Machine Gun Kelly's Life In Pink (2022) Movie Script

[chime sounds, crowd cheers]
WOMAN: The top rock artist
is Machine Gun Kelly!
MAN 1: It's the number-one album.
You have the number-one
rock album this year.
MAN 2: His album is called
"Tickets to my Downfall."
WOMAN: His new album,
"Mainstream Sellout," is available.
MAN: He just earned his second number one
on Billboard's top rock albums chart,
and he broke the record
for most solo hits on the hot rock chart.
HOWARD STERN: What a life he's having,
huh? He's on a roll.
It's like crazy, it must be crazy.
If I could just have you, be mine!
Be my baby
- Fuck Machine Gun Kelly,
his music fuckin' sucks.
MAN:
"MGK is not a rock artist lol."
WOMAN:
He has such a wild stage presence.
- I skipped my thesis class
just to be here.
MAN: Our next guest is
an incredibly talented musician and actor
whose latest album,
"Tickets to My Downfall,"
was a number-one smash hit...
- Machine Gun Kelly...
- He's fucking garbage.
- Horrible music.
MAN: Disrespectful jackass.
He sucks, and he's a sellout.
ELLEN: His latest album
debuted at number one
on the Billboard 200. That's right!
[singing with crowd]
Alienate me
I'm not the one you want
- And I just look
at my daughter, full makeup,
singing "She's in Love with an Emo Girl."
MAN:
Dude, I have your face on my leg.
MAN 2: The only thing left
for us to see is you fall.
- Fuck MGK! Fuck MGK!
- Fuckin' poser.
MAN: Fuckin' crazy.
He's on "Us" magazine,
"Access Hollywood,"
"ET" every other day.
- Machine...
- Gun Kelly.
- Machine Gun Kelly.
MAN: He just had a drive.
MACHINE GUN KELLY: ...the box
that society keeps trying to put me in.
You need stronger material
because you can't keep me in it.
MAN: Every time I seen him
do something,
I'm like, I know
this is what he wanted.
MAN: You will all die one day.
So will MGK.
And I'll be the one to murder him.
[snaps fingers]
- It was nice talking to you all.
I'm afraid they're awake
I'm cautious who I'm serenading
Summoned them by mistake
Price you pay for entertaining
tranquil music playing
KELLY: I watched this dude go off
about that quote when I said,
"As an artist, you're here to give up
a piece of your comfort."
And it's like...
"What do you know about
giving up your comfort?"
"Everything in your life
is exactly what you want."
simple melody on piano
You don't know shit, though,
about what the fuck I go through
or what this is like.
- Machine Gun Kelly...
- ...is a fucking loser.
- Home composer.
- Do not disrespect...
- When people say that stuff about my dad,
like I definitely do stick up for him.
You also only see one side
of it where it's like the media.
He's a really good musician,
so it's like I feel like
people have to dig deeper
than just like what they see
on the Internet.
KELLY: Because also my life
wasn't always like this.
[indistinct chatter]
MAN: How we doin' in the studio?
perky electronic music playing
- Let's see how many plays we get
on Myspace and on YouTube.
- Just get a butter knife,
give it a little twist.
MAN: 'K.
Man, dude.
Hey, tell the camera what you're doing.
- Shit, I'm toasting a bagel.
[man laughs]
When you're sitting here
and everything's silent...
really gives you a perspective
on what's important.
Love is that importance.
Especially when you go your whole life
feeling neglected of that feeling.
[tattoo gun buzzing]
Hard.
Turning the album in tomorrow,
finished it two hours ago.
Now I'm about to go drive
150 miles an hour
and listen to everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I use a razor to take off the edge
"Jump off the ledge," they said
"Take the laser,
aim at my head and paint
the walls red," I said
I'm crazy, I'm off the meds
I'm better off dead, they said
[siren chirps]
Son of a bitch. Fuck.
OFFICER: [over speakers]
Straight, straight. Go straight, straight.
Are you late somewhere?
KELLY: No, just jamming
super hard, got a new song.
OFFICER: Do you have your license?
KELLY: No, I don't.
OFFICER: Okay, uh,
you don't have a license?
KELLY: No.
OFFICER: Didn't we stop you last time?
KELLY: No, sir.
OFFICER: We stopped you
last time for the same thing.
KELLY: I know 'cause I just
recorded a new song.
intense sound patterns playing
KELLY: I just don't think
anyone saw me coming.
music playing
But I was here the whole time.
We had the cameras rolling, though.
[muffled cheering]
Diablo.
My name isn't mentioned
but this generation
Is one of the greatest
in lyrical cadence
I changed the way rappers rap
I saw people take it
and make it more famous
If I wanna get credit
I had to be patient
I know people hate me
just by my appearance
You motherfuckers gettin' serious, eh!
KELLY: My favorite hip-hop album I ever
made was "Hotel Diablo."
Yo, I'm writing at 5:36-6-6
in the morning, wide awake...
I had beautiful storytelling production
that we were all doing.
Each of us just picking up
instruments and synths
and collaborating to make
this piece of music.
I was just like, holy shit,
what a great album.
[rapping]
The fact is I made it from trailer trash
to Saks Fifth
KELLY: The fans loved it.
My first album with a billion streams.
But for some reason, the media chose
to write me off.
Alone in the glass house
Lie awake till the sun's out
Pink sky when you come down...
- I love Hotel Diablo.
The lyrics are just so good.
M3 in the driveway,
caffeine for the heartache
KELLY: Whether it be
my antics or my attitude,
the actual music just would
kind of get looked over.
Yeah, I fuck up and lose control...
It just was like, you won't hear me.
I can't make you see me.
And I could never figure out why.
Hey, life's been hard since 17
I've been through hell,
I think I'm somewhere in between
I wasn't getting the approval
that I was seeking.
But I've been doing this for so long.
And I've absolutely worn my body down.
CASIE:
He's an amazing performer.
There's like a magic to him.
Like he has like a sparkle,
like a golden touch, almost.
KELLY: The spirit in me died.
I felt like that fire kind of died down
a little bit
because I got discouraged.
Nice, we got some mushrooms.
Got some Ecstasy.
Oh, shit, look, disco shit.
I was deep in the drugs at that point.
Gonna make this shit muddy, yo.
I kind of was like, fuck it,
this makes me feel good.
[laughing]
I've never seen anyone
be able to self-sabotage more than me.
I'm like the best self-sabotager
I've ever witnessed.
I got a bullet
with somebody's name on it
I get up on it
I don't need no name on it
Killed me a goat so my jacket
got stains on it
Wiping my nose like I got
some cocaine on it
- What up?
- What's up, Case?
CASIE: Checkin' in on my rock candy.
It's strawberry flavored.
KELLY: Dude, she made rock candy.
- No way.
KELLY: My little scientist.
hip-hop playing
- It's like kind of hard
'cause my mom and my dad
are like not together
and they live in two different states.
I bought this neon-colored pink
to make it look like strawberry-flavored.
- Well, you got to make sure
you save one for me,
'cause it's been how many days,
two days, right?
CASIE: No.
-Oh, God.
My days are going in a hole.
- He was always on tour,
he was always working.
KELLY:
I just got in the studio, so...
- You just got in the studio?
- I'm going to be here for a lot longer.
I'm going to be up till you wake up.
- It's like kind of sad
'cause I just got used to it.
I got used to him not
picking me up from school.
- School starts back tomorrow, huh?
I would love to drop you off
for that and pick you up.
- Ooh, that would be better.
But, like, you can't, like, miss it.
- I won't miss it. I will be there.
-I'll pick you up again
CASIE: Okay...
- Hold on one second.
- What are you saying?
- I gotta go to bed.
Goodbye, Dad, love you.
- All right, love you too, good night.
- Good night.
- Good night.
- Bye.
- Bye.
- Love you.
- Love you, girl.
- Bye.
- Bye.
KELLY:
Maybe I sabotage myself on purpose
'cause I just feel
not worthy of being loved.
It's instilled from childhood,
and...
and you learn from
the people that raise you.
I watched my dad...
suffer a lot.
He watched his dad die in front of him.
Bleed out on the floor.
Shot in the head with a shotgun
in his apartment.
"When officers arrived, they
found the man dead on the bed.
The man's wife was hysterical
and they were unable to question her."
That was my grandmother.
It's crazy 'cause they
actually took my dad to trial
at 9 years old.
- At 9?
- Mm-hmm.
'Cause he never took a chance to heal.
All that stuff like
came out on me as I grew up.
- I can see why my dad was so depressed,
'cause like it kind of passed on
through generations to him.
