“After taking the antidepressants, I started to realize cannabis was probably the better way to go,” Modest Mouse drummer Jeremiah Green says about his medical marijuana use.
Some members of the band behind the album The Moon & Antarctica are turning to marijuana to help deal with anxiety.
Jeremiah Green, the drummer of Modest Mouse, was forced to temporarily leave the band due to his depression. He’s been trying to treat it over the past few years with marijuana.
“I went on antidepressants, and I got all manic and weird,” Green explains to High Times. “I just blew up one day. I was acting hella weird. I ended up in the hospital for six hours and realized pretty quick I didn’t want to be there.”
Green never intended to quit the band, it just kind of happened that way, he says.
“It basically took me a long time to call them because I was embarrassed,” Green confesses. “All of a sudden all of that happened, and within a week or so, I was off antidepressants and I figured out what the fuck had gone on. I got back to normal and was like, ‘Holy shit, I ruined my whole life basically.’ [Laughs] I sat around depressed for like a year. I didn’t do shit. Luckily, those guys were cool and got me back in the band.”
Despite Green’s absence, the band moved forward with Benjamin Weikel in his place. With Weikel on the drummer’s stool, the band found commercial success in their 2004 album Good News for People Who Love Bad News. When Green finally did return, his bandmates weren’t sure what to expect.
“It was a good opportunity for him to see if he wanted to be a part of the band,” said Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock.
Things were rough with Green self-medicating with marijuana all the time.
“When he got back, he was getting super-high all the time. He had normal-people weed-smoking abilities at that point. It was super-weird, because he’d be [drumming] super-slow or super-fast. It was never right. Then he got super-good at weed smoking, if that’s a thing—and I think it is,” Brock recalled. “Master-expert level is where he is now. He can walk on tight ropes and do trigonometry with it and shit. He’s always Jeremiah. I love the guy. Even when he was crazier than a shit-house rat, I had patience for it. His crazy was kind of interesting.”
Nowadays, Green’s bandmates, including Brock and Tom Peloso, sometimes smoke with him. However, Green still does most of the smoking.
“I smoke regularly,” Green said. “After taking the antidepressants, I started to realize cannabis was probably the better way to go. I’ve smoked for so long I don’t really get high anymore. I just sort of smoke on a low.”
The band is currently on tour for their album Strangers to Ourselves.
