Elton John on Kids and Drugs, Reveals his "Monstrous Side"

Elton John is possibly the busiest person in music right now. He’s recorded a brand new album, and made his first festival appearance in decades at the only festival worthy of his penchant for fancy dress: Bestival. And in-between all of that, he adopted a second child. Want more? Well he nearly died, so there’s that.

Elton John shouting his head off at Bestival.

"I did nine shows, 24 flights and played the White Tie and Tiara Ball [the annual fundraiser for his Elton John Aids Foundation] with Coldplay with a burst appendix. I was so lucky, because usually if it bursts, it causes peritonitis. If that happens, you have to be in hospital within an hour, otherwise you're brown bread,” explained Elton to The Guardian.

Check out our photos from the last day of Bestival.

What followed was extreme pain, hallucinations from the various medication he was on to battle both pain and symptoms and a realisation that he was working too hard for a man of his age. "It was a sign. I'm addicted to working. I mean, I have a list of 100 countries I want to play in. I'm basically killing myself by travelling so much, for no reason whatsoever.”

His second child, Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, was born to the same surrogate mother as his two-year-old brother, Zachary. And with all this self-realisation and experience comes a philosophical approach to fatherhood. "I always thought I might be really irritable with kids, but no way. Both my parents had tempers and it frightened the shit out of me. I don't ever want to display that in front of the children,” he explained.

John has been a busy man for the last year.

“In the past, particularly when I was on drugs, there was a monstrous side to me, but I'm not really like that. I can be like that briefly, but everyone can. People say: 'Look, he's a fucking monster.' Hang around anybody in f***ing showbiz, baby, and you'll see! We all have our sides like that."

And we can expect to see more from John, as he intends to record another album with producer T-Bone Burnett, who worked on The Diving Board.