Marcus King has been on a journey of sobriety for the past few years. His 2022 album Young Blood all but imagined him dying young. “I was feeling really paranoid…that the end was inevitable and that it was coming pretty soon,” he told Rolling Stone that year.
The South Carolina singer, songwriter, and guitar-slinger did eventually find his path, however. And on his new album Darling Blue, his first with Marcus King Band since 2018’s Carolina Confessions, he celebrates his even-keeled lifestyle and the woman who helped him remember, as he says, “that life is worth living,” his wife Briley King.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, King says that Ozzy Osbourne influenced him as well, particularly the late heavy-metal pioneer’s own attempts to get sober with assistance from his wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne.
“I was inspired recently by an Ozzy Osbourne clip where he’s like, when Sharon put him into rehab, she told him it was for him to learn how to drink like a gentleman,” King says. “And when I met my wife, I thought that I could do that. I thought that I could drink like a gentleman because I was happy now, you know?”
Turns out that wasn’t the case, according to King, who admits he couldn’t have a drink without things getting out of hand.
“Whatever that evil thing is deep inside of you, it always seems to come back up once I’ve had a few too many,” he says, “and I just can’t have more than a few.”
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During his appearance on Nashville Now, King goes deep into his new album Darling Blue, how he approaches Southern rock in today’s day and age, and what he thinks about the response to his wife’s version of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” Watch the full episode below.
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by senior music editor Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Lainey Wilson, Hardy, Charley Crockett, Kings of Leon, Gavin Adcock, Amanda Shires, Shooter Jennings, Margo Price, Ink, Breland, Halestorm, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, and Clever.
