The Pretty Reckless will be releasing their fourth studio album Death by Rock and Roll on February 12. For frontwoman Taylor Momsen, the album represents much, much more than just another addition to her band’s catalog.
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Momsen took part in an extensive interview with Spin where she detailed how making this album helped save her life. “I keep just sticking to the word rebirth,” she said. “I know it sounds cliche, but it really does feel like that for the band.”
There’s two monumentally important people in Momsen’s life that she’s lost over the past few years. In 2017, it was Chris Cornell.
The Pretty Reckless had been serving as the support act for Soundgarden during their 2017 tour, an experience that Momsen and the band cherished. After the final show of the tour in Detroit, Momsen waited by the exit of the venue to talk with Cornell and thank him.
“I caught him as he was walking out,” she recently told Matt Pinfield. “We had a nice little discussion, I gave him a big hug, a 'Let's do it again sometime,' and we continued on with the night."
The next day, Cornell was found unresponsive in his hotel room. His death continues to affect Momsen as she told Spin she was taken “down to a place where I wasn’t useful in the middle of a record cycle.”
As a result, Momsen felt she wouldn’t be able to perform while dealing with her grief. “I couldn’t grieve and continue to get on stage every night and pretend, put on this big rock show like everything was okay. I left the tour,” she said.
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Just a year later, the band’s producer and close friend Kato Khandwala died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 47. The title of their new album, Death by Rock and Roll, was initially coined by Khandwala and became the band’s motto.
“That was the nail in the coffin for me,” Momsen said of receiving the call that Khandwala had died. “I threw my hands up in the air and kind of went ‘Yeah, I give up.’ I went down a very dark rabbit hole of depression and substance abuse and everything that comes with that.”
Momsen admits that she’s still grieving the losses of Cornell and Khandwala. “I’d be a liar to say that I’m, you know, over things,” she said.
The making and soon to be release of The Pretty Reckless’ new album Death by Rock and Roll has served as a way for Momsen to help with the grieving process and heal. “I’m still in the process of healing, but the making of this record really was just a huge step forward. I was in a very, very dark space there for a while, and if it wasn’t for the making of this record, I don’t know if I would be here right now,” she said.
That’s part of the reason why she’s referring to this album as a rebirth for the band. “I know it sounds cliche,” she said, “but it really does feel like the first album, like we had to start from scratch again, and we didn’t know how that was going to go.”
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