Are Independent Musicians More Vulnerable to Mental Health Issues?

Five years ago, a ground-breaking study by the charity, Help Musicians, revealed the astonishing statistic that musicians are three times more likely than average to suffer from mental health issues. The music industry, it seems, is slowly starting to take notice of this, and taking steps to support their artists. Independent musicians, however, do not have the backing, financially or otherwise, of a label or a manager. The last two years, in particular, have been tough for all of us, and working musicians fall into the hardest-hit category of those whose livelihood can depend on revenue from live gigs and events. This, surely, has added more pressure to an already demanding trade.

I talked to six independent artists, chosen at random, concerning the issues above.

Pop singer iLana Armida, based in Los Angeles, always knew she wanted to be a performer.

Ilana: “I fell in love with music and performing when I was a kid. My parents are music lovers but never did it professionally. My parents would play loud music in the house when I was young and I remember being mesmerized by the voices of Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. Later, I became obsessed with pop performers/bands like TLC, Nsync, Spice Girls, Janet Jackson, Aaliyah. My parents would have me stand on tables in restaurants or at parks and sing for everyone and I just fell in love with it. I got into musical theatre in elementary school and have been performing ever since.”

“2020 definitely was a difficult year for me. I thought it was going to be the year of doing shows and I was kind of forced to re-evaluate. I am grateful for that time because I learned a lot about myself, let go of some toxic relationships, made some life changes and really was able to develop
my sound a bit.”

We discuss the Help Musician’s report…

iLana: “I think true artists really feel things on a deeper level. The highs feel really high but the lows feel really low. I definitely suffer from depression and anxiety but it drives me to create. Music and songwriting is my therapy and I hope that my music can be a source of happiness for other people.”

This last statement is echoed by Of Stone & Earth, aka Ian and Alex Atherton, an adventurous folk duo based in Dartmoor, UK.

Ian and Alex: “Mental health has played a significant part in our songwriting too — in fact, we would almost go as far as to say that it was part of the inspiration for starting in the first place, a creative outlet to our feelings.”

Like iLana, Ian and Alex caught the music bug early, though their journey into the professional music world began much later. Ian learned piano as a child, inspired by his grandmother who had been a singer. However, despite considering a career in music, life took a different turn, and music became a side interest for a number of years as his career in academic publishing and design took hold. After many years of talking about it, Ian finally took the plunge to learn piano accordion six years ago, an instrument he had loved since childhood.

Ian and Alex: “Although we had started spending a lot of time working on music with other people in various guises, we felt we wanted to do something on our own, and so our duo Of Stone & Earth was born in the summer of 2019. Both of us have suffered from and been treated for diagnosed depression and anxiety at different stages in our lives. We have always thought that the price you pay for being a ‘creative’ is that you are perhaps more sensitive to everything and everyone in your environment, and so are more prone to having issues with mental health. This doesn’t mean you can only be creative if you’ve suffered from depression, but the heightened sense of empathy you need to understand and express what you feel makes you very vulnerable. We are also aware of other colleagues in both music and art who suffer greatly. Of course, another downside to being vulnerable to mental health issues is that you can become over-sensitive to criticism, or more often over-sensitive to people not saying anything at all about your music, which is almost worse than being criticised…”

Adam Lanceley, a singer-songwriter also based in the UK, also struggles with long-term mental health issues.

Adam: “How I began making music’s a little bit out of the ordinary. My original passion was sport, and like most youngsters, that was where my aspirations for the future lay. A serious car crash changed all that. I had to relearn everything: how to walk, talk and get back to something resembling a normal life. Realising that sport wasn’t an option any more, I was persuaded to try acting, which I’d always had an interest in. I got a place at East 15 Acting School. The method of teaching really didn’t suit me and I couldn’t cope with it for very long. After having left, I was in a part-time job in a bar where one of my colleagues was a professional musician and, after a little bit of encouragement, I started guitar lessons with him.”

Adam also believes that a creative mind leaves you vulnerable.

Adam: “I have a wide range of mental health issues, including depression. My thoughts on why depression is common in the industry are that anyone with an artistic temperament is more likely to be prone to suffering from any form of mental illness. The music industry is one of the most brutal industries too, which is why the study showed this in my opinion.”

