Sheffield rock star lived with monks in Brazil to escape 'very dark place'

The frontman, whose band is at number one in the album charts with Post Human: Survival Horror, said he went on a “spiritual rehab” by staying on an ashram with his wife, Brazilian model Alissa Salls.

In an interview with The Sun he said: “For a while I just went into a very dark place, a place that I’ve been in before, but it was the start of a beautiful thing finding myself again.

“I think everyone experienced some level of this during lockdown. Even the most positive of people can’t hide from the fact that these are very dark times.

“It was depression for me, for sure, but that worst kind of depression where it’s not like you’re feeling sad but where you’re feeling nothing at all. You’re really just out of touch with your own emotions.

“A couple of hours from where Alissa’s family lives there’s actually an ashram, a Hare Krishna ashram, and they invited us to go and stay there.

“So for the best part of a month we went and lived on an ashram, without all our devices and disconnected and basically lived as if we were Hare Krishna for a month.

“We woke up at five in the morning and prayed to Krishna and sang and danced, to just connect with who we are.

“And these people are just the happiest people in the world, these monks, you go and meet them and they’re the most positive and spiritual people, and I just thought, I want a piece of that. I want to see what it’s like.”

“It was like a rehab to be honest. I went to rehab a few years ago for drugs.

“But when I came here it was a detox, but from everything… emotional issues, dependency on devices, dependency on being a musician.

“I just learned how to be still and wake up and think I’ve got nothing to do today and that’s absolutely fine.

“Now on a spiritual level I think it’s really important to believe in something higher and bigger than yourself.”