I don't know how to explain it.
We never really had family to like go to
on like Thanksgiving or like Christmas.
Usually we'd just go to like Boston Market
or like be by ourselves.
I always just wanted like that big family
'cause I always saw my friends having that
like big family dinner.
KELLY:
The wound's too deep to heal.
I kind of just transfer all my focus into
drowning out my own pain with this noise.
Music, and this new
acceptance that I found
from people who related to me
from the words I would write.
intense sound patterns playing
REPORTER: Breaking news, stay at home.
That's the order tonight.
Major events around the world
have been canceled because of coronavirus.
- Whoa!
KELLY:
My life was very gypsy...
- Happy birthday!
KELLY:
I never had a home even as an adult.
I was always on a tour bus.
And fuck, man, you can only
take so many drugs
or run the same activities
over and over again
before you're like,
"Okay, I need a hobby."
And then quarantine hit,
and I picked the guitar back up.
I started just playing guitar covers
of my favorite songs.
"Today was a good day."
Avril Lavigne.
Red Hot Chili Peppers.
All of a sudden, everything changed.
I started to realize
that all those nights
I spent alone on the bus with my guitar
were fueling my excitement about... life.
Life with the fast life
in the fast lane
Life in the cab
nice drinking champagne
Ice make it last,
ice for the back pain...
I was dropping quarantine session
after quarantine session.
I was just recording
and making videos
and I think almost every one of them
has 100 million views.
Then late-night shows
started picking up on that.
We're excited to have Machine Gun Kelly.
KELLY: In an ironic way,
it's kind of like rehab.
I can't do anything, I can't go anywhere.
I just have to sit in my own head.
[Kelly rapping]
- Oh! Oh, shit!
Oh, I love that so fucking much.
Watch me take a good thing
and fuck it all up in one night
MAN: People were freaking out because
he turned into a rock star.
- What? Wait. So he's not...
This isn't a rap song?
- So he doesn't rap on this?
- I don't know.
- Man, you a rock star, bro.
[projector powering up]
- I saw with "I Think I'm OKAY"
that it took us back in time
to when life was not so difficult.
[indistinct chatter]
[playing "I Think I'm OKAY"]
Watch me take a good thing
and fuck it all up in one night
Catch me, I'm the one on the run
away from the headlights
No sleep, up all week,
wasting time with people I don't like
I think...
That something's fucking wrong with me
- Just uncomparable to anything
that was out at the time.
No one was really messing around
with guitars or rock music.
It kind of channeled
the inner child in all of us
to come back out,
and who wouldn't want
to make people feel like that?
intense sound patterns playing
[indistinct chatter]
MAN:
We always had these big dreams.
I've known Kells since high school.
- This is MGK. This is Slim Jeez.
- My cousin was always like, "Yo, bro,
you got to come see
this white boy, bro, he crazy."
- Hey, this boy Machine Gun Kelly.
SLIMXX:
His dad ended up kicking him out,
so me and Kells lived in the basement
and slept on four beds together.
[rapping]
Everything that we wished for,
sitting in Ash's mom basement,
the things that we talked about
that we were gonna do, we're doing them.
TRAVIS: I think the first time
I ever met Machine Gun Kelly
was at a Blink show,
and if I'm not mistaken,
it was in Cleveland.
intense sound patterns playing
- We're here at the Blink concert.
Fell in love with
the girl at the rock show
Look at that, that's the Blink bus!
- Kells came back after the show
to party a little bit,
and I remember we left him in a weed coma
where he couldn't move.
[camera shutter clicks]
KELLY:
He became a big brother to me.
TRAVIS:
Yeah, we linked for "I think I'm OKAY."
He was like, "Wow, this is
turning out really cool,"
and he's like, "Yeah, Trav, I've been kind
of messing around with rock music again."
I was like, "Yo, can I come to the house,
get in the studio?"
- It was like, "Let's just jam."
1, 2, 3...
And we made "Bloody Valentine."
- If the chorus is gonna
keep going like that,
I feel like there's a... you have
an opportunity to say something,
like some tag or...
- So I think you gotta add
a guitar part that's almost like...
KELLY: Now we can beat it.
- You can beat that line.
...happen again, you'll be
[off-key] My bloody valentine
Tonight
- Aaah!
- Seriously, seriously.
I got in my car and he got in his car
and we played back
the demo that we had just did.
I probably got one exit down,
and I was like,
"Holy fuck, did you just
listen to that?"
And he was like, "Yes, it's so good."
TRAVIS:
And I think we were both going like,
"Can we do this again and again and again,
enough to create like an album full
of this style of music?"
And he's like, "Fuck, we
gotta get back in the studio."
KELLY:
And, dude, we didn't leave
for, like, months.
[music stops]
- That shit has crashed on us eight times.
You know my ex, so that makes the whole
thing complicated, yeah
You know my ex, so that makes the whole
thing complicated, yeah
- Start to make us sound good
if we move some shit around.
[cymbal crashes]
- You ready?
Check, check. Here we are at day six
of the Selling Tickets
to My Downfall album.
[top pops]
[song starts]
My finger's burning
from the temperature
My teacher led me off a precipice
If I'm a painter,
I'd be a depressionist...
TRAVIS: And it was like
in an interesting time,
the midst of like COVID and everyone was
quarantining.
You were kind of blocked off
from everything.
C-C-C-G-G
- Yeah.
- B-B-E-E
[indistinct chatter]
Dyin' inside
[drums beating]
[lyrics muted]
I'm crazy, I'm off my meds
I'm better off dead, they said
Use a razor to take off the edge,
jump off a ledge
KELLY: I watched the influence that
we had on other artists.
So much of me felt like,
okay, well, what else can I contribute?
Okay, well, what's the next
crazy thing we could do?
[indistinct chatter]
guitar riff playing
[electronic crackling over guitar chord]
- Yes!
TRAVIS:
I just kept being like,
"What the fuck, like,
Kells really gets this."
And I don't know,
there's not many pop punk albums like that
or rock albums like that.
For me it was like
working on a Blink album.
I was so involved in it,
I loved it like it was my own,
and I was so impressed by Kells.
- Okay, I'm ready. Check, check, hey.
You want me to forget you
Okay, forget me too
You tell me-- No.
Tell me if you guys like
these lyrics for the bridge.
I can't, I can't, I can't
pretend to forget you
The reason I punched
a hole in the back-- Ah, fuck.
You want me to forget you
MAN:
He was like, "I have an idea.
I think this new album's
gonna be punk rock."
Well, like, let's fuckin' go.
Pop punk, let's bring it back, fuck yeah.
- It's very punk.
I'm keepin' you waitin'
But I won't wait on you
You want me to forget you
Okay, forget me too
- Yes!
Yeah!
HALSEY: Headphones are...
- So sick.
That's the one. That's so fucking fire.
That's the one, dude. Gotta come high.
HALSEY: I have to change the melody there
and I didn't really like that one.
[singing indistinctly]
Let me do one more?
- No.
MAN: If you really want to.
HALSEY: Ha, ha! I'm a perfectionist.
Want me to forget you...
Oh-oh
Hey, oh, oh, oh
- I don't know, I can do it better.
There was another vocal...
HALSEY: See, you get mad at me
and then you wanna be in here
doing 10 takes or some bullshit.
KELLY: First take every time, let's go.
[laughter]
Starting now.
[over Halsey's lyrics]
You left, you left, you left
Fuck!
[laughter]
"Los Angeles, get the fuck
off the ground."
punk rock playing
Down!
- You left before I woke up
Why don't I ever see you sober?
- Whoo!
Aaaaah!
guitar playing
Okay, I just want you
to look at how many guitars
are going on today.
- Yeah. In the last hook...
MAN: Double strap right here.
[comical gasping]
MAN: Double strap.
SLIMXX: But Kells always had
a vision of, you know, working with Travis
and once they got together,
they just had to bond
in the vibes and it was crazy.
music playing in background
TRAVIS: Kells is like me.
Like, I'll sit in the studio
till 5 in the morning
figuring something out,
and we work until
we're ready to go to sleep
and we can't keep our eyes open.
We'll do it for a pace that not many can
keep up with.
...relationships that were
bad in love but I want this
- That's all right, let's do that.
TRAVIS: For like "Tickets,"
I had to have two engineers,
and we probably averaged
four hours of sleep a night
for about six months straight.
All I know is I don't
know nothin' at all
People talk...
Like, stay up till 4:00
or 5:00 in the morning,
wait for Trippie to come through
the studio, write a song with Trippie.
