Brighton's Great Escape festival providing a forum to raise awareness around musicians and mental health

Laura Mvula referred to stage-fright symptoms earlier in her career (Press image)

Until Sunday, the music industry descends on Brighton for one of its largest annual showcases of new and upcoming acts – The Great Escape festival. Among punters desperately seeking access to hotly tipped sets from the likes of Stormzy, Songhoy Blues and Oh Wonder, others will be heading to the accompanying convention for a more measured take on the state of the business.

As well as looking at such topics as the importance of physical product and making sense of cutting-edge technology such as blockchains, one standout strand is titled "What has the music industry ever done for you?" This segment focuses on an issue gaining a higher profile within the industry, mental health, which raises a couple of important questions: are mental health problems becoming more prevalent among musicians? And, if so, what should we do about it?

Music has long attracted its fair share of vulnerable outsiders, many of whose issues have been widely publicised after their untimely deaths, from Brian Jones and Janis Joplin, through to Ian Curtis to Amy Winehouse. Now, though, artists are becoming more open about personal hardships including mental health issues, whether these were pre-existing and exacerbated by the precarious livelihood of a fledgling or stuttering career or the rock'n'roll lifestyle and being in the public gaze of a successful one, or apparently caused by these things. Ahead of the release next month of her sophomore album The Dreaming Room, Laura Mvula has divulged details of panic attacks that she claims were a cause in the break-up of her marriage and nearly ended her career. These started before the Birmingham-raised artist found fame, but became more debilitating as her profile rocketed, especially as she felt the need to keep her travails secret from the industry she operated in.

Mvula had hinted at these issues earlier in her career, referring to stage-fright symptoms that had leaked into occasions when she occupied her public persona. For other artists, it is the challenges of touring that take their toll, or even returning to mundane domesticity afterwards. US solo artist Willis Earl Beal is one of several music makers to have opened up about this, explaining how failure to deal with coming home after life on the road led to the break-up of his marriage. The pressures of touring were so debilitating to Alanna McArdle, singer of Welsh indie outfit Joanna Gruesome, that she quit the band last year after dates in the US.

At the Great Escape convention, Vice is set to preview a series of short films that feature musicians discussing their experiences of mental health issues – Bill Ryder-Jones, Rob Harvey (previously frontman of The Music) and south London MC NoLay. Meanwhile, Help Musicians UK – formerly the Musicians Benevolent Fund – is launching a research project at the festival to find out the true scale of the problem. The charity that looks after musicians facing hardship is certainly finding more demand for its services, though chief executive Richard Robinson, who will speak at The Great Escape, says there's not enough evidence just yet to say whether that is down to increasing stress or greater understanding about mental health and publicity for his own organisation.

“It's making sure we build a service that delivers mental health support to musicians of all genres and instead of doing this piecemeal, we want to get the picture right,” Robinson says. “We want to make sure we are talking to the right people, getting case studies and understanding people's experiences of dealing with mental health issues.” Help Musicians UK's aim is to fund a study much more comprehensive than the online survey of its members two years ago that found, among other things, that three-quarters of respondents had suffered from performance anxiety.

That survey also highlighted those aspects of a musician's life that can lead to problems or exacerbate existing issues: antisocial working hours, money problems and work insecurity. One aspect the questionnaire avoided was the prevalence of underlying problems. A common stereotype of those in the creative industries is that they are somehow more sensitive than the norm, with art or the desire to perform being a byproduct of that difference, something Robinson, a musician himself, sees as a side issue. “There have been studies about whether creative people are more inclined to have mental health issues, but they are inconclusive and anyway there are far more immediate factors.

“What is worth looking at are the unique issues within the industry and how we deal with them.” He cites the fall in the number of orchestras employing full-time musicians adding to insecurity; alcoholism and drug abuse; plus the rise of turntablists and solo electronic artists that spend long periods of time on their own, moving from hotel to hotel. “Away from society and civilisation, that social isolation can breed mental health issues.” he says.

Fewer than half of the respondents, though, had sought professional help, so another strand of the charity's project, run in conjunction with the University of Westminster, is to seek how to better support musicians in need. “It's about looking for expert understanding and clinical pathways that lead to how we deal with people in the future,” Robinson says. Currently, Help Musicians UK advises them to contact the relevant professionals, whether that is their GPs or charities such as Mind.

Now, though, it is considering providing advice direct via a 24-hour helpline, something necessary given the hours many musicians work. Help Musicians UK is also seeking to ensure the industry more widely, including labels, managers and the Musicians' Union, understands its responsibilities, while ensuring that mental health organisations better appreciate the specific needs of people who pursue creative and often erratic vocations. Ultimately, though, it is about ensuring the next Mvula does not feel embarrassed about their problems or feel those might scupper their career.

“People are talking about it more, but the term 'mental health' has a certain stigma that can mean people are reluctant to acknowledge it applies to them,” Robinson says, comparing it to similar challenges around musicians accepting they have impaired hearing. “Do people want to be tarred with the brush of being hard of hearing?” he asks, though the pertinent question for Robinson is if we get musicians to talk more about their problems, are wider audiences willing to listen?

The Great Escape is on today, Friday and Saturday in Brighton. Visit greatescapefestival.com for more information