Remi Wolf, on the cusp of releasing her debut album ‘Juno’, has opened up about her mental health issues and how the music industry could better help artists with their mental health issues.
Speaking to NME for The Big Read, Wolf candidly spoke about her rising fame, which she described as a “weird, unnatural experience”.
“I’m taking it all on and it’s a very weird, unnatural experience – I need support,” she said. “There’s definitely more care being given, but there’s still a lot more work to do.”
“Artists signed to labels should be given the resources to find therapists [and] have health insurance, or at least find a liaison to help them out with everything. A lot of the time your label is like, ‘Here’s your advance – go off and do whatever,’ which, like… great, but we need a lot more support.”
Wolf also spoke about older artists who the public has later learned were suffering with various mental health issues like addiction, saying “You see what happens to artists from the ’90s: they have depression, they have addiction, and they pass away.”
“Even today, that’s still happening with people at a younger age, and there’s a lot of it that’s romanticised. That’s what keeps it stagnant a lot of the time because addiction in art has been prevalent for hundreds of years. There’s a part of everybody that romanticises that culture and that’s really unhealthy.”
‘Juno’, out October 15, deals in part with Wolf’s own struggles with addiction, written after she checked into rehab last June after she realised she had a drinking problem.
“The songs I wrote during the pandemic there’s definitely a little more mania,” NME 100 member Wolf said.
“My career was taking off, I had recently gotten sober, I just got a dog and I moved three times during the pandemic…It was a lot.”
Wolf’s statements come just a few months after a study by the charity Help Musicians found that 87 per cent of musicians’ mental health had taken an “unprecedented” toll throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘Juno’ will be Wolf’s first release since her 2020 EP ‘I’m Allergic To Dogs!’, which NME declared as one of the best releases of the year. We’ve heard five songs from the album so far: ‘Liquor Store’, ‘Grumpy Old Man’, ‘Quiet On Set’, ‘Guerrilla’ and ‘Sexy Villain’.
For help and advice on mental health:
- ‘Am I depressed?‘ – Help and advice on mental health and what to do next
- Help Musicians UK – Around the clock mental health support and advice for musicians
- Music Support Org – Help and support for musicians struggling with alcoholism, addiction, or mental health issues
- YOUNG MINDS – The voice for young people’s health and wellbeing
- CALM – The Campaign Against Living Miserably for young men
- Time To Change – Let’s end mental health discrimination
- The Samaritans – Confidential support 24 hours a day
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