Oh, oh, oh-oh-oh
Oh, oh, oh-oh-oh
[indistinct singing]
[indistinct chatter]
MAN 1: Bitch.
MAN 2: Hell yeah.
- [laughs] He said I sound like a dude
who's been wearing the same
clothes since yesterday?
Which is fact.
- We had probably half
of the album completed,
and I was like, "What's up with the label?
You still on Interscope?"
- No one knew where I was at.
No one knew what I was doing.
The label is like,
"Well, he put out that Hotel Diablo album,
"like, that did all right,
and like we haven't heard from him."
I was like MIA from everybody.
- "They're not really
expecting a record from me.
They probably don't even know
I'm working on one."
- I was like, "Well, let's call Janick and
let's set up a meeting and play him this."
- Everyone had this idea
of who Machine Gun Kelly was,
and I came in with a completely
new version of myself.
- I think Interscope
thought that we were crazy.
- Walking into the Interscope
building to play
"Tickets to my Downfall."
I had put out four rap records
on that label.
- Some were new faces.
TRAVIS: And I saw people that
were scratching their heads.
- "You're better off dead," they said
- Yeah, yeah, yeah
I use a razor to take off the edge,
jump off the ledge
I'm sellin' tickets to my downfall
I'm sellin' tickets to my downfall
- "This isn't what we expected,
but we like it."
- What's going on?
- It's good.
Let's get another microphone
hooked up right here. What's cookin'?
- I left you hanging last time
we did... last time we talked,
'cause you had asked me what the project
that Travis and I was working on
was called.
- You got something?
- Yeah.
- What's it called?
- Tickets to my Downfall.
[voices echoing]
- What's it called?
- "Tickets to my Downfall."
- What's it called?
- "Tickets to my Downfall."
- What's it called?
- "Tickets to my Downfall."
- What's it called?
- "Tickets to my Downfall."
intense sound patterns playing
- All right, I'm not really sayin' to be
at the Rainbow Lifeguard Tower
on Venice Beach Saturday around 3 p.m.
I'm not sayin' that, but I'm sayin' that.
MAN: You got permits for this?
[cheering]
I'm still young, wasting my youth
I'll grow up next summer
I'm back on those drugs I quit
I kept my dealer's number
I'm still young, wasting my youth
I'll grow up next summer
I'm back on that girl I quit
I should've lost her number
I'm overcompensating for heartbreak
I swallowed a pill
that was in a heart shape
Her hands on my chest
feelin' my heartbeat
She's spillin' her drink
all on my car seat
She'll get attached and then trap me
Then I gotta act like I'm happy
She posts pics to get at me
Dj vu, just like last week
I'm still young, wasting my youth
I'll grow up next summer
I'm back on those drugs I quit
I kept my dealer's number
I'm still young, wasting my youth
I'll grow up next summer
I'm back on that girl I quit
I should've lost her number
I'm still young... wasting
And I'm not getting younger
I'll grow up...
And I'll grow up next summer
I'm still young...
I'm wastin' and
I'm not getting younger
I'm still young
I promise that I'll
grow up next summer
[cheering]
WOMAN: Machine Gun Kelly has finally
earned his first number-one album.
- Hey, Trav, number-one album.
Let's go.
Let's go, I don't know
who this car is right here.
CREW: Whoaaa!
Let's go!
Number-one album, bro!
Let's go!
- I owe you a front car window,
dude, that's my bad.
The only me I liked was me on stage.
Because music was
what made people like me.
I was a character.
Some people play a role for six months.
I play a role for 16 years.
intense sound patterns playing
[cat mewing]
- You want to listen to
"Interlude" while we sit here?
KELLY: Yeah.
WOMAN: Put it on.
[cat purring]
- Right when I actually got
into my relationship,
no one could fuckin' move,
there was no shows.
So she met me and never
even got to see me do
the one thing that I accepted myself for.
[indistinct chatter]
PHOTOGRAPHER: That picture
I took of you guys was magic.
- And, uh, and this?
- It was magical.
KELLY:
Oh, my God. You know, ask her.
I was the most inconfident,
insecure dude ever.
I was like, "Please,
just let me go on a stage.
Let me show you I'm cool,
like... you'll see."
But meanwhile, she's like,
"Dude, I love you."
- So during the
Ticket to my Downfall tour,
we had, I think it was less than ten days
to pull a bunch of stuff together.
- It's going down, Downfalls High school.
- Last day of the movie, let's go!
- Whooo!
KELLY:
The past year, workwise,
I did four movies.
Directed and wrote one of them.
- Oooh!
[horn honks]
KELLY:
I'd wrote and published a graphic novel.
She should have like red lipstick or--
MAN: Ooh, I like that.
KELLY:
I went to Italy and curated the soundtrack
to a Dolce & Gabbana
fashion show live,
and also walked
in the show at the same time.
Came out with my own nail polish line
called "UNDN."
I showed up to rehearsals
and then realized
I just fucked off
the biggest opportunity
for me as a musician ever,
and finally you're telling me that
this tour just sold out
and like I forgot to build a set?
- He showed up 72 hours
before we were actually scheduled to play
the first show.
- We didn't prepare for shit.
MAN: There's so many moving parts that go
into it. You know, production and...
- You know, making sure
everything was right,
crew, figuring out the staging.
- You know, we want certain colors
for certain instruments.
We want everything to be cohesive.
There's so many things,
and we had so little time.
BAZEXX: We really got two days
of actual rehearsal.
[indistinct chatter]
I remember when he came in,
he was-- I think he was just
overwhelmed with everything.
We had no set, none.
We were like, oh, my God.
What are these kids gonna see
when they fuckin' come?
SLIMXX: Kells came in spazzing
and, you know, goin'... doin' what he do.
- I must have been
very unpleasant to work with.
All this drum and bass, and this is what
the fuck the lights are doing?
Fuck.
- So, eight months before
we're supposed to go on tour,
Rook got in a bad accident.
KELLY: I remember the night
Rook got into the altercation,
like it was a robbery that turned into him
getting run over by a car.
He was lucky to even be alive after that.
But I know it fucked him up
because his bones snapped,
and we were six months out
from going on a tour,
the biggest tour yet actually.
Technically the doctors were like,
"You aren't going to be able
to walk for a year,"
and by the time it came to tour,
he got behind the drums
and was the best showman,
the best performer
and fucking killed it.
- Fuckin' back, baby.
[cheering]
[crowd chanting "MGK!"]
I saw friends in the front row
They'll leave when I'm finished
KELLY:
I've done some so-cool rock concerts.
So many different personalities
and so much that we don't have in common
with each other,
but when that one song
comes on that we all love,
it all goes away and we're all one.
- It's beyond sold-the-fuck-out.
- It is 10,000.
- We seat 10,000 tonight, guys.
- 20K, something like.
[cheering]
You walked in my life at 2 a.m.
'Cause my boy's little girl
is your best friend
Act like you don't see me
we'll play pretend
Your eyes already showed me what...
You never said
Fuck that, jump, jump!
KELLY:
Yeah, VMA night was a trip.
I should make a fuckin'
documentary on that night.
intense sound patterns playing
REPORTER: Just told me you had a little
scuffle with Conor McGregor
on the carpet, what happened?
- Aah!
My face said it all.
REPORTER:
Last night at the MTV VMAs,
Conor McGregor was caught
on video throwing his drink
at Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox
while on the Red Carpet.
Pandemonium then ensued
as several security guards
attempted to hold back the MMA fighter.
- What happened?
- I don't even know the guy,
to be honest with ya.
- What the fuck is this dude doing?
Let me wash that cheap-ass
whiskey off with a shot.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
KELLY: And then we get backstage
and everyone was just like
freakin' the fuck out.
- We're looking at our phones
and we see everybody on Twitter,
you know, it's going crazy.
WOMAN: Machine Gun Kelly,
Olivia Rodrigo...
- Everybody's like, "Yo, fuck that,
we're about to go onstage
and we're about to go rock this."
- Waited my whole life for this.
- We had the primetime spot, which
was like the best spot of the show.
KELLY:
So we go up, I get in the grave.
MAN: 10 seconds.
- I'm already shaking like this.
MAN: 5, 4...
KELLY: I'm laying there, and anxiety
just building, building, building.
And all of the sudden,
like a worker with a headset
comes out, they're like,
"Get out, get out, get out!"
- And I see them striking
all of our stuff offstage,
and everybody's like, "What's going on?
What's going on? What's going on?"
- And my nerves now just went
to the ultimate level of anxiety.
And then they were like, "You guys are
gonna go right after Foo Fighters."
