This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News Education & Events Industry People
New podcast offering health and wellbeing advice for musicians to launch this month
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 2 July 2019
Elevate Music, which provides health and wellbeing services to the music industry, has partnered with charity Help Musicians UK and production company Wisebuddah to launch a new podcast.
Presented by Elevate Music CEO Lucy Heyman, the show will offer advice for musicians on maintaining their mental and physical health throughout their careers. The first episode will be released on 15 Jul, featuring interviews with Help Musicians’ Head Of Health & Welfare Joe Hastings and Babyshambles drummer turned psychotherapist Adam Ficek.
“When I was thrust into the music industry, it was amazing, I felt adrenalised, but I didn’t have the same business sense I have now”, says Ficek. “On reflection, the biggest transition was after the phone stops ringing. It’s a business, it’s an industry and it’s neither good nor bad”.
Of his own experience, he goes on: “With Babyshambles, we were quite lucky, the biggest struggle was keeping the cohesive sense of what we needed to deliver, if that was making an album, doing an interview, going on tour”.
“I was in the eye of the hurricane trying to keep it all together, barely making stuff work”, he adds. “There was no real plan, it was mayhem. After shows, there were substances. Being in that environment, there was nowhere to go for preventative support, unless there was an urgent health need on the road. It’s just the way it was, the nature of the industry”.
“There needs to be more information and awareness, to help musicians be better prepared”, he concludes. “A place for musicians to go. I’m really happy to be involved in Elevate Music with Lucy, Help Musicians and Wisebuddah and hope this podcast will go some way towards that”.
Heyman, who co-founded Elevate Music with Widebuddah’s Mark Goodier, decided to launch the podcast based on her PhD research on the health and wellbeing at the Royal College Of Music. She says: “Studies have shown that pop musicians feel unsupported in their careers with health and wellbeing issues, so this podcast is looking at the key topics that research tells us they need most help with”.
“The podcast, along with the other services that Elevate Music provides, is initiating a much-needed crisis-prevention model within the industry to try and stop issues from impacting on musicians’ health in the future”, she adds.
Other musicians set to appear on future episodes of the show include Shaun Ryder, Miles Kane, Nina Nesbitt and cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson. A taster episode is available here, before the official launch later this month.
