Hart battles back from addiction to "Leave the Light On'

By: ALAN SCULLEY - For the North County Times | Wednesday, December 24, 2003 7:24 AM PST ∞

Beth Hart admits that when she began working on her new CD, "Leave the Light On," confidence was hardly the word to describe her feelings toward the project.

"I didn't know really what I had to offer," said Hart, who performs Dec. 27 night at the Pala Casino. "I knew that I felt like I had something to say, but I didn't know if it was going to be bad or good."

That might seem odd for an artist whose previous release, the '99 CD "Screamin' for My Supper," had produced a top-five adult contemporary hit, "L.A. Song," and gave Hart a notable taste of success.

But for Hart, success only brought out the worst aspects of her personality and sent her on a downward spiral of addictions that, for a time, threatened to derail her career. The songs on "Leave the Light On" reflect the struggles in Hart's life over the past several years.

"Bottle of Jesus" and "Monkey Back," for instance, hint at a scarred life driven by bouts with alcohol and drugs. "Lifetime" and "Broken & Ugly," meanwhile, offer a glimpse into the darkness, turmoil and vulnerability that surrounded Hart.

The lyrics possess plenty of raw emotion and immediacy, yet they don't really capture the depths Hart said she reached before she began to turn her life around. She said she now realizes she has always had inner voices tearing at her self-image.

"It's like having a double-identity, having two people in one body and one hates the other. And it's trying to kill the other," she said. "It's just total self-destruction. And I've seen it since I was a kid."

Music, Hart said, helped her find her way as she grew up. She started playing piano at age 4, attended Los Angeles High School for the Performing Arts on a vocal/cello scholarship, and as a teen was a winner on the television program "Star Search."

"Music really did save me as a kid in straightening me out," she said. "It became such a beautiful outlet, and it was my direction of what I wanted to do, and I loved it and I felt a lot of a sense of accomplishment in doing it. It filled a lot of those holes in me."

Ironically, when "L.A. Song" climbed the charts, Hart's success brought out those inner voices ---- the ones that told her she was worthless and that she'd be better off dead ---- more forcefully than ever.

With success, Hart said she dreaded that the confident and sassy personality she had projected outwardly would give way to the fragile and ugly feelings she wanted to hide, and fans would reject her because of those traits. Hart found a way to silence her fears by numbing herself with alcohol and Klonopin, an anti-anxiety pill.

The problem was, Hart couldn't control her habit, and she went through three different stints in rehab before she hit bottom. One night in 2000, when she had mixed alcohol and Klonopin, she was arrested for driving under the influence. She spent the night in jail.

"When I went into the jail, no one came and brought me my pills and said, "Oh, here you go. You're just sick,'" Hart said. "They didn't give a s--- about me, and that was the best medicine I received because it was like. wow, you know what kid? You've got this thing called alcoholism, but there are a lot of people out there in the world that do (as well), and they're doing something about it."

Kicking her addictions was a tough battle ---- and one Hart said she couldn't have won without the support of her husband, Scott Guetzkow, who stood by her even at her worst extremes.

"They say that happens when you get off of Klonopin," Hart said. "When I say I was crazy, I was truly like crazy. Like I couldn't go from one room to the next room without thinking people were coming out of the walls. It was just like my mind wasn't working right. And he (Guetzkow) was there. He was there hand and foot."

Slowly, though, Hart found her bearings, and the desire to make music returned, allowing her to begin what became a two-year process of writing and recording "Leave the Light On."

The songs that eventually made up "Leave the Light On" CD are not only compelling on a lyrical level, but are also entertaining and diverse musically, as Hart shifts between the rough-and-tumble rock of "Broken & Ugly" to the pretty balladry of the title song, to the gospel-tinged rock of "If God Only Knew."

And while Hart admits it wasn't always easy to put her experiences of the past four years into her songs ---- and in fact she still faces a day-to-day battle with her demons ---- she is proud of the music she made and the honesty in her songs.

"In getting to make this record, I think there was a willingness to face those fears more than ever," Hart said. "So in one way it was hard for me to muster up that courage, but at the same time, a total release of being able to see it's not that bad after all and facing my fears. They're not killing me. If anything, I'm starting to live for the first time."

Beth Hart

When: 8 p.m. Dec. 27

Where: The Grand Cabaret, Pala Casino Resort & Spa, 11154 Highway 76, Pala

Tickets: $10

Info: (619) 220-8497