Rocker Albert Hammond Jr. details past drug abuse

The Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. opens up about his severe drug addiction in 2003, around the time The Strokes released their second album, “Room on Fire,” in a new interview with British music magazine NME.

“It was, like, OxyContin and cocaine at 24, 25, 26. And then I became [addicted to] heroin around then — so from 26, 27 ’til 29. It’s not so much that I wasn’t in a happy place. I was just ... God knows where I was. I was just very high. That’s where I was,” Hammond candidly reveals to NME.

The musician admits to simultaneously shooting cocaine, heroin and ketamine 20 times a day, and mentions wearing long sleeves to hide track marks on his arms.
“You know, I was a mess. I look back and I don’t even recognize myself. I did my own thing,” Hammond says in the NME interview.

Now sober for four years since a 2009 rehab stint, Hammond is set to release his solo EP “AHJ” on Oct. 8 through bandmate Julian Casablancas’ Cult Records.

Recorded in Hammond’s own studios in Manhattan and upstate New York, the album follows his 2006 debut album “Yours to Keep” and 2008’s “¿Cómo Te Llama?”