Kiwi artists want brutal music industry to change
Neo-soul singer Bailey Wiley has a simple mantra for youngsters in the business: "self-care, my bro."
Bailey Wiley is more nervous when she leaves the stage, than before she goes on it.
Why? Because she knows she's about to come back to earth.
"I need to take five, and I just need to process what I did and what I gave, and I need to go away and just chill with that for a minute," she explains.
It's an emotional endurance act few people will experience. The neo-soul singer has a simple mantra for youngsters in the business: "Self-care, my bro."
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For the past few weeks, Kiwis have been celebrating Music Month while topics such as women in music, diversity and well-being have been discussed at an annual summit in an attempt to change the industry.
That's because the music industry isn't just brutal – it's a dangerous wilderness where many people have died.
Daniel "Darcy Clay" Bolton died in 1995.
There's been a blur of eulogies in recent years: Soundgarden's Chris Cornell; Chester Bennington from Linkin Park; Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries; Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit. The local scene has been no exception: Darcy Clay in 1998; Crowded House drummer Paul Hester in 2005; Ian Morris of Th' Dudes in 2010.
As the listening public, we struggle to come to terms with these deaths without clinging to fables and half-truths about the business. There's an assumption that being wild, crazy – even suicidal – "goes with the territory" of being an artist. It's thought that musicians are tortured souls, whose drug habits and mental disorders must be part and parcel of their brilliance.
But Kiwi artists say it's the industry that needs to change, not them.
"I've had moments where I've been on tour and just been so unwell," says Wiley.
She stresses the importance of having support people, and "not pushing the boat out too far" in an environment soaked with drink and drugs.
"There have been moments in my life where I've looked back and thought f..., that was a hairy time. And I think that's because I wasn't looking after myself, I was probably partying too much."
TOXIC ENVIRONMENT
"If you wanted to generate bad mental health in someone," says Shihad drummer Tom Larkin from behind the wheel of his Toyota Highlander in central Melbourne, "You would design the music industry."
Larkin is en route from a meeting in Brunswick to his management office in Collingwood. He's more than happy to talk about mental health along the way – it's something close to his heart, having lost peers to the business over the years.
"It takes people away from structure and routine," Larkin explains, "Gives them no financial stability; gets them to expose their innermost thoughts and feelings to ridicule; takes them away from friends and family.
"Hey! Let's also add terrible food to the mix. Highway food. And then, finally, give them a climate of perpetual drugs and alcohol."
Th' Dudes: From left, Ian Morris, Bruce Hambling, Peter Urlich, Lez White and Dave Dobbyn.
On-top of conditions that seem almost entirely geared towards causing a nervous collapse in someone, there is also an "endlessly drinking, endlessly drugging, endlessly promiscuous" ideal of a rock-star that artists have to live up to, Larkin says.
"There are many artists who lose themselves like that. And there's a myth around this creative thing where you have to be f..... up."
A Sydney University study in 2014 found popular American musicians' lifespans were up to 25 years shorter than the comparable US population. Across the seven decades studied, suicide rates were up to seven times greater; accidental death rates up to 10 times greater; and homicide rates up to eight times greater.
Back home, a survey of more than 1300 people across the local music scene was published in late 2016 by the NZ Music Foundation. Participants had attempted suicide at more than twice the incidence of the general population.
The survey, which sought to quantify issues of which the foundation had been anecdotally aware, led to it launching a free counselling service for people working in music.
'LIFE IMITATING ART'
Jono Das is a hip-hop beat-maker – he's also a producer, DJ and one half of a psychedelic jazz rap duo. He's rubbed shoulders with the full spectrum of music folk and noticed many of them appear to be struggling.
"Touring can be tough," he says from his new base in London, where he's looking for behind-the-scenes work in the industry.
"It's not just the obvious being away from family, strange motels and constant partying. It's the lack of real connections."
Shihad members (from left) Phil Knight, Tom Larkin, Jon Toogood and Karl Kippenberger.
Das says professional musicians aren't necessarily people who are comfortable with being on-stage, or with fame.
"These people have fans, but because of their touring schedules and general lifestyle, they have very few real friends or real relationships."
He says for young musicians, in particular, there's a lot to come to terms with. It isn't just the public that buys the idea of the "tortured musician" - the musicians themselves do too, even if it's not true.