And we were like, "What?"
punk rock music
WOMAN: The winner is...
- We won! Thank you!
[cheering]
- Let's fucking go!
- Yeah!
- Let's go!
[cheering]
[indistinct chatter]
- What am I supposed to do?
I feel like the world fuckin' hates me.
It's been like that for years now.
It's been like five years straight.
- That shit is just...
It comes with the territory.
- "Why is your dad Emo?"
"Why is he dressed like weird?"
I feel like people have to dig deeper
than just like
what they see on the Internet.
[Kelly reading]
- This dude goes off on me the whole time.
Never even sat down with me
to catch a hint of who
I actually am as a person,
just going off of public perception
fueled by other people
writing articles like this
to make me seem a certain way, like...
to just leave...
a foul taste in other people's mouths.
It's funny, the whole Slipknot issue,
which really isn't a Slipknot issue,
it's a Corey issue.
That situation's
unfortunate because I think
both of us let our egos get in the way.
You know, I was a fan of Slipknot,
and I was a fan of Corey.
That's why I'd asked him
to get on Tickets.
He obviously had mutual respect too
because he cut a verse.
I kind of tried to give notes back,
like, "Oh, you know, this wasn't exactly
what I was looking for, can we try this?"
And respectfully
he was like, you know, "No."
And I was like, "Okay, cool,"
so we didn't use it.
You know, then I heard him on a podcast.
- I hate all new rock, for the most part.
I think that, well, the "artists"
who failed in one genre
and decided to go rock...
and I think he knows who he is.
- That narrative always confused me.
My most successful album was
the album I just put out.
Hotel Diablo. That's a rap album that has
a billion-plus streams.
I could have handled it differently,
was I should have just picked up the phone
and been like, "Hey, dude,
like, why would you say that?"
But instead we all reacted ridiculous.
REPORTER: Slipknot and MGK
both performed at Riot Fest
over the weekend,
headlining the final day
of the annual Chicago gathering.
- What the fuck is up, Chicago?
[cheering]
Hey, you wanna know what I'm really happy
that I'm not doing?
Age 50 years old, wearing a fuckin' weird
mask on a fuckin' stage.
Fuckin' shit.
But anyway, what's
everyone's favorite candy, Reese's Pieces?
The shows after that became really, uh...
interesting.
We'll see what happens. [laughs]
REPORTER:
A wild scene unfolded last night
in Louisville, Kentucky,
at the Louder Than Life Fest.
[crowd booing]
A number of people in the crowd
turning their backs to the stage
and sticking their middle fingers up.
REPORTER 2: And a festival
attendee seemingly shoved him
once he made it over the barricade.
KELLY: It was like a war zone.
As soon as we would touch the stage...
Being an activist for something,
it doesn't count that you're
an activist against MGK.
I don't know who that was, but imagine
getting punched in the face for that song.
It's not fun, dude. Have fun tonight.
I love you guys.
The part that throws me off
with what they don't see is,
I'm also there with my daughter as a dad,
like, okay, well, you know,
"Dad's gonna go to work,"
and then I'd take ten steps onto the stage
and glass jars and fuckin' rocks,
tree branches...
REPORTER:
Some even taking things too far,
throwing tree branches
and beverages at him,
while he climbed on top
of a tent during his set.
[crowd cheering]
- You're awesome, what's up?
I was like...
[crowd clamoring]
[crowd cheering]
And if anyone got a problem with that...
Then it's World War III
All the Slipknot shit, all the whatever
the fuck, like, fuck you too, dude.
Fuck you.
Like, fuck you though.
We've done all this shit for ten years.
We've done the van tours,
we did the Warped Tours tours,
we did the rock festivals
way before they were throwing sticks
and stones at us, dude, we were loved.
They forgot about all of the stripes that
we earned on the touring side.
We opened for fuckin'
Slipknot at the festival.
We did all this shit, the Rob Zombies,
we did all this shit, Oklahoma circuit.
People were just acting like,
"Oh, they just popped up."
Dude, there's fuckin' flyers from fuckin'
2013 that have us on rock festivals.
WOMAN: It's... it's easy
to see the negative,
but it's microscopic
what the article says.
What about the tens of thousands of people
that cried because they got to see you,
that like held their signs up,
that waited in line,
that spent their money to come see you
because you're making their life and your
music means something to them?
Somebody, there is a kid
that's in the audience tonight
that might have wanted
to like kill himself
until a song that you wrote touched him.
Like, so for all those, like, few people,
you have to remember like
you also have to let in
like the love, the positivity, the impact
and change we're making.
That's what music is to people.
You wouldn't be where you're at
if the words that they said were true.
intense sound patterns playing
I'm still young, wasting my youth
I'll grow up next summer
intense music playing
- I was with Megan in her house,
and I told the hospital, I said,
"If it looks bad, like, you call me."
And they called me.
They put the phone up to his ear
and he took his last breath,
and that was the last time
I heard from my father.
I was with him a couple days before,
and the last thing
he said to me... "Colson..."
I was like, "Yeah, it's me."
He's like, "Oh, you're not here."
He's like, "Am I in heaven?"
I was like, "No, no, Dad,
you're just right here.
I'm just saying hi."
And he was like, "You're not here,
but I love that I'm seeing you right now."
I said, "No, Dad, I'm really here,
I'm really here."
And he goes like, "No, you're not."
I had this conversation with him
even though he was clearly
like checking out,
but I turned around and I was like, "Dad,
I love you so much,
and I'm so sorry
for how we lived this life together,
and, like, we'll do it
better on the next one."
I went to close the door and I heard--
I saw him, he was just
staring up at the ceiling.
He had the biggest smile on his face
'cause he thought he was in heaven.
He thought I was like an angel visiting
him or whatever as his son, and...
rock guitar playing
He just was staring
up at the ceiling, smiling.
He just goes, "What a trip."
[crowd cheering]
MAN: We love you!
[crowd shouting, cheering]
- It's a trip
that, uh...
that you chose to spend
your holiday with me here tonight.
I know, uh, times are hard.
[cheering]
It's really cool that
you filled this place up real good.
You know, I remember there
was a spot called Peabody's.
They tore it down and then turned it into
some college dormitories, but...
It was 20 blocks up this way.
And a guy named Troy, he used
to book me for these shows,
and I had to get him
on the phone with my dad
so that my dad would let me
stay up past 11:00
so I could perform and
open up for like 40 people.
And I was like, "Ah,
this is going to change my whole life."
It was like 40 people.
Jesus fucking Christ, but...
[cheering]
And they said
that this is like the most tickets that...
[cheering continues]
[drums beat]
This is the most tickets that
any artist from Cleveland
has ever sold in this building, so...
[cheering]
I'm going to play a song
that means a lot to me.
This song is called "Lonely."
[cheering]
Last time I saw you
I cried, I wish you had more time left
The last time I heard you
They held the phone,
you took your last breath
Lonely, lonely,
even when the room is full
I'd trade it, trade it, I would trade it
all for you
Lonely, lonely,
even when the room is full
I'd trade it, trade it,
I'd trade it all for you
Lonely, lonely,
even when the room is full
I'd trade it, trade it,
I'd trade it all for you
Lonely, lonely,
even when the room is full
I hate this, I'm jaded and
I'd trade it all for you
KELLY: Songs like "Lonely,"
it's necessary
because 90% of my fans
sign up to listen to me
because of the pain that
they relate to in my lyrics.
They view it as something
like a cathartic experience,
so to me it's almost like...
for those four minutes,
we're going to church.
[cheering and applause]
My father passed away on July 5th.
It's the same day that
Hotel Diablo came out.
You know, I flew to my dad's apartment
to clear all this stuff out.
I had this really weird interaction
with this neighbor
who told me all these things
I didn't want to hear, and...
that fucked me up even more
because I couldn't get closure on it.
I wouldn't leave my room
and I started getting
really, really, really dark,
like...
Megan went to Bulgaria to shoot a movie.
I started getting
this really wild paranoia,
like I kept getting paranoid
that someone was gonna come and kill me.
Then there was this--
I would always sleep
with a shotgun next to my bed.
And, like, one of the days,
I just fuckin' snapped.
I called Megan, I was like...
"You aren't here for me."
I'm in my room and I'm like
freaking out on her and...
Dude, I put the shotgun in my mouth.
And I'm yelling on the phone,
and like the barrel's in my mouth.
And I go to cock the shotgun,
and the bullet as it comes back up,
the shell just gets jammed.
Megan's like dead silent.
That was kind of where
I started realizing, like,
something's not right.
Megan's like, "There's two yous."
