Strokes guitarist no longer a "drug weirdo"

The Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr has said that his drug abuse issues almost prevented the rock band from reforming.

The band returned in March with a new album called Angles just over five years after embarking on an extended hiatus, and Hammond said that before this point, he would have been unable to return.

"The only reason I'm able to talk about it with such insight is that I've gone 180 degrees the other way," Hammond told Q. "I became a drug weirdo because of my own anger, and when you're angry with yourself and you're ingesting a lot of drugs, it doesn't help any sense of dialogue and you just feel isolated."

The guitarist said it was around the time he was recording his second solo album ¿Cómo Te Llama? back in 2008 that he realised he needed help.

"Super craziness came at the end of my first solo record and the beginning of my second one," he admitted. "I was a full-on junkie by the second solo record.

"I didn't notice all the other people in the group saying how much they wanted to be back in it."

Despite their fourth studio album only being released in March, The Stokes have already begun work on the record's follow-up.