Country music star Nathan Carter has revealed how being out of work left him so depressed he couldn’t get out of bed.
The Wagon Wheel singer went from performing 200 shows a year to none overnight after the Covid-19 restrictions resulted in live gigs being banned.
The 30-year-old admitted he hit the bottle hard and woke up every day feeling there was nothing to get up for.
He said: “It was grand at the start, I needed a break. But I’ve struggled with it over the past six months.
“There’s days when I wake up thinking, ‘What’s going on here? I’ve nothing to look forward to’. I was going from playing in front of thousands of people.
“It’s a drug, being on stage, the crowd in front of you, the rapport, the applause. It’s a massive drug. So to go from doing that to literally doing nothing is a real come down. I thought, ‘There’s nothing to be getting up for, I might as well lie in bed for a few more hours’.
“I did that every morning for about two months. I wasn’t clinically depressed but I was in a depressed state. I didn’t tell anyone because I hate to be a burden.” Nathan credits his brother Jake and Jake’s partner, dancer Karen Byrne, for helping lift his mood as they encouraged him to go to the gym and take more exercise.
He revealed: “I was probably drinking a bit too much as well which didn’t help. It was probably a bad escalation of just drink and nothing to do.”
In an interview with Joe Duffy on RTE’s The Meaning of Life he admitted it’s not the first time he has questioned his drinking habits.
Joe asked him about his grandfather who died after falling down the stairs with “a few too many” drinks on board in 1999.
Nathan said: “Yeah, I have done [questioned my drinking], a few times. The music
business leans towards that type of stuff – after the gig you’re on the bus, you’re having a few and next minute it’s three in the morning.
“You’re up partying the night away. I’ve often had a few words with myself and said, ‘You need to rein it in a bit’.”
Nathan also describes the grief and shock at losing his best friend Nicky James in February, admitting: “It’s been a pretty sh***y nine months.”
- The Meaning of Life is on RTE One on Sunday at 10.30pm.
