Cat Power Considered Suicide This Summer
Friday September 22, 2006 @ 05:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Cat Power

Cat Power's alcoholism led her to thinking about killing herself and caused the last-minute cancellation of a number of shows in July, she revealed to the New York Times.

At the time, it was said that the cancellations were a result of "health reasons." But the singer/songwriter, whose real name is Chan Marshall, said that there were more ominous things going on behind the scenes.

"I was looking at death. I wanted to die... I asked God, I said, 'I'm tired, I can't do this.' I was asking him to just take me."

Marshall received psychiatric treatment for her condition.

Marshall has a reputation for staging concerts that can veer wildly off course due to her intoxication. She claimed that non-stop touring in 1998 led her into chronic substance abuse, which continued for years.

"Even playing all my shows, I was always intoxicated, always kind of not there, which led to the depression… It was more about the uncomfortableness with just being in my own skin, and that's why the alcohol was always with me."

Marshall is now apparently clean and sober and delivering more consistent performances. She's already completed the follow-up to this year's Canadian campus radio chart-topping The Greatest, tentatively titled Sun. She's also planning to release a sequel to 2000's The Covers Record, which will include songs by James Brown and Billie Holiday.