Ben Gillies has revealed that he has struggled through episodes of drug-induced psychosis since his early 20s.
The former Silverchair drummer told the latest episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast that he suffered an incident in 2002, when recording Silverchair’s album Diorama.
The 44-year-old had used ecstasy and smoked ‘a lot’ of marijuana when the incident occurred.
‘I had — and this is a doctor’s diagnosis — an acute psychotic episode,’ the musician tells the podcast.
‘An acute drug-induced psychotic episode. I thought I was going crazy and I thought I was seeing things,’ he added.
Ben revealed that the episode occurred at the home of former bandmate Daniel Johns.
‘It was really scary. I think the first time I had one, I was actually at Daniel’s house,’ he said.
Gillies added that he has had around 12 further psychotic episodes since that day.
Ben Gillies (pictured) has revealed that he has struggled through episodes of drug-induced psychosis since his early 20s
‘That sent me on a mental health journey of 20 years, like seeing doctors and psychologists and on and off medication and just trying to manage it and trying to ultimately, you just want an answer,’ he said.
‘I say if you’ve got a pain in your back, or whatever it is, ultimately, you just want to go to a doctor, and say, ‘Tell me what it is and what I can do to treat it or fix it’.’
Gillies earlier revealed on ABC’s Australian Story that he began self-medicating with drugs while recording Diorama.
‘When we started to record it, I was having mental health problems. The pressure of another Silverchair record coming out just pushed me over the edge,’ he began.
‘I was smoking a lot of pot and I felt like the drug had a hold of me and I couldn’t stop it. Around that time I was offered an ecstasy pill and I had an acute psychotic break.’
Gillies then revealed he did not seek help as he was scared he would be labelled ‘crazy’.
The former Silverchair drummer told the latest episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast that he suffered an incident in 2002, when recording Silverchair’s album Diorama. Pictured with Silverchair in their heyday
Silverchair bassist Chris Joannou also revealed the difficulty they had working with frontman Daniel Johns, who bluntly told his bandmates in 1999 that he would be writing most of Silverchair’s songs without their participation.
‘Ben probably struggled with it the most. He might have felt that Daniel didn’t trust his musical judgement and that creative relationship they had was pretty much gone,’ he said.
The former bandmates rose to fame as as 15-year-olds and took the world by storm with their debut album Frogstomp in 1995, before splitting in 2011.
The musicians have said they had ‘drifted apart’ from Johns since Silverchair disbanded.
Ben revealed that the episode occurred at the home of former bandmate Daniel Johns (centre)
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