The new rock’n’roll? Shawn Mendes joins long line of musicians canceling tours due to their mental health

In a statement shared on his Twitter, Mendes said: “It has become clearer that I need to take the time I never took personally, to ground myself and come back stronger. I have to make my health my first priority. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve taken the right time to heal.”

The 23-year-old singer had 87 shows scheduled in Europe and the US over the next few months and had played just seven so far.

Most fans have gathered around the singer, tweeting, for example, “Can we start supporting mental health and start breaking down toxic male norms now?” and another saying: “Take care of yourself! your mental and physical health is more important than tour.”

But Mendes’ move isn’t unique: His decision to postpone his tour now comes in a long line of musicians who have given up performing due to their mental health.

in April, Little Sims canceled her 10-day tour saying, “As an independent artist, I pay everything out of my own pocket for my live performances. A month of touring the US would leave me in a huge deficit. As much as it hurts me to have you on this I can’t see the moment, I’m just not able to get myself through that mental stress.”

In September 2021, Mike Patton dropped out of his upcoming tour dates, saying: “Sorry I can’t go on with the currently scheduled Faith No More and Mr. Bungle dates for mental health reasons. I’m having issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic that I challenge right now.”

In October 2021, Manchester band Doves also canceled their tour dates due to singer Jimi Goodwin’s mental health.

While mental health issues may have been exacerbated by the pandemic, musicians — many of whom are infamous (and adored) for their rock’n’roll lifestyles — have had a complicated relationship with touring for decades.

“It’s kind of crazy what a human being does, touring,” explained Billie Eilish in a June 2022 interview with The Sunday Times. “It’s so unnatural for us as humans to have such high highs and such low lows. It feels like a haze. It’s like living five different lives at once, crazy but wonderful.”

Metallica also canceled some headline dates in 2020, citing frontman James Hetfield’s mental health: “The reality is I haven’t prioritized my health for the past year of touring and I now know that my mental health comes first explains Hetfield.

In 2019, Summer Walker said she would only play nine of the 29 gigs on her US tour, saying, “I won’t be able to finish this tour because it doesn’t really mix with my social anxiety and my introverted personality.”

Likewise, American experimental band Xiu Xiu canceled their tour in 2019 due to mental health issues, as did Australian DJ Alison Wonderland. in 2015 Zayn Malik also pulled out A direction‘s Asian tour. A source said at the time: “Zayn went because he had enough. Have you ever been on the road for four years?”

So what’s happening? Is this the beginning of a new breed of rock’n’roll, where musicians feel freer to openly admit the toll of touring, prioritizing their long-term health? And does it reflect a wider societal movement to gain greater acceptance of mental health issues?

The answer is most certainly both, and it was about time musicians have suffered for years from savage tour schedules and constant emotional extremes, often leading to serious drug abuse and even death.

Artists Janis Joplin, Kurt Kobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse and Mac Miller all famously died before their 28th birthday after often horribly well-documented hardcore lifestyles. Recently, American rappers Juice WRLD and Lil Peep also died of a drug overdose before their 22nd birthday.

The family of the Swedish super producer Aviciiwho died by suicide in 2018, explained: “Our beloved Tim was… an overachieving perfectionist who traveled and worked hard at a pace that led to extreme stress. When he stopped touring, he wanted to find a balance in life. to be happy and do what he loved most: music. Tim was not made for the business machine he was in.”

In 2015, The Guardian looked to the dark side of touring as artists began to talk more easily about their experiences. Kate Nash explained at the time: “When you’re young, people tell you that if you don’t do something, it’s the end of your career. But that is not it. People are vulnerable. Our brains are fragile and you can only abuse them for so long.

“I would like the mental health of an artist to be taken into account more now. To be honest, enough people have already died.”

Willis Earl Beal, the former XL Recordings recording artist, also told The Guardian: “Touring can be destructive to a musician, it was destructive to me, that’s for sure.”

Music manager Ethan Schiff, whose company represents pop singer Betty Who and duo Foreign Air, explained to Rolling Stone in 2021: “Tour has always been physically exhausting. What has changed in recent years is the more elusive or subtle ways a person can become affected.”

A lot of artists have felt like touring before, partly to please their fans, but also because it’s usually a cash cow. In an April interview on Julia Fox’s podcast Forbidden Fruits, FKA Twigs explained her financial dilemma after her tour dates were canceled due to the pandemic. The artist was heavily dependent on income and was even afraid that she would lose her house.

“(When my shows were cancelled) I felt like the Titanic, and I said to everyone, ‘I’ll just keep paying everyone until I can’t afford to pay anyone more.’ And ooh, it came so close,” she further explained in an interview with GQ.

It is well known that mental health problems have been exacerbated by the pandemic. In February, the British charity Mind said that a million British adults who first experienced mental health problems during the pandemic have still not spoken to anyone about their problems, and that nine in 10 young people found that loneliness was affecting their mental health. affected. worse during the global health crises.

But as the number of people with mental health grows, so does awareness: The 2020 Global Monitor from the Wellcome Collection (which surveyed 119,000 people from 113 countries) showed that 92 percent of people now believe mental health is just as important. , if not more important is more important than physical health. One in five people also said they had experienced depression or anxiety.

And if mental health is now high on people’s list of priorities, the natural progression should be that it eventually becomes an acceptable excuse to stop strenuous activity. While some fans still love leather, “here for a good time, not long” from their (often dead) musical heroes, in general it now seems to be respected to take more care – and some of the ‘s The world’s biggest acts are paving the way.