How Cage the Elephant’s Frontman Nearly Lost It All

In the spring of 2020 as the pandemic cut a terrifying path across the globe, touring bands packed up and went home, unsure how they’d survive. At the same time, Matt Shultz, the frontman of Cage the Elephant — the rare arena-scale rock act to emerge within the past two decades — was facing a different crisis in his own head.

After releasing five hard-edged yet hook-filled albums with Cage the Elephant since 2008, Shultz, a frontman known for stripping down to underwear and fishnet tights and walking the length of venues atop his audience’s outstretched hands, was not himself.

Suffering an extreme reaction to medication he was prescribed to treat A.D.H.D., he fell into psychosis. Consumed by paranoia and convinced he was being hounded by malicious actors who would routinely break into his home, the singer began carting around his belongings — photographs, journals, books and more — in bulky suitcases.

His brother, Brad Shultz, who plays guitar in the band, recalled their mother describing Matt’s ever-present haul as “a physical representation of his emotional baggage.”

Matt’s struggles came to a dramatic and very public head in January 2023, when he was arrested on weapons charges at the Bowery Hotel in Manhattan after police found two loaded handguns in his room. He has since regained his grip on reality through extensive treatment — and avoided jail time thanks to a plea deal — but his season in hell is immortalized on “Neon Pill,” the band’s sixth studio album, which it will support with a North American tour of arenas and amphitheaters starting this week.

“I lost control of the wheel,” Matt, 40, sings on the deceptively breezy-sounding title track in his hoarse croon. “Double-crossed by a neon pill.”