Does creating music help a musician’s mental health or can it push them over the edge? Musicians and music therapists give their verdict.

By Stanley Gula | @stanleygula . Image by Stanley Gula

Music plays a crucial part in your life, from helping babies develop healthy bonds with their parents to offering vital, sensitive care at the end of life. Whatever you’re feeling, music is always there, but what about the artist themselves? There seems to be a common recurrence, over decades we’ve seen musicians suffer from mental health issues and often even tragically take their own lives. The song you play to comfort yourself when you feel depressed, may in fact be killing the artist. From Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain to more recently Kanye West we see these artists as geniuses, writing lyrics so personal and relatable it was as if the song was written about us. But does this brutal honesty lead to suffering for the artist?
I spoke to Matt Elliot to get his perspective on the pandemic of mental health hitting the music industry. Matt began his career in the 90s working with a lot of underground groups, before going solo and gaining 4 million listens on YouTube for his album ‘Drinking Songs’, a selection of songs written about depression.

“it’s sad that no so many people get the opportunity to just open their lungs and howl”

Matt Elliot

“My first intention was to write music for people to understand that they are not alone as well as express myself as honestly as possible,” Matt explains. “This has always been the kind of music that has touched me, those rare songs that you find when you’re down and they kind of put a hand on your shoulder and say ‘I know’. This process generally has a positive impact on Matt’s mental health. “I do find that cathartic. It’s also incredibly cathartic to yell at the top of your voice on stage, there’s no feeling like it. It’s sad that not so many people get the opportunity to just open their lungs and howl.” With millions of listens on Spotify and YouTube, Matt’s lyrics and music must have resonated with a lot of people. “This has been both inspiring and worrying. A lot people said that the album had helped them, which was nice and touching – but as time went on more comments came from people with severe problems and at some points I wonder whether my music is a force for good or can perhaps push someone over the edge, especially if it’s removed from the context in which I wrote it.” 

Matt’s honesty about his suffering clearly speaks to a lot of people, but how does he feel about the dangerous yet common idea that you have to be mentally ill to create good music? 

“Well for me good music is any music that contains genuine emotion,” he reflects. “Suffering can inspire great art but I’d say it’s perhaps not necessary. I do think that one needs something to express, but one doesn’t have to be suffering.”  Matt was diagnosed as a clinical depressive at 19. For him, music creation is, “a great therapy, and in fact it goes hand in hand with my depressive illness. Without my depressive illness, I no doubt wouldn’t be doing what I do.” However, Matt is acutely aware of some of the negatives about working as a professional musician. “The worst thing about music and mental health is of course the lack of security, wondering if it will all end suddenly. Life on the road can be brutal but it’s still the greatest job in the world.”

Matt who is just about to go on another tour explains how the industry and the touring lifestyle is the main catalyst in mental health struggles for a musician ‘it can be hard for example to find gigs’ he pursed, ‘post covid promoters won’t take risks, they can’t lose money or even break even and so that can be brutal too and so when you see your art reduced to numbers and stats, that is brutal.’ Touring now for musicians is how they make their money due to the rise of streaming, leading to extensive and drainingly long tours, Matt explained the impacts this has on his life. “It can be hard, maintaining relationships can also be hard, you kind of live in a separate reality, which personally I enjoy, but I can imagine for a lot of people it can be difficult.’ He also spoke about how the relationship between himself and the fans can be challenging. “I’m blessed with YouTube comments almost exclusively being positive but sometimes people can be so harsh and brutal that it really hurts.” 

There seems to be this misconception that mental pain and torment leads to great art. Take Daniel Johnston for example, described as a genius by fans all over the world, but Johnston’s friend Gretchen Phillips told music historian Irwin Chusid in an interview that “I wonder if people go see him hoping to witness a nervous breakdown.” Almost as if the audience get pleasure from seeing a musician suffer for their own sense of comfort. Creating music can have a negative effect on your mental wellbeing/ but isn’t the only reason musicians are suffering. A 2019 study done by the Record Union revealed that 73% of independent musicians experience anxiety and depression related to their work and that these were the most commonly experienced negative emotions in relation to music creation. So it seems that there are other aspects of being a musician that cause mental health issues, but what are they?  

