The Riff

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Unseen Struggles: Navigating Mental Health Disorders in the Music Scene

12 min readApr 7, 2025

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Photo by Thibault Trillet

You get four, five people into a room. You’ve got some idea about the style of music you want to play.

You form a band, and off you go.

United, these four or five people march ever onwards toward the perpetual unknown, their success influenced by their connections, ambition, the evolving interests of music fans, and good old-fashioned luck.

More critical, however, is their ability to work together, to weather the stresses, creative tensions, jubilation, and disappointment, as well as the seemingly chasmic investment of time, money, and opportunity. While the payoff for a successful artist can be immense, for others the opportunity cost is immeasurable. Even seemingly famous bands can eventually find themselves out of style and broke, having sacrificed everything to pursue this dream.

When you’re in the throes of it and feel you’re advancing towards the next plateau, opportunity cost is not really what you’re thinking about. We’re not running a business… we’re playing rock ’n’ roll…

If you’re anything like me, this awakening, this desire to create will have occurred in your teens, gaining traction in your

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The Riff
The Riff
Jason Healey
Jason Healey

Written by Jason Healey

I write about music here on Medium, and in a parallel universe, tips for New Managers on Substack. Find me here: https://newmanager101.substack.com/