Boyband member turned bona fide rock star Harry Styles put his blood, sweat and tears into his new album—emphasis on the blood. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Styles shared the story of how he nearly bit off his own tongue while in the studio, and how he soldiered on despite having a mouthful of blood.
“This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue,” he told Rob Sheffield while giving him a tour of the Shangri-La studio in Malibu. “So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place.” Styles said that he did “a lot” of shrooms while working on the new album, and went on to joke that the new album should really be called “Mushrooms and Blood.”
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Chocolate edibles played a big part in the creative process, Styles explained: “We’d do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney’s Ram in the sunshine.” The end result hasn’t been released yet, but Styles says his new material is mostly “all about having sex and feeling sad.”
According to some studies, magic mushrooms are among the “safer” recreational drugs, provided that the user takes the appropriate dosage level and doesn’t mix them with alcohol or other substances. And research has found that small doses of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in shrooms, can actually have positive effects on people who suffer from depression.
This article originally appeared on Men’s Health