In a new, deeply personal interview, Possessed frontman and death metal pioneer Jeff Becerra has reflected on the “hardcore trauma” and “five dark years” of addiction that followed the 1989 armed robbery that left him paralyzed. His harrowing story is a powerful testament to survival, culminating in his return to music and a defiant life philosophy: “get busy living or get busy dying.”
Speaking with Australia’s Sense Music Media, Becerra recounted the devastating aftermath of the shooting, which saw his life and relationships immediately crumble.
“Immediately I lost all my friends. I lost my girlfriend. Nobody [stuck] around, ’cause, to be quite frank, I was f**king miserable,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “I call it the five dark years… I dove deep into dr*gs and alcohol for those five years, essentially trying to commit s**cide via intoxicants.”
When that dark path failed—”it’s pretty f**king hard to die, actually”—he found an unlikely path to salvation. “I rolled down to the local community college,” he explained, a decision that ultimately led him to social services and a “47-day rehab, and then the rest is history. From that day on, every day has been a blessing.”
That journey of recovery has forged an ironclad resilience and a powerful perspective on life in a wheelchair. “People don’t realize people in chairs are 10 times tougher than the natural man. And I’m not joking ’cause I’ve been both,” he stated. “Every day is a struggle, and it makes you tough. But the secret is to get tough enough to enjoy life without letting it jade you or make you unhappy or bitter… You’ve gotta get busy living or get busy dying.”
Becerra‘s incredible story of survival began on a night in 1989 when he was confronted by two masked gunmen after work. “I kind of resisted; I should have just given them the money, but I was f**ked, I was cornered,” he recounted in a previous interview. “We scuffled, there was no way out of it and I ended up getting shot a couple of times. The first guy pushed a 9-millimeter to my chest… it broke through the ribs and shattered the lungs and stuck on in the spine.”
After being shot a second time, he played dead while one of the assailants’ guns jammed. He then hid under a car for 45 minutes before paying a passerby a “bloody ten-dollar bill” to call for an ambulance.
His long road back from that night eventually led to the triumphant reformation of Possessed in 2007. The band, whose 1985 debut Seven Churches is widely considered the first-ever death metal album, released their acclaimed comeback album, Revelations Of Oblivion, in 2019.