And it was the same thing
with my daughter.
They simultaneously kind of came at me
with this like...
"I want to, like, be able
to see in your eyes.
I don't want, I don't want to, like,
be talking to you through a veil anymore.
I want to, like, see you as my father,
and I want to see you as my...
um...
you know, husband-to-be."
And I was like...
I need to kick, I need to kick the drugs.
For real this time.
tranquil guitar music playing
Megan became like the sun to me,
like the one that I revolve
around and gives me life
and like helps me grow.
[indistinct chatter, singing]
That's what makes me write those songs,
'cause it's just like every fairy tale
that they never told you in school,
that they never taught you.
Like, it's just this like,
the passion between us is otherworldly.
I know I've known her
in so many other lifetimes.
She loves a boy so much
She wants him to steal her breath
She loves a boy so much
She wants him to steal her breath
Because also...
if the world was coming to an end...
KELLY: That's what makes
my pen move so much, like...
I always see flower shops,
and I've got tens of thousands of dollars'
worth of flowers,
but flowers die, songs don't.
MAN 1: Best show ever, honestly.
MAN 2: For me too.
- It was amazing!
- It was so good!
- It was the best night of our life.
[indistinct chatter]
- Dude, I started a mosh pot.
- We started three!
- That was the coolest part
was watching him crowd surf.
- It was so awesome.
- I would literally stand
out here for like four days
just so you can get like a glimpse at him.
- I would do anything
for Machine Gun Kelly.
- Obsessed.
MAN: Watch him disappear
and then all of the sudden
he was across the...
the venue, it was awesome.
- He's the best, the best in the game.
I fuckin' love him.
MAN: It puts you in mindsets to where you
can achieve anything you want, honestly.
WOMAN: The love of my life.
- I'll grow up next summer.
[crowd cheering]
MAN: We're not even playing tonight.
And there's a thousand fans
outside the hotel.
[speaking Spanish]
- I've waited ten years...
MAN: It brings people together. I just met
these people tonight, and we're homies.
- A couple of years ago,
I got bullied a lot, and...
his music cheered me up.
- Aww, Aiden, it's okay. It's okay.
ROOK: Playing a live show
in front of thousands of people is...
there's no feeling like it.
All eyes are on you,
and you go throughout
your whole life being like,
"Man, what I would give to just have like
one of those moments."
Like even one of those moments
is worth it.
BAZEXX: You know,
and he went hard every night.
That was one of my favorite things
that I noticed about him immediately.
It didn't matter if there was
ten people in the audience or 10,000.
[gear clattering]
- ...abandonment, like...
fear of showing back up
and they don't come.
But...
judging by these shows,
it's only getting bigger.
[clicks tongue]
intense sound patterns playing
I wanted to put on an amazing show
for fans who, one, may have seen us over
the past ten years
and they came to finally see like,
"Okay, well, what do you
look like on this scale?"
And then for all these
thousands of new fans, like,
"Oh, well, we have to convince you
to always come back and see our show."
Like this has to be lifechanging for you.
TRAVIS: Kells is obsessed.
He is determined.
He is relentless.
He is willing to beat it to a bloody pulp
to the wee hours of the night.
He will overthink shit.
He will never be satisfied,
it's never good enough,
and that's what it takes to be the best.
- My fuckin' voice hurts so bad.
MAN: Oh, man.
KELLY: Dude, look how much
blood I'm spitting up.
Breakups are entertaining
My mental imbalance
[indistinct chatter]
KELLY: But there's
so much hurt everywhere.
We gotta learn how to, like, let it out.
rock music playing
If we just keep it pent up,
we're all going to go crazy.
electric guitar playing
[speakers feeding back]
Career suicide
- I'm all good with the ending
as long as you change "Career Suicide."
- I'm not changing "Career Suicide."
NICK: It's just out of place.
KELLY:
It's supposed to be out of place.
I'm fighting you over this one, go ahead.
Here, I just texted you the address.
Come here and tell me
you don't like it all you want.
- Kells.
- Look, this is what I'm greeting you
with, you understand?
You can't silence me.
[muffled commotion]
[laughter]
MAN: I'm at your fuckin' door!
- Say you love it.
- Open the fuckin' door! I love it.
Career suicide
Hey
- I just want to say, I will say this.
This motherfucker's only sang
one part of the song all day.
You know what part it is?
The part you're making fun of.
[laughs]
So... either I'm just...
- Ohh...
- I know for sure
it's an adlib that every single...
Just because I was an angel face, baby
Baby!
[softly] Career suicide
Ehh!
Ehhh!
Keep my mouth shut and wave
Hey, hey
I'm dancing on my grave
Ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
I spend a lot of nights thinking I might
go to sleep and then never wake up
I spend a lot of money on these therapy
sessions even though I'm not showing up
I spend a lot of time healing my mind
and my heart
But I still put these drugs in my gut
Me and my girl were just screaming
at each other
Right before we both
got out of the truck
I got some demons inside,
I'm tryna free them inside
I'm from the Cleveland East Side where
the boy who was just starving with you
Now might try to eat you alive
Damn, y'all said
that I switched genres
I saw the limit and took it farther
I'm a genius, could've made Donda
But this song is
for my dead father, aah!
We let it go
Let it go
Yeah, I know I might die in California
Die in California
Fuck.
BAZEXX: The content and the sonic
sound of "Mainstream Sellout"
was a continuation
of "Tickets" for a reason,
because all of the issues
that "Tickets" left off with,
there was no resolution.
It was like you left off
on like, "I'm lost."
So, I mean, I think for the second record,
when we went back into the studio,
we knew we had to follow it up.
I think we knew that we could take
our time a little bit
because people were gonna be, all eyes
were gonna be on this,
so I think that there
was a lot of pressure.
You know, everybody was checking for this
when it came out,
so we wanted to make sure
when it did come out
that it was perfect, that it was good.
- Mainstream Sellout is like,
the name really like speaks
for itself, man,
because they're gonna call you this,
they're gonna call you,
"Oh, you're a sellout."
I just feel like you can
never really please everybody,
but, "all right, cool, you want to call me
a mainstream sellout, cool,
this is my album's name
and everybody's going to listen to it."
- All right. Lived nine lives so I guess
I've got none left
Spent mine fucked up runnin' down...
KELLY: With Mainstream Sellout,
it was like...
we had to double down and show people that
the success of Tickets wasn't just luck.
Right? There was a lot more riding on
the success of Mainstream Sellout
matching what Tickets did
because people almost tried
to play it off like,
"Oh, that was luck."
You can't get lucky twice.
Let's just move on to a new lick.
MAN: All right.
- Yeah.
Because if it doesn't have bite,
I don't even want to do it.
I'm not the one you want
I feel so...
KELLY: Hey, that shit sounded tight.
[indistinct chatter]
intense sound patterns playing
acoustic guitar playing
Yeah, of course.
I fell in love with an emo girl
I fell in love with an emo girl
She fell in love with an emo boy
All she wants is an emo boy
[audio reversing]
Hit her line, my cup filled up
with purple rain
My anatomy's made up of alcohol
What a tragedy, you told me never call
It's been 17 days up on Adderall...
- Let me redo the first one,
I can do that shit again too.
- Hard.
KELLY: Right, he's coming in,
I can see him.
That's the goat, bruh.
All right, so there's two
Wayne stories on this album.
He came through around midnight.
His Sprinter van sets off while we're
looking at the security cameras.
We're like, whoa.
I'm definitely like, whoa.
You know, Travis has toured
with Wayne forever,
I've only met him like
one time in ten years.
The Sprinter sits there for 45 minutes,
and then finally the door opens,
it's like neon light inside.
What, what? And then he walks out here
with his cool-ass outfit on.
He just walks up to the door.
Him and Lil Twist, and they come in and...
I press "play" on the song, he's like,
"Is that what we're doing?"
I was like, "Yeah," and he's like,
"All right, if you guys got time."
We're like, "Yeah, for sure."
He goes in the courtyard
and like smokes 15 blunts.
He just, eyes are closed, all the time
he's just playing the track
over and over again.
He comes back in the studio,
and we can see him in the courtyard,
and we're just kind of sitting there like
amazed, like, that's, that's the goat
like forming his thoughts around
like a track that we made.
And he comes back in
at 5:30 in the morning.
And he's like, "Y'all ready?" Yep, yep.
He goes in the booth and he lays the shit
like one time.
Just like... one time through.
Wait seven days to get to notice me...
We got Lil Wayne on the feature tonight.
[laughing]
Oh, my God!
Hey.
"Tickets" went platinum.