Das has seen many cases of "life imitating art;" sensible people who do crazy things because they think they're supposed to, or maybe just because they believe they can.
"I've had lengthy conversations with band members about how bad drinking can be, and about how important strict moderation should be for a touring musician, only to find them slamming shots and doing lines in a toilet cubicle later that night.
"Which is okay, to a point, but then you wake up with a hangover one morning wondering 'who am I?'"
CHRISTIAN VALUES
Beneath a commercial office block in Kingsland is a basement where all the music for Dancing with the Stars is made.
It's a honey-comb of sound-proof studios, each decorated according to different musical tastes. You can walk up and down the Persian rugs in the hall and be oblivious to the work going on behind the keypad-locked doors.
Parachute Music isn't just a source of backing music for on-screen sambas and tangos. Increasingly, it's a sanctuary where musicians find a sense of community that's lacking elsewhere.
"We're trying to address the sense of failure, the isolation and stress of being in the music industry," says founder Marc de Jong.
"It seems like almost everyone in the creative side of the industry – their mental health is pretty fraught and their sense of wellbeing is not that great."
Shihad musician Tom Larkin says the music industry is almost designed to generate poor mental health.
De Jong's goal is to usher musicians and producers out of their flats and bedrooms – where it's relatively easy, in this day and age, to build a make-shift recording studio. At home they spent their days writing and recording alone, watching the laundry pile creep higher but here they emerge into daylight after their sessions and find themselves blinking at like-minded folk in a shared kitchen.
It's cheaper for MediaWorks to get tracks for Dancing with the Stars made at Parachute, rather than buying rights to original music. It's a win-win – bringing work not just to seasoned producers, but also Parachute Music's six young "artists in development".
We listen to a pared back rendition of All About That Bass, sung beautifully by Marianne Wren, one of the artists in the year-long programme.
Artists like Wren have made it through an audition process and are paid $2500 to be part of the furniture here for a year. They can hold down jobs on the outside, but it's expected they spend a minimum of 20 hours a week working seriously on their music. They also have access to free therapy.
"We're trying to make therapy a common, normal thing that anyone would do," says de Jong.
He and his partner Chris ran the Christian music festival, Parachute, for 24 years. Auckland megachurch founder Paul de Jong is among his seven siblings.
Parachute Music sits under a charitable trust that counts Christian groups among its financial supporters. The de Jongs say although their Christian values inform their drive to be a positive influence in the music industry, faith isn't a requirement to be involved.
"We don't have a crusade to do anything other than provide good musicians with a good experience," says Chris.
Beatmaker Jono Das says the life of a touring musician means a lack of real relationships.
The collaborative, community model which they first observed on a trip to Sweden, appears to be taking off in New Zealand – previously an "individualistic" scene where collaboration was scarce. They're planning to expand from seven studios to fifteen.
VULNERABILITY
"This is a conversation we should have been having back in Darcy Clay's day," says Luke Oram of SMOKE Music Production, which is just next-door to Parachute.
Oram self-deprecatingly calls himself a "washed-up musician". He was a singer in a rock and roll band. These days, he studies psychology and hangs around Parachute Music as much as he can, doing vocal sessions for Dancing with the Stars songs.
"There's an expectation in New Zealand that people don't talk about this stuff," says Oram.
"You just harden up. Especially in the music scene if you're portraying a very masculine, rock and roll character, you're not going to want to open up about how you feel offstage."
He wonders if, for the last 40 or 50 years, musicians and creative people have held themselves hostage with the idea they need to be depressed, drunk or high to make great art.
"I think it's a vulnerability that we've never talked about, combined with New Zealand stoicism and a drinking culture that's bad even in the general population."
Bailey Wiley is a singer-songwriter from Christchurch, who has been living in Auckland for the past four years. She lives in Grey Lynn with two flatmates.
Meanwhile, Wiley says fans expect artists to look and act a certain way that can be dissonant with the reality – even when they're enjoying success.
"I've had some beautiful heights in my career," says Wiley.
"But it's interesting because I look back now and I think it's interesting because those were, mentally, the hardest times."
The New Zealand Music Foundation Wellbeing Service can be accessed at nzmusicfoundation.org.nz/wellbeing or by phoning 0508 MUSICHELP.
- Sunday Star Times
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