According to Zac Carper, there are two ways to kill a band: success and heroin.

The lead singer and guitarist of FIDLAR ("Fuck It Dog, Life's a Risk") has experienced both. In 2011, the punk band crashed Los Angeles's then-hazy dream-indie-rock scene like an alarm clock with the raucous DIYDUI. Rounded out by Elvis Kuehn, Max Kuehn, and Brandon Schwartzel, the band's tight four-song EP opened with the Carper-penned and screamed lines, "Wake! Bake! Skate! I do a bunch of drugs, I'm a fiend and an addict / I'm all methed up, watching television static."

FIDLAR's shows were popular with both pissed-off misfits and the police, who regularly shut them down when the kids in the pit switched from moshing to simply punching each other. At the top of 2013, they released their self-titled debut and started landing on late-night television shows, touring with big names like the Black Lips and even appearing on the Coachella lineup.

Then Carper derailed into serious drug addiction. After his pregnant girlfriend overdosed on heroin in the spring of 2013, he got clean. The band stuck it out, and their sophomore album, 2015's Too, proved Carper didn't need to party to perform.

Now the guys are back in the studio doing what they've always done best: winging it and making fun-as-hell music. But that doesn't mean they're fucking around again. "We're not shootin' speed and shit like that anymore. We've kinda taken this serious, rather than 'Oh, it doesn't fuckin' matter,'" Carper says.

If not completely sober today, Carper is off hard drugs and healthy—and not sure he could pull his old stunts even if he wanted to. "You get older. Fuck. I'm 30. It hurts when I go on a walk now. I fucking feel it the next day!" he continues, cheerfully. "It's just the way it is. I think hip-hop has taken over that realm now."

In November, Carper took a break from his studio in L.A. to talk about being mistaken for slackers, why being uncomfortable is necessary, and having no clue what comes next.

GQ: What does the new music sound like?

Zac Carper: I don't know anything about the record. I know the songs are fun. We didn't even know what our second album would be like until we heard it. We don't have a fuckin' plan. We just let things happen. We're not trying to write a record about something. Let it grow the way it grows. The more you force something to happen, the more…you gotta let shit roll on.

You’d just quit drugs with the second record, Too. So this next project is past all that, right?

Could be. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow I start smoking meth again. Who fuckin' knows? That's the great thing about life. The second record was a sober record. I was just writing about what was going on. First record, I was doing a lot of drugs. Second record, I wanted to try to write a record without doing drugs, which is really fuckin' hard. So it's just yin and yang, man.

What are you working on right now?

Bunch of new toys. Every day, I come in and learn how to use something. It's weird because I don't know what my role in FIDLAR is. I write most of the songs, and I don't really know how to play guitar really well, but I know chords and songwriting a little bit. But the past couple years I've just discovered technology and music go hand in hand. So many new, weird sounds and drum machines and vibes and whatever—I've been on this whole trip of writing songs without acting like you're in a band. I'm writing songs about shit going on.