And just know, I'm in the studio
going the fuck off right now.
hip-hop playing
[rapping]
[indistinct chatter]
1, 2, 3, 4...
Maybe if I had something to say
Butterfly effect from the last
three days now
Whoo!
We try layin' that?
- Mm-hmm.
piano playing melody
- Let's record that.
Maybe when you call me...
BAZEXX: So, Kells
is one of my best friends.
He's this creative mastermind
that, you know,
he's not good at explaining his vision,
but he does have a vision
when he starts something--
even from the first time
he lays a single note on the piano,
he already has
this big vision in his head.
Sometimes you just
kind of let the reins go
and just kind of let him do
whatever he wants to do.
guitar riff playing
[music stops]
- Why did you stop it?
I made up my mind this evening
I'm taking the last,
I'm taking the last
I'm ready to let you go
I'm ready to let you go
I'm ready to let you go
This song is the last,
this song is the last
- Do you even push?
- You push so hard.
- He had a little self-doubt.
I think there was times when he was like,
"How can we do that again?
There's no fucking way."
So we need to make it different.
It has to be different.
Just having these songs
that naturally come out, like "Maybe,"
don't overthink it and don't
take ourselves too serious.
I think in the beginning
at first when we came in,
it's gotta be serious and you just feel
like you have so much to prove,
and then once you get a couple of records
under your belt
and you're listening back
and you're going,
"Whoa, we have five, six records that are
really fucking great,"
that's when the light bulb clicks on and
you're like, "go time, let's go."
hard rock playing
KELLY:
Wait, guys, look at my sag.
MAN: Look at your underwear too.
- Tickets underwear.
KELLY:
Oh, I am wearing Tickets underwear.
Hey, Trav.
Does this inspire you at all?
- What?
KELLY: Does this inspire you at all?
MAN: Why the fuck...
- Was it your dick or something?
I couldn't see through the glass.
[indistinct chatter]
I made up my mind this evening
I'm taking the last,
I'm taking the last
Drink while my conscience eats me
I'm taking the last,
I'm taking the last
guitar riff playing
WOMAN: Goodbye. Thank you, guys.
- Going to Cleveland.
My daughter's volleyball game
is at 9:30 in the morning.
Land at 7:00 and it's a two-hour
drive from the airport.
And...
All right.
Yeah, Case. Let's go, let's go.
Good serve.
Yeah! Aaah!
Okay, y'all, we're here at the game.
I'm on my volleyball dad chair, see?
[laughs]
This is where Casie was raised at.
Take a left.
Yeah. This was Casie's house.
It's her mom's house.
If you look at like my first album cover,
like inside there's a picture
of me and Casie
sitting on those steps right there.
That was her crib.
I was here, he was out there.
I had Casie right here in the baby seat.
He came up to the car, and I was like,
"My daughters in here, bro. You gonna do
this with my daughter in the car?"
And that's why he eased off.
Remember that line I did in the freestyle
I did on LA Leakers that said...
I used to grab my daughter from her
mother's house on 112th and Dove
They tried to kill me
in my dad's truck
I had a .40 in my pants tucked
That was right there.
And this is 112th and Dove.
What's up?
- Damn, it's good to see you.
- Yeah, thank you, bruv.
Now look, I remember when you was rappin'
at Dionne's.
The airbrush kid.
- No, Dante.
- Dante downtown?
- Yeah, downtown.
- I used to come down there,
holler at Dante all the time.
- Yeah, I just saw him too.
- I remember you was just
like a little white kid,
you came up to me and said, "I can rap,"
and you dropped the freestyle for me.
- He was always like going back
to like where he used to live
or like where his friends used to live
or where he went
to Ashleigh's mom's house.
He always, like, goes back there,
and like he remembers where he came from.
And he always like tries
to give back whatever he can.
- Some Cleveland boys opened up
a Cleveland shop.
Things like with my coffee shop
that Dre and I started,
like we want to bring kind of
like the fun culture that you experience
when you walk into a shop in a different
country or a different city,
and you're like, "Oh, this is cool,
I never even knew this existed."
- Oh, yeah.
- What's good? You guys want a turkey?
- Yeah.
- Toss it, I got this gloved. Hyah.
- Thank you so much.
- Later, guys.
- Happy holidays.
- Happy holidays. Oh, here, a gas voucher.
- He'll give you some free gas.
You guys want a turkey?
- It's a gas voucher?
KELLY: Barlett, Corlett.
Fuck, man, this is crazy.
We shot "Till I die" on that street.
I wrote hella songs right there.
It's crazy, they don't
even have a gas pump.
I got so many memories on this street.
First music video I ever shot
was right there
in front of that Dairy ADM Deli.
It's called "Bouncin' on my Toes."
I should have never told y'all that.
That shit was not it.
Bouncin on my toes
Yeah
Bouncin' on my toes
Yeah
Machine Gun Kelly and his bitch
Bouncin' on my toes...
[indistinct chatter]
KELLY: In high school,
it was funny as fuck.
This was the spot.
That stage, right there,
those two stairs right there,
that's technically where
I did my first performance.
I remember it was me, Dub,
Slim and Lil Mike,
and I was laying back here,
I had this orange outfit on.
This whole thing was packed with people,
called the Buckeye Festival.
Crazy man.
Bitch, I'm from the land,
money in my hand
I'm gonna flow, get in some twerks
Who say white boys can't dance?
And then everyone was like, "Ohh!"
[indistinct chatter]
[cheering]
I said we don't Superman no more
Bitch, I'm from Cleveland
where even Superman won't go, hey!
Where even Superman won't go, hey!
Everyone went crazy again.
- At the end of the day, you were from
the city, man, you're from Cleveland.
Like we're from the bottom.
Like this is who he is.
CHIP: Yeah.
RAY: And everybody know your story,
but the new people
that's getting into it now,
he gotta show them like,
"Let me take y'all back
to where I really come from."
What we're sayin' is,
he got some shit that he just not showing
because the shit
that he's doing is working.
EMCEE:
Now, please welcome Cleveland's own
Machine Gun Kelly!
[cheering]
KELLY: Cleveland!
- Yeah, I'll find you courtside
somewhere, I'll find you.
I'll find you.
- All right, later, bro.
[cheering]
Okay, we're friends no matter what, right?
- Yeah, of course.
- Okay.
Remember when, uh...
remember when we got the album name,
the new album name tattooed on our arms?
But it's hilarious.
They were like, we're filming
in the middle of Hollywood,
they're like, "All right, you can
go get food but don't go far."
Peeled out to Calabash.
[indistinct chatter]
You're changing...
I'm changing the album name.
[laughing]
intense sound patterns playing
rock music playing
KELLY: I've always wanted
to leave something
that was like, "Everything
changed when he did this."
'Cause every artist I love
was like someone who came in
and stirred the pot.
Trackless
Yeah
PHOTOGRAPHER: Right there.
- All right, check this out.
It's funny 'cause I'm sitting
here signing 10,000 of them,
but we gotta reshoot
the album cover for DSPs.
And I think it's just me
in a white T-shirt
getting pink tomatoes thrown at me.
I think the guitar
is a pink chrome guitar,
and on the neck of the guitar
it says the word "sellout."
Like where the frets are.
MAN: We don't have time to swap the cover
if we keep the date.
- H-How...
It's DSPs. What do we need to...
MAN: We need to be
turning in DSPs like today,
like now, right now.
I mean, we've been talking
about this forever, Kells.
Like I need the final masters like now.
- I'm putting out another album this year,
Steve,
so I don't know what
we're talking about.
STEVE: I know, will you listen?
Well, let me finish then.
Fuck. I'm not saying you can't
come out with another one.
What I'm saying is,
this is still a marathon of good music.
You can come out with "Tickets,"
still gonna be played on tour,
that's a fucking album from a year ago,
but it's fucking great music.
You're continuing to grow
to be the biggest rock star in the world.
You wanna do that,
then that music has to continue
to be listened to
10 years from now.
Not like, "Oh, we're on to new music."
New people are finding "Hotel Diablo"
because of how much bigger you are.
I have people that have just heard it for
the first fuckin' time, period.
So, what I'm trying to finish my statement
off of what Abs just said,
and I think all of us can win from,
is actually go shoot more,
because you know what,
the list that Nick's
putting over to send to us
is you having to deliver more than ever
because of how big you've gotten.
There's more work
that goes into that success.
It also may mean why you can take a year
off down the road or whatever
because you're flooding
so much great stuff.
So my thought is, what Abs is saying
and everybody is,
Nick, maybe this resolves
some of the stuff
that John and Gary really need Colson
to lean in,
fuckin' hate it, but lean in
and go really hard
with this content, this music,
maybe even more album covers.
