The ex-Mars Volta / At The Drive-In frontman explains why he quit smoking weed.

The Mars Volta always seemed like a band fueled by drugs, whether marijuana or hallucinogens, and certainly best enjoyed on them. Unsurprisingly, frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala was an avid stoner — a lifestyle he recounts in a piece for Vulture’s Stoner Week.

“I was a total monster. I was spending $1,000 a week on weed, and everyone I was in the band with at the time smoked as much as I did,” he explains. “I’ve come to realize that at the end of the day, it’s only you yourself that creativity comes from. It doesn’t come from weed.”

Bixler-Zavala is no anti-pot zealot, though. “If people want to do it, that’s totally fine. Everyone has their own personal journey, but I wore out my welcome with it. For me, with my personality, I needed to do something different.”