men early August, yard law They were at Stansted airport, waiting for a flight to Sicily, when singer James Smith crashed into a wall. “I felt like I was in a cattle barn,” he says. “I was banging my head on the table saying, ‘I can’t do this anymore.'”
Since the Leeds post-punk band released their debut album, overloadBack in January, his touring schedule had been relentless. Critical acclaim and a Mercury nomination had only added to the pressure: bigger bookings kept coming in and the band was determined to play them all. “That weekend we were playing castle with The Flaming Lips,” says Smith. “It was a dream come true. You feel ungrateful saying you can’t do it.”
His band and crew admitted they all felt the same way. After consulting with their management and label, they made the difficult decision to cancel a series of shows in Europe. “Down time at home is what our bodies and brains need right now,” the band said in a statement.
Yard Act are not alone in their sudden sag and their openness about why. Several high-profile acts have recently canceled their tour dates, indicating the need to attend to their mental health, from wet leg a Divulgation, Justin Bieber, shawn mendesGang of Youth and Russ.
This week, Arlo Parks became the last cancel a series of US shows and explaining how the relentless grind of the past 18 months had left her “exhausted and dangerously depressed.” Her decision followed Sam Fender announcement that he was canceling their US tour support slots. with Florence + the Machine due to burnout: “It seems completely hypocritical of me to advocate for the mental health debate and write songs about it if I don’t take time off to take care of my own mental health.”
There are two factors at play here: a growing willingness among musicians to speak out about mental health issues and the demands of their profession, and an industry desperate to come back to life after a devastating pandemic, with accelerated touring and promotional schedules for do for perceived lost time.
Combine this with the pitiful income from streaming, and the rising cost of living, and the pressure to work harder and chase success mounts even more. “Those opportunities are rare,” says Smith, of the never-ending drive of touring. “No one owes you those slots, and you can tell them no, but if you lose traction and then those opportunities don’t come back, that’s up to you.”
music mind matters (MMM), the music industry’s mental health service run in conjunction with Help Musicians, has noted a marked increase in uptake. “After an extended period of relative inactivity, there have been a large number of people coming to us about stress, anxiety and performance-related anxiety,” says Joe Hastings of Help Musicians. MMM can direct those in need to a variety of services, including a 24/7 hotline, counseling, online resources, and peer support sessions.
While the mounting pressure on artists is concerning, Hastings says there’s some comfort in the fact that people are reaching out for help (some record labels also offer free therapy to their artists) and discussing their problems. “The way artists articulate their experiences was not as common five years ago,” she says.
Social media has helped here. During the summer, arooj aftab spoke on Twitter about mounting touring tensions: price hikes for flights, fuel, visas, taxes and hotels, promoters’ fear of raising ticket prices, audience reluctance to attend shows after Covid and in a cost of living crisis. She had returned from her recent tour with headline slots and sold-out shows to find herself still tens of thousands in debt. “And they tell me it’s normal,” she wrote. “Why is this normal? This should not be normalized.”
singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins posted about the promoter who threatened to cut his fee a week before his show because he only planned to play with two musicians, not the larger ensemble he sometimes plays with. The promoter said that only the biggest band guaranteed the full price. She was forced to find local musicians who could improvise in order to complete the lineup and receive the promised fee. “It made me question my relationship with self-esteem,” she says. “Although I am reminded all the time that they are also losing money: the promoters, the festivals, the venues.”
It came after a brutal tour in which Jenkins needed to defend herself every day just to maintain some sense of well-being. At one point, realizing that she hadn’t taken a day off for two months, and with two more months of touring ahead of her, she canceled two shows. “Every day I asked myself: Am I burning? Is this what exhaustion feels like? When you ask that question, you have already passed that point.”
Jenkins compares musicians speaking out on this topic to the recent number of athletes speaking out about their own vulnerabilities. “It’s really good to talk about this,” she says. “But it’s also very difficult to talk about that, because it’s very difficult for people to think about their favorite artists struggling to do what they do.”
Music journalist Ian Winwood is the author of bodies, a book that offers a fascinating and damning insight into the unhealthy demands and excesses of the music industry. While he “does seem willing to have a conversation about mental health,” he says, “the litmus test is whether he’s willing to challenge the notion that ‘the show must go on’.”
Winwood recalls interviewing a drug-addled Layne Staley from Alice in Chains, clearly in no condition to face the media, and hearing Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil recount the moment when he “collapsed at the Toronto airport, put on a stretcher, with wires coming out of it,” but he continued to play two Coachella shows “because he had trained himself to believe that the band’s career was built on two shows.”
Of course, many musicians are a long way from playing Coachella, and it’s hard to believe that, for them, canceling shows for the benefit of their mental health would be received as warmly as it is for Parks and Fender, or that they would be safe. networks and support networks to do so.
But these high-profile events’ open discussion of industry challenges could cause a trickle-down effect. MMM’s Hastings notes that it’s “important to allow artists to make tough decisions based on having a good understanding of what they need to take care of themselves and have a happy and healthy career.” Bigger artists speaking out about the mental health demands of touring can also educate promoters, venues, labels, managers, and the public, leading to greater empathy for anyone struggling on any level.
At any stage in your career, that understanding shouldn’t be too difficult, says Jenkins. When she canceled her dates in Spain, she was heartbroken by Spanish fans who posted crying emojis below her announcement on her Instagram. She responded to each one. “And I got a lot of love back,” she says. “At the end of the day, people just want to show you that they care. They see that you are vulnerable.”
She hopes that a similar understanding of the vulnerability of musicians can be extended to those involved in touring infrastructure. She talks about the huge effect she had on a Swiss host who simply cooked her a hot meal and chatted while they ate together. And of the End of the Road festival as “the best festival I’ve ever played, because it’s so well organized that it allowed everyone to have a lightness”. These were “beautiful, intimate experiences and examples of how real-time care resulted in better performance.”
In every cancellation statement and every interview for this piece, the musicians were quick to mention their gratitude for having a music career, touring the world, playing shows and meeting their audiences. “I cannot express how grateful we are to have such an incredible fan base,” Fender wrote. “Thank you for always being by our side.” Parks spoke of how grateful she is “to be where I am today” and promised, “I will do everything I can to make it up to you.”
There is a fear among musicians, says Winwood, that if they ever complain, the public with “proper jobs” outside the music industry will think they are ungrateful. But, he says, one thing is worth remembering: “If an artist has gotten to a point where people know his name, he’s already tough, he’s already resilient. So if they tell you they’re broken, believe them.”
In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the Lifeline crisis support service is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org