- You know, those albums
are kind of like a journal
of the last two years
and a real, uh, beautifully
tragic time capsule
of some of the realities
that were happening.

Give 'em what they want now
- Yeah!
- Fuck that, dude!
[crowd murmuring]
[drum sticks tapping]
hard rock playing
- Whee!
[indistinct chatter]
[crowd chanting "Machine Gun Kelly!"]
- I'm booked out five days from now.
MAN: Yes, sir!
- I'm going number one.
When your album comes out, it's scary.
'Cause as soon as I got there,
it was like all out of my hands.
[indistinct chatter]
Like, I couldn't do any American press.
I couldn't do any stunts.
It's about to be one of the most exciting
weeks of my life.
I just want to start it.
[crowd clamoring, chanting]
[crowd clamoring]
[cheering]
We did everything we could
to fuel the fire.
We just gave it to the fans,
because there was nothing else we could
do at that point.
[crowd chanting "MGK!"]
It's crazy.
[cheering continues]
[laughs] Baze, you're not even--
Bro, where are you going, bro?
[indistinct chatter]
SLIMXX: I mean, I figure we have a shot
or something, since, you know...
Let's not act like this ain't a big deal.
We've been waiting a long time to come
up here-- well, down here.
It's like, you know.
KELLY: Bro, we're almost
at the South Pole.
- Yeah, for real.
- Are we headlining
Lollapalooza or what, dude?
- Yes, it's happening.
- Argentina.
- Get behind it, baby.
- Let's go.
- Ooh.
- Cheers.
- Look, I don't know what
it was like backstage before...
some of those concerts that
changed the projection
of like what music became
for the next ten years.
[fans screaming]
Well, I was a fan
watching those years later,
like... seeing those
performances and going,
"Goddamn, that... that's what I wanna be."
[siren wailing]
It's like before
the gladiator cage opens up,
they're just doing it underneath
the coliseum before the fight starts.
I feel like I'm in that mode.
I'm just like, I'm ready
for that cage to open up.
Get out there, get it on.
[cheering]
I use a razor to take off the edge
- "Jump off the ledge," they said
- Yeah, yeah, yeah
"Take the laser, aim at my head"
"And paint the walls red," I said
Fuck you! I'm crazy, I'm off the meds
- I'm better off dead, they said
- Yeah, yeah, yeah
I use a razor to take off the edge,
jump off the ledge
I'm sellin' tickets to my downfall
I'm sellin' tickets to my downfall
I'm sellin' tickets to my downfall
I'm sellin' tickets to my downfall
KELLY:
So, it's Monday, March 21st.
We are in Paraguay.
The center of South America.
[indistinct chatter]
[crowd cheering]
ROOK: So, yeah, we were down
in South America in Paraguay,
and we had a show that day
with the Foo Fighters.
The Foo Fighters were playing
on the same festival as us.
[man speaking Spanish]
- It would be so sick if the Foo Fighters
came and watched our set.
Dave Grohl texted me,
though, and said he would.
Hey, Brian.
Dave Grohl said he's gonna
come and watch our set.
- Yeah, I'm gonna get that going.
- This is sick.
- They're playing at a multiple
of the same festivals as us,
but that day specifically
they were gonna come
and they were gonna watch us play,
and that to us was like a huge deal.
[women laughing]
WOMAN: Good luck.
- The show's on hold.
Bad weather.
There's nothing we can do...
but wait.
Now get the fuckin' cameras
out of my face.
[laughter]
- That lightning was aggressive.
[indistinct chatter]
- People screamed.
- Like, "Aaah!"
It sounded like a bomb was going off.
KELLY: Right now we're just
waiting for the lightning to pass.
I heard I was waiting for my shirt
and all these nose rings
to walk up so I could just...
aaah... my ass.
So, we're trying to outsmart planet Earth.
- They're just waiting
for us to be cleared.
They haven't called us back yet.
I'll ask Jerry but
they haven't called me back.
KELLY: They were like, fuck yeah,
we're gonna come watch
and we did the sound check
in the morning.
- They just texted an update.
Basically, they're talking
to the onsite meteorologist
to provide a forecast
for the doors to open back up.
- I don't care how small that car is,
the fact that the water's
over the hood is crazy, so crazy.
- Look at that, that's a fuckin'...
- It's pushin' it.
- ...Sprinter van, dog.
- "Due to severe climate changes
"and to preserve the safety
of the audience, artists, and staff,
"in compliance with the government,
authorities are canceling
day one of the fest."
KELLY: And then the show
got canceled because the rain was so bad.
Damn, dude.
- I don't think those vans
can get through that.
- Hell no.
- Damn, look.
- Fuck, man.
- Oh, my God.
- No, seriously.
No, I don't want you to cry.
- No...
- So just think about it
and we can figure it out.
- Thank you so much.
- No, thank you for everything.
- You've been a big help to us.
- Yeah.
- [laughs] Thank you.
- Thank you so much.
Yeah, I have this tattoo,
from the Anaheim Fest of California.
WOMAN 2: Oh, my God.
WOMAN 1: And this other one:
"Hey, you, same time, same place."
I mean, I have a really rough
time these couple months,
and your music helped me.
- Well, you've been with us
for like two days.
I didn't even know.
- I know. I'm going to start crying.
- Paraguay set
got canceled 'cause of rain.
We ordered a huge speaker.
Meet us outside of our hotel
in ten minutes.
We're coming out there and we're
doing the show right here,
right in front.
[chanting "MGK!"]
Should we just mob out there?
- Yeah.
- Fuck it, let's do it.
Can I... can I get one more?
- Okay.
With ice?
KELLY: That's okay, I'll just
do it like this, thank you.
[crowd cheering]
[chanting "MGK!"]
[crowd screaming]
WOMAN: And go.
[thunder rumbles]
- Come here, baby.
Is there a crowd of people still?
[laughter]
- Wait, hold on.
KELLY: No!
That was crazy!
electronic music playing
Dude, the anticipation of
Mainstream Sellout
getting that number one was...
it drove me crazy
because clearly I wouldn't
even just take an hour off.
I was doing something
every second of the day
to make sure that we showed the world
and like showed the fans that this
was all supposed to happen.
- Everybody wanted to know
if you can do it again.
And it's like, it's so hard
for people to just fuckin' believe
that we are what we are
and we're great at what we do.
[phone ringing]
- Dude, I'm so nervous.
I'm so nervous.
I think about the fact that
I put that commitment out of,
"If this album goes number one,
then I'll drop this rap album
at the end of the summer."
And obviously, like,
I got to drop that anyway
just for my own...
peace of mind.
But it just doesn't
work with the narrative
if I drop it not getting the number one,
so it's like you have to...
It's almost like there's no choice now.
It has to... this album
has to go number one.
CASIE: Like, he wants to be the best
and only the best at literally everything.
"If I don't get number one on this album,
I'm going to freak out."
Like, he has to like get the top
and the best of literally everything,
and it's sometimes so annoying
and so damaging.
SLIMXX: I think that him
being away from his daughter
holds a weight on his heart a lot,
because he does want to be there
for her games, and you know,
he wants to be there every day for her.
CASIE:
He's so focused on a number,
and he's so focused on that one thing
that it's like he blocks
everything around him
and he stops caring
about everything around him.
And also like once he stopped doing drugs,
so now he gets addicted to other things
to like supply that feeling.
So like now he's addicted
to like wanting tobacco
or like addicted to working,
like he's always working,
so it's like, when I'm around now
it's like, "Work, work, work, work, work."
- I think that, I don't know...
I think something...
MAN: Okay.
- ...think something crazy's
about to happen.
[indistinct chatter]
SLIMXX: Kells never was
like a numbers guy.
He was never, uh...
"I need to, uh, you know, do this."
He was just like, you know,
"I just want to just make music."
But I think he started seeking
that superstardom approval of,
you know, of who he is,
and I think that really,
really kind of held a toll
or played like a huge part
in him wanting that number one.
- What's happening, XXD?!
[cheering]
Let's do it!
Let's do it! Yeah!
Album! Album tonight. Album tonight.
[cheering continues]
KELLY: And then when the success came
at the level that it came,
I really didn't know what to do.
playing rock music
[cheering]
[indistinct chatter]
- I know, I know.
Yeah, thanks, me too.
[indistinct chatter]
- I'm good with this, right?
- Let's go!
[cheering]
[whooping]
- Let's go!
- Yes, sir!
- Let's go!
