Back in 2020, the world lost legendary heavy metal drummer Reed Mullin, co-founder of Corrosion of Conformity. At the time, he’d been living with a myriad of health issues, including substance abuse. Interestingly, it’s now been revealed that Dave Grohl once tried to help Mullin by paying for the beloved musician to go to rehab.
During an appearance on Suicide Silence guitarist Chris Garza’s podcast, C.O.C. frontman Pepper Keenan shared how it went down. During the conversation, Keenan said whether or not he knew the band’s 10th album No Cross No Crown (2018) would be their last with Mullin behind the kit.
“Well, his health was not well,” Keenan replied, as transcribed by Blabbermouth. “And we tried everything. [We] didn’t know. He just couldn’t get it together, man. And we tried everything. And Dave Grohl offered help — Dave Grohl had helped him with rehab, paid for it out of his own pocket, which was very kind. [I’ll] never forget that. And, yeah, I didn’t know.”
Dave Grohl and Reed Mullin were bandmates in the punk-metal supergroup Teenage Time Killers
Keenan added, “Now, me and [C.O.C. guitarist] Woody [Weatherman] look back at things, and we have nothing but wonderful stories about Reed. ‘Cause when he was at the top of his game, he was a f**king animal on the drums. You couldn’t touch him in terms of creativity and moving that type of music forward. He’s one of the OGs of the crossover s**t back in the day, so he truly had helped invent something.”
Garza went on to inquire if Keenan and the other C.O.C. guys knew just how ill Mullin was. “It’s a hard thing to get a grip on things like that if you’re not in it. It’s hard to say,” Kennan explained. “I do think if he’d had gotten through all this stuff and could’ve cleaned everything up, and sometimes it takes that.”
“And then if he was here right now, I think the band would be tearing s**t up,” Keenan continued. “I think he would come full circle and he would’ve been one of the people not scared to go backwards either, get back into it. But who knows? You can’t go there.”
Following Mullin’s death, Corrosion of Conformity have gone through a handful of drummers. Stanton Moore performed on their most recent album, Good God / Baad Man (April 2026). However, drummer Nick Shabatura is behind the kit as part of their current touring lineup.
Photo by Kevin Nixon/Classic Rock Magazine/Future Publishing via Getty Images
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