Dark star: how doom metal pioneers Bobby Liebling and Pentagram got one last chance
Pentagram could have been huge, but lead singer Liebling had an appetite for annihilation that almost destroyed him
The black leather boots Bobby Liebling recently purchased from "the chick section at Nordstrom" look terrific, even if the three-inch heels are killing his feet. And like the rest of his body, his feet ultimately refuse to be killed anyway.
"Overall, I'm doing all right," the 61-year-old says, sipping chocolate milk backstage at Washington's Rock and Roll Hotel on a Saturday night. "I'm still standing upright, and I've still got a semblance of a brain - which is very unusual considering I've probably consumed 30 million dollars' worth of cocaine and heroin."
Much of Liebling's life is shrouded in heavy metal myth, but this is a fact. He's been addicted to the ugliest of drugs for more than four decades, all while fronting Pentagram, a northern Virginia band that pioneered an enchanting and enduring sound that would eventually be dubbed "doom metal".
Much of the turbulence in Liebling's life is laid bare in Last Days Here, an acclaimed and punishing 2011 documentary that begins with the singer rifling through the couch cushions in pursuit of a crumb of crack, and it ends with him relatively cleaned up, newly married and expecting his first child.
Real life kept rolling after the credits, of course, and four years later, Liebling has struggled to maintain the film's happy ending. Recently separated from his wife, he's currently living in an apartment in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where he says he hasn't touched heroin in "years" or cocaine in "months". Pentagram aren't just touring to promote their new album, Curious Volume, so much as to provide the band's founder with a routine, a sense of purpose and as much serenity as there is to be found on a rock 'n' roll tour.