[laughter]
- Watch your face.
[glass shatters]
[cork pops]
[cheering]
rock music playing
- drums beating
- Pour it up, let's rock!
- Make sure you sell out
the fuckin' house.
[cheering]
- Yes, sir!
rock music playing
- Put that one up or what?
[music stops]
- It's midnight.
- It's midnight right now.
- Yeah, we had
to stay up and can't wait...
- Mainstream Sellout.
- Mainstream Sellout.
- I really don't know why
someone would hate him.
- Mainstream Sellout.
- He's a true artist.
People gotta shut the fuck up.
No one's taken a full leap like MGK is.
- The new prince of pop punk.
His new album Mainstream Sellout
is available now.
Please welcome Machine Gun Kelly!
Okay
Whoo!
- It's like I used every adrenal gland
I can possibly use in my fuckin' body
to push through this.
I think too like the South America travel
to-- straight to...
Soon as I got off the plane, like
daughter went into spring break.
Also like 8,000 press things too.
So like any spare minute I had,
I was like, okay, I'm in dad mode,
and then any minute
that the label's calling,
I was just like,
"Okay, I'm back to press,"
and I don't know.
I did a 4:30 in the morning
performance on Howard Stern
yesterday or the day before.
I'm just like...
MAN: You're running on fumes.
KELLY: Running on fumes, yeah.
And I'm just looking at
the Hollywood sign over there,
and I remember how I felt and like how
boyish I was when I first came out here.
You're just smiling, right?
Everything's super pure.
And everything is this, like, wow moment.
And then that stuff starts to fade
and then you have to like
go back to the underworld
and try and retrieve any part of yourself
that still exists.
Okay, so right before we got onstage,
there was this whole,
there was this whole thing,
where people were--
I don't know but they were just so
confused when "Tickets" came out.
They were like, "You can't do that."
And so many people with the success of it,
they were like, "that's luck."
And "Mainstream Sellout" was a statement
on behalf of someone trying
to figure themselves out
with the world telling
themselves that they can't.
And this album is to show people,
luck doesn't happen twice.
MAN: It's a wall of famous people?
WOMAN: Yeah.
MAN: Wow. I think the wall's lame,
but I want to be on it,
does that make sense?
[man chuckles]
KELLY: I knew that if we
got that number one,
the fans would be reinvigorated,
like, against all odds,
we made this happen again.
CASIE:
Those couple like last week
we were looking at the album
for Mainstream Sellout,
he wanted to get number one,
but it's like number one's
the loneliest number.
- Slim and Baze and Rook and Dub
and all these people that I will work with
in the studio
kind of showed me that
I was making the mistake
of being such a perfectionist
by being like, "Dude,
we can't even be in the same
fuckin' room with you anymore."
- So it's like once
you're up here, you're like,
and you have no one and you
just push everybody away,
no one wants to be up there with you,
and that's like
the worst thing that you can do.
- Every single day he would talk about,
"Oh, yeah, we need to get
number one, what can we do?"
- It was very damaging for
everybody else around him.
- Anything, anywhere we were at,
we can be at a zoo,
and he'd be like, "Oh, man, like, shit,
what do you think we should
do to get to number one?"
I'm like, "Bro, whatever's gonna
happen is gonna happen, man."
CASIE: Like he was coming home,
always late.
He was always tired.
He had no energy to do anything with me.
He never flew home to like
do anything with me.
Like, he was always work,
work, work, work, work,
like working 24/7, every day.
Like, it was really annoying
for everybody around him,
'cause like he wanted
that number-one album so bad
that it was just stressing everybody out.
- The problem is that
I'm addicted to a new drug,
and it's called work.
And I...
it feels like I've like...
dug a little too deep of a hole in that...
section of my life
and I really need to
get the fuck out of it
and dig more into being what matters most,
which is like a great father.
- Yeah, Casie.
[cheering]
[birds singing]
KELLY:
I ran away what's important to me.
Like, I haven't stopped working once.
I don't sleep.
I came home last night...
and the person that I love...
wasn't here,
'cause I ran her away.
[phone chimes]
Hello?
MAX: Hello. The charts are in.
You have the number-one
album in the country.
You have two number ones in a row.
Here, I'll send you the article right now.
You did it.
Number one.
- Yeah.
It's fuckin' awesome, man.
I wish I didn't...
make everyone feel like this
was more important than...
than they are to me.
tranquil music playing
Yeah, it's been six days
since the last time I saw your face
And you asked my sign, I told you mine
I questioned why and you said,
"Everything's aligned"
On the first date, you told me I was
your twin flame from a past life
And tonight the moon is full, so take me
anywhere outside
I cannot kiss you yet you're magic
So I'll just stare at you instead
I get insecure and panic
'Cause I know you're too pure for this
CASIE:
Megan being there is also like a...
like a good comfort to him,
like, 'cause she also
helps him, like, get through
all of like him being sad
or like him having anxiety.
SLIMXX: I feel like Megan was the light
that he kind of needed in his life,
the light that he's been searching for.
ROOK: More or less like
she gave my brother something,
as in like so much love that like
he has this glow around her,
or even like if they're
just together and just having a good time,
I'm like, man, like...
TRAVIS:
And I feel like Kells has finally
quit the relationship he's in,
and he's always been a great father,
but when it all...
when you connect all the dots
and you have like this amazing life,
where he's like
always with Casie, he's always with Megan,
he made the album
he always wanted to make.
MEGAN: I was at a place
where either it was time to blossom
or it was time to die, really.
A lot of that warmth and me opening up
had a lot of to do with that very tall,
handsome, demonic creature right there.
[shutters clicking]
- It's a beautiful thing that we get to go
and share this with the world.
It's a song from a pure place.
I'm with my brothers, with my wife,
I'm with my best friends.
tranquil music playing
- Yeah.
- That's my little daughter right here.
When you're older, we're gonna be too rich
to ever be in the hood.
TRAVIS: As an artist, you do
struggle when you start touring.
Especially if you're a dad.
I'm a dad, but then like I'm going on tour
and I got to be this other person and...
SLIMXX: Nothing else matters
outside of family.
You can lose everything today
and the only thing
that's gonna be there for you is family.
TRAVIS: He's doing a really good job
of telling her the truth
and, you know, letting her know enough
about the outside world,
but still being protectable.
KELLY:
You remember we were just watching
where the twins did the exact
same thing with each other?
They're like, "No, we're nothing alike,"
and then they like, then they're doing
the exact same thing with each other.
I feel like that was just me and you.
I've experienced so much in my life.
She just has this walk,
it's this pure like bounce.
She's so excited for life,
and I will take any amount
of torture that would come her way
if it can just be on me so that
she can keep that forever.
It's worth living for.
upbeat music playing
- What?
- The most important thing,
and I forget this a lot of times, is...
it's about...
memories that you create with them.
I can't waste any more of those times
'cause now she needs me,
and I need to be able to help her
blossom into the person
she's going to become,
'cause she's... she's the future of...
my legacy.
And she's gonna create her own.
And I want to be her biggest fan.
I want to be her number-one supporter.
I want to be the person
in the crowd for her,
like, cheering for her on the sidelines.
That's the next big thing for me.
That's my next number-one album.

I'm trying my best
not to open up my heart
It's been torn apart too many times
But without you, I'd die
And I don't wanna die
not today, not tomorrow
Not tonight, I don't wanna die
I need you, I need you more than life
More than life, more than life,
more than life
[chuckles]
[indistinct chatter]
She's a pretty little liar
over-analyzer
I fell in love with you
and I don't mind it
But I know, baby this won't go
how we expected
But when I told you that I fuckin'
love you, shit, I meant it
She's doing coke in the bathroom,
when did I ask you?
Stuck in a bad mood,
slipped and I passed you
Fuck, I'm a bad dude,
guess you're attached to me
Yeah, I guess you're attached to me
I'm trying my best
not to open up my heart
It's been torn apart too many times
But without you, I'd die
And I don't wanna die,
not today, not tomorrow, not tonight
I don't wanna die
I need you, I need you more than life
More than life, more than life,
more than life
More than life, more than life,
more than life
More than life...
Ah-ah-ah-ah...
I need you, I need you more than life
I need you, I need you, yeah
I need you, I need you, yeah
I need you, I need you, yeah
I need you, I need you,
I need you right now
I'm trying my best
not to open up my heart
It's been torn apart too many times
But without you, I'd die
And I don't wanna die,
not today, not tomorrow, not tonight
I don't wanna die
I need you, I need you more than life
More than life, more than life,
more than life
Mm-mm
I need you, I need you more than life