Machine Gun Kelly was living in a daze before he fell in love with Megan Fox and recorded the biggest album of his career.
In a new cover story for NME published on Friday (October 23), the EST 19XX artist reflected on spending his days “coked out of my mind in a drunken stupor” at the start of quarantine and early in the process of recording his fifth studio effort, Tickets To My Downfall. However, getting close with Fox on set of their forthcoming film Midnight In The Switchgrass proved life-changing and ended up serving as the influence for the album’s content.
View this post on Instagramshock n roll star @nmemagazine #TicketsToMyDownfall #️⃣1️⃣ @jonathan.weiner
“Tickets is essentially my diary because I did fall in love during the making of this record, and I did become a better person,” he told NME. “It’s interesting. There was probably a crossroads in the middle of making this album where the title would have lived up to the reality. I think the universe caught on to me wanting to make a change. It was like: ‘Maybe we won’t make this a reality; maybe we’ll make this ironic.’ Instead of the downfall, go ahead and have the biggest rise of your fucking life.”
Tickets became MGK’s first album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 when it arrived on the chart ending October 4 with 126,000 album-equivalent units sold. Reacting to the news at the time, the Cleveland native thanked his hardcore fans for helping him achieve the feat over a decade into his career.
“The journey is a marathon, but this week was a race,” he wrote to Twitter. “I owe the fans everything for pushing so hard but you did it!! let’s celebrate now and again when touring opens up.”
Fox stars in the video for the album’s lead single, “Bloody Valentine.” Revisit the visual below.