Firstly, the musician’s lifestyle has a lack of structure. Most of us in our normal lives have a certain time we need to go to work knowing you’ll get paid, a certain time we wake up and go to sleep, a musician doesn’t have this. The responsibility is on you to find gigs, leading to financial uncertainty and no set working pattern. Secondly, being a musician there is tons of competition. With musicians constantly trying to break into the business, it can be hard for musicians to even be given work as music companies, and gig venues will be getting thousands of artists contacting them for work. This can be tiring for artists. Another quite obvious cause will be the lifestyle of touring. It’s the industry’s worst kept secret that touring takes a toll on a person’s mental health. For decades we’ve heard musicians talk about the strains touring has, with anti-social working hours, inconsistent sleep routines and financial pressures and being away from home and loved ones for a long period of time. Financial pressure is particularly an important factor especially in the modern age, when touring is now the main source of income for a musician since streaming has decimated the economy of music, creating financial stress for artists as they’re instructed to relentlessly tour. Research done by the University of Westminster shows musicians are three times more likely to experience anxiety or depression than the general public. 

In a study done by the McGill University in Montreal showed the levels of dopamine were found to be up to 9% higher when volunteers were listening to music they enjoyed. So what are some of the other positive effects music has on your mental health? Firstly, both playing and listening can ease anxiety. Music has been shown to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, as well as decreasing your heart rate and blood pressure. It can provide anxiety relief when you’re stressed. It can also help you express difficult emotions, when we don’t have the words to explain our feelings, song lyrics can help us understand what we’re going through. This is a technique used by therapists called ‘lyric analysis.’ Music can bring you a community of people who are similar to you, creating relationships with fellow musicians or even just people who enjoy the same music as you. Music is the perfect tool for meeting new people. 

Nick Jonah Davis is a music therapist who works for the District Musicians organisation, who helps people suffering with dementia through playing music. He immediately highlights the positives he sees in his patients, “I think the mental health benefits are really apparent in the moment for the person with dementia. They really cheer up with our music making. We’ve had research done on what we’re doing and the benefits last beyond the time that we spend with those people”. But it doesn’t just help the patient. “Dementia has a significant mental health impact on carers and family members as well because it’s dismaying seeing someone that you love suffering. Certainly for some of the people that we visit at home, the mental health benefit for their carers is definitely significant. It raises their spirits.’ 

There is a down side for Nick’s own mental health working in this area. ‘It’s quite precarious employment. You’re having to apply for funding from various places to finance these projects so your income is never guaranteed and the rate of pay isn’t great, but I’ve found if I do work that isn’t related to music my mental health tends to dip because I’ve got such a passion for music.” Nick has also performed and released records for over 20 years, releasing critically acclaimed folk albums on independent labels. He offers his own thoughts on why musicians suffer with mental health issues. “I think that music is a source of solace for troubled people sometimes. “You can use music to create a little world of your own that you are in control of.” 

The industry and success can cause a downward spiral. “You get people who have experienced a level of success quite young that you can’t assume is going to happen.” Kurt Cobain had no idea he was going to be his generation’s Beatles, and Ian Curtis who went from working in a job centre to taking his own life when Joy Division were just about to go on a US tour. “You get involved with the music business and you lose that sense of control over what you are doing.” 

“The positive effects of playing music for a few minutes are enormous. It’s such a powerful thing to do.”

Nick Jonah Davis

For Nick, “the notion of an artist suffering for their art is a powerful myth, but I think in a way people can romanticise the suffering of artists, to some degree the audience can fetishise that a bit.” Nick sees how the lifestyle of a musician can lead to drug and alcohol addiction. “It’s a way of life where it’s a lot easier to fall down the rabbit hole of substance misuse. I’ve got friends who work in the industry and one of the problems is that when you’re at work everyone around thinks it’s party night, for the band that can be the reality everyday.”  Despite these pitfalls, Nick finds that the positive effects of “just playing music for a few minutes are enormous. It’s such a powerful thing to do. I had a really good gig on Saturday night, I had around 100 listening and appreciating it and that’s really satisfying.” 

Ultimately, music can have both positive and negative impacts on your mental health, both as the artist and listener. However, I think it’s important to acknowledge the way we view musicians, and maybe think twice when we glorify and spur on an artist who is clearly suffering. You could be pushing your favorite artist into an early grave.