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UK Music Minds Matter Launches Music Mental Health Helpline

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New dedicated helpline will provide support to music industry professionals in need
Renée Fabian
GRAMMYs
Dec 6, 2017 - 11:49 am

Music industry professionals in the U.K. now have a dedicated helpline for those struggling with their mental health.

MusiCares Sober Jam: A Safe Place For Musicians

The hotline, which is the brainchild of Help Musicians UK's Music Minds Matter campaign, will offer support to artists and management, tour crew and record label personnel who are in need of mental health support.

For musicians such as Nothing But Thieves guitarist Joe Langridge-Brown, the service will be much needed to combat the invisible nature of mental illness.

"If I'm being totally honest, at one point it looked like it was going to break up the band because we weren't coping mentally with what was going on around us," Langridge-Brown told BBC. "It's an invisible problem to a lot of people, so the more people can raise awareness and tell people it's OK to talk about it, the better really."

Music industry professionals needing help in the U.K. can call 0808 802 8008 free of charge, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Study Shows 70 Percent of Musicians Struggled With Anxiety Or Depression

Shirley Manson

Shirley Manson

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Shirley Manson, James Blake Open Up About Mental Health

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The two singer/songwriters spoke candidly about their struggle with mental illness this week
Renée Fabian
GRAMMYs
Jul 3, 2018 - 3:31 pm

Part of the raising awareness about mental health in the music community is talking about it. As difficult as this can be, when we talk about our own struggles with mental illness, we open the door for others to speak up and reach out for help. This week, Garbage's lead singer Shirley Manson and British singer/songwriter James Blake did just this.

Manson penned an article for The New York Times on her history with self-injury, which became her coping method as a teenager to deal with overwhelming circumstances. The need to self-injure stopped when she found herself in a loving relationship later on, but the urges returned during what Manson describes as the "immense physical and mental pressure" of touring the reissued version of Garbage's 1998 album, Version 2.0.

Separately during the a panel titled "You Got This: Managing the Suicide Crisis in the Arts Population" at the Performing Arts Medicine Association's annual symposium on July 1, Blake echoed a similar sentiment when he recounted his own mental health struggles due to the rigors of touring.

"Your connection to other people becomes surface level," Blake said of being on tour, which led to depression and "eventual suicidal thoughts." "If you were only in town for one day and someone asked you how you are, you go into the good stuff … which generally doesn't involve how anxious you feel [or] how depressed you feel."

Blake also expressed frustration about the myth that creativity must include some kind of suffering. In fact, Blake says the opposite is true in his experience.

"There is this myth that you have to be anxious to be creative, that you have to be depressed to be a genius," Blake said. "I can truly say that anxiety has never helped me create. And I've watched it destroy my friends' creative process, too."

Blake sought mental health treatment and found a healthy support system in his partner. As a result, he's learned to say no to constant touring, which has benefited his health and wellness. Manson, meanwhile, has been able to keep her health goals top of mind and take a stand against mental illness.  

"I vow to hold my ground. I choose to speak up. I attempt to be kind, not only to myself but also to other people," Manson wrote. "I surround myself with those who treat me well. I strive to be creative and determine to do things that make me happy. I believe it is not what we look like that is important, but who we are."

And as for why it's important for artists to speak out on difficult topics like mental health, Blake identifies that this generation of artists — and all of us — have a responsibility to reduce the stigma of seeking support for our mental health to reduce the number of people who suffer in silence.

"We are the generation that's watched several other generations of musicians turn to drugs and turn to excess and coping mechanisms that have destroyed them," Blake said during the panel. "There are so many high-profile people recently who have taken their own lives. So we have a responsibility to talk about it and remove the stigma."

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Logic

Logic

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Inside Logic's "1-800-273-8255" Suicide Prevention Song | Mental Health Awareness Month

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The GRAMMY-nominated rapper shares why he overcame his fear about making music on difficult topics
Renée Fabian
GRAMMYs
May 18, 2018 - 4:42 pm

It's been a big year for rapper Logic, and perhaps surprisingly, a lot of that comes down to his willingness to tackle the difficult subjects of mental health and suicide head on.

Logic's Suicide Prevention With "1-800-273-8255"

One of the singles off his 2017 album Everybody, "1-800-273-8255," leapt onto the music scene and brought the Maryland native to a whole new audience. Not just any phone number, 1-800-273-8255 happens to be the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which offers services to those experiencing a mental health crisis, including suicidality.

The song, which also features Alessia Cara and Khalid, poignantly captures a dialog between a suicidal hotline caller, the counselor on the other end of the phone and the resulting journey from feeling hopeless and alone to finding a little hope.

Though suicide is the leading cause of death among 15–24 year olds, and it claims more than 38,000 lives each year, few artists tackle the subject head on in the way Logic did. He revealed during a visit to the Recording Academy's Santa Monica, Calif., headquarters that he was inspired to write the song after he went on a tour around the country to meet his fans. Many told them his music had saved their lives.

This got him thinking about not only the power of music to heal, but also how, as a society, we often don't talk openly about mental health. Though he said it was hard to talk about topics such as suicide and anxiety, which is featured on another track on Everybody, "Anziety," he knew it was vitally important.

"I was so scared for so long to say that because society has lead me to believe that my anxiety is stupid and shouldn't be talked about, or that suicide, 'Who cares, who's weak enough to kill themselves?' Which is the most terrible, disgusting, ugly thing somebody can say," Logic said. "That's why I decided to write about these topics because I was scared to write about them. And since I was scared, I was like, 'Well damn, it must mean it's good.'"

And it was good. "1-800-273-8255" earned Logic his first two career GRAMMY nominations at the 60th GRAMMY Awards for Song Of The Year and Best Music Video. Logic, Cara and Khalid also gave a stunning performance during the 60th GRAMMYs telecast alongside real suicide attempt survivors, which had an even more profound impact: The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline received triple their normal volume of calls following the performance.

For Logic, opening a dialog was also personally important because he has faced his own challenges with mental health.

"I wrote these things from a selfless place in my heart because there's so many people out there struggling, and I was struggling," Logic shared. "My highest grossing year was my most unhappy year of my life because I was working myself to death."

Nowadays, Logic has been working to find a way to balance a high-pressure career with the things that matter in life. The advice that works best for him?

"Balance yourself," he says. "That's what you have to do, and that's what these songs are about."

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Pouya

Pouya

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Rapper Pouya On His Experience With Anxiety | Mental Health Awareness Month

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The Miami-based artist candidly talks about how living with anxiety has impacted his life
Renée Fabian
GRAMMYs
May 10, 2018 - 5:05 pm

The career of a rapper is rife with high-stress situations, from the pressure to perform in the studio and onstage for fans, in addition to the late nights, early mornings and time on the road. For Miami-based rapper Pouya, living with anxiety has proved to make his career choice a little more complicated.

Rapper Pouya Talks Living With Anxiety

The Recording Academy caught up with Pouya, who sat down with host/songwriter Charlie Travers in his hometown Miami and opened up about how his life has been impacted by anxiety, which started when he was still a teenager.

"One day in school I was not feeling good, so I went home and then the next day I was starting to feel these feelings that I didn't enjoy," says Pouya. "I started to get a racing heart, sweaty palms, this and that, my mind started racing too fast, I started thinking I was going to die, started having panic attacks. I didn't know what this was for almost six, seven months until I went to therapy. … They're like, 'Oh, you have anxiety, you have an anxiety disorder.'"

Pouya certainly isn't alone. A 2016 Help Musicians UK study found that an astounding 71 percent of the musicians they surveyed experienced panic attacks or high levels of anxiety. And artists from Adele to Miley Cyrus, LeAnn Rimes and Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz have all revealed a struggle with anxiety.

At the time he was diagnosed, Pouya didn't know what anxiety was. He only knew that it something was keeping him from his favorite activities such as skateboarding — he later picked it back up when he realized the exercise helps calm the anxiety. Though Pouya still feels nervous at times — before performing, for example — he's learned to cope better in social situations.

"It's still something that I deal with to this day, but I've learned to cope with it a little bit better," Pouya says. "Sometimes I have really bad weeks, really bad months and sometimes I have really good months."

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Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato

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Demi Lovato Brings Mental Health Front And Center During Tour

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The GRAMMY nominee is raising awareness for mental health while on tour through her CAST on Tour program, which kicked off Feb. 26 in San Diego
Renée Fabian
GRAMMYs
Feb 27, 2018 - 2:24 pm

As she embarks on her Tell Me You Love Me tour in support of her 2017 album of the same name, Demi Lovato isn't just sharing her inspirational music with fans around the world, she's making a difference by raising awareness for mental health.

For the second consecutive tour, the GRAMMY nominee is again bringing along CAST on Tour, an initiative of the mental health advocacy organization CAST Foundation. She previously teamed with the recovery center during last year's co-headlining Future Now tour with Nick Jonas.

The pre-show sessions will allow Lovato and Mike Bayer, founder/CEO of CAST Centers and chairman of the CAST Foundation, to discuss mental health awareness while giving space to attendees to share their own personal experiences with mental illness.

The initiative kicked off Feb. 26 in San Diego, where Lovato invited student survivors of the recent school shooting in Parkland, Fla., to attend the session. Lovato also brought the students — Julius Castillo, Mackenzie Marie Chapman, Samantha Megan Deitsch, Maia Hebron, Eden Hebron, and Sarah Stricker — onstage during her performance later in the evening, in addition to inviting the audience to donate toward mental health resources for the students impacted by the school shooting through a CAST Foundation text donation.

CAST on Tour will follow Lovato for 20 tour dates, including stops Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Philadelphia, among others, concluding on March 31 in Tampa, Fla. Lovato's world tour, with special guests DJ Khaled and Kehlani, will continue around the globe through June 27.

"Bringing CAST on Tour was very important to me because I want to be able to reach and inspire my fans. Tonight was our first night of the tour and it was incredibly special," Lovato said in a statement. "I was able to bring out and meet a few of the students that had to experience the shooting in Florida on the 14th. It was such an honor to meet them and hear their courageous stories. I want to make sure their voices are being heard and we can provide them with the mental health and post-trauma care they need."

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