US-based art-pop duo, The Ampersands, aka Aaron McQuade and Jim Pace, strike a similar note:

The Ampersands: “Making stuff seems to require a different brain wavelength (for lack of a better term) that may also be one where extreme emotions sit. And it’s probably not just musicians, it seems to be people of all creative stripes.”

Aaron and Jim met in middle school and bonded over a mutual love of baseball. Upon discovering they both played instruments, they began making music together, and have been ever since.

The Ampersands: “We started playing live shows together in high school when Jim put a full band together, but actually didn’t record a full-length album until more than a decade later. We started recording when quality home recording became more readily available, and have done more and more by ourselves with every release.”

“They (mental health issues) affects us both. Aaron’s songs tend to be more auto-biographical, so his own experiences with Bipolar show up there. Looking back on our musical career, back when we were touring regularly, our fear of failure definitely held us back from the kind of self-promotion a band needs to get off the ground.”

For R&B singer sV, a lack of confidence in his voice formed the focus of anxiety and depression. sV is German-born, of German and Ghanaian descent.

sV: “I’m not from a musical family. I was told my father was a Dj at some point in his young adult age but I never got to see that.”

Despite winning singing competitions from a young age, sV pursed a career as an attorney, before a move to New York prompted a return to music.

sV: “After uni I found myself back in New York competing in more music competitions. They didn’t lead to anywhere. I did meet my partner Aaron, he introduced me into the world of (music) production. Starting me off with Apple Logic Pro, teaching me the in and outs of it and then advancing into Pro-tools.

“I guess I always had a feeling that this was what I wanted to do. Aaron and I started a YouTube channel together where we would do covers and original content. We won a global K-Pop competition, but I never liked my voice so I was never really certain I would want to fully do music.”

For sV, as with all the musicians I talked to, their battles with mental health are intrinsically linked to their creative work, which provides an outlet and a comfort, yet paradoxically, also a source of further anxiety.

sV: “I have always suffered from depression and anxiety. I am aware it’s correlates to my music. In my case I’ll say it goes into me hating my voice, the responses I receive from those around about my music and the fact that I wish to quit but I can’t bring myself to. I live with depression, stress and anxiety daily as an artist, as most do. It’s a profession where you need outside support, and making something you are proud of and being rejected can cause these mental breakdowns.”

The final artist I spoke to, Elizabeth Kearney, who records as Elfin Bow, was very clear as to how important her creative outlets are to her mental well-being.

Elizabeth: “Whenever I have been on the cusp of falling prey to poor mental health, it is music and art that have saved me. It is my life. Without it I would shrivel and die. That may sound dramatic, but it is my way of processing the world and contributing to it. It’s my life’s purpose.”

Elizabeth is another musician who started at a young age.

Elizabeth: “I showed an aptitude at four years old when a babysitter noticed me composing tunes of my own, so I started piano lessons early! I went on to also learn the violin for a short time. I wasn’t to keen on following the rules though, and I enjoyed improvisation and composition. I was in several duo’s until finally going out as Elfin Bow. Being in this industry for many years has also taught me resilience and whilst some of my peers have had a rough time, many more have actually been best equipped to deal with the ups and downs of the last two years.”

The musicians I talked to, of course, represent only a tiny sample, but it’s striking to note that, although picked at random, five of the six have suffered or do suffer from mental health challenges. It’s equally interesting that, for these artists, their work and their mental health are connected in highly complex ways. The music business is, undeniably, a hard one. Quite aside from practical issues such as financial stability, it’s an industry in which you must open yourself up to all manner of criticism and disappointment. To balance that out, of course, there’s the joy of bringing something new into the world, and of exploring your passions on a daily basis.

Whilst associations such as Help Musicians must be lauded for the work they are doing, it seems clear that more support is needed, especially for independents. With the shift to online streaming, an area which has come under harsh criticism for the paucity of pay-outs to musicians, and the recent Covid crisis, it could be argued that this is a hard time indeed for indie artists.

Without a thriving independent scene, the music business would be starved of much-needed energy and creativity. Furthermore, without a broad base to support it, the whole machine as we know it could well collapse. In the long term, some may argue that would be a good thing. In the meantime, we need more research and more action to support our independent musicians.