabbermouth]