Singer reveals depression battle

By Ian Youngs
Music reporter, BBC News

Rob Harvey has tackled his personal demons on the band's latest album

After bursting onto the music scene six years ago, indie band The Music's singer Rob Harvey thought he was "untouchable".

But his dream crumbled as the frontman was forced to face up to depression, addiction and an out-of-control ego.

It was at the end of 2005, after a lukewarm reception for the Leeds group's second album and a gruelling tour, that Harvey started to feel unwell.

"I believed I was a young, untouchable great singer who could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted," Harvey says.

But the group were now emotionally and creatively spent and Harvey was struggling.

"Everybody has an image of themselves in their mind," he explains. "I had an image of myself, and when things change or life moves on, that's when people struggle."

Although still in his early 20s, he suffered what he describes as his own mid-life crisis.

Suicide became an option - I became a very unhappy young man Rob Harvey

"For me that happened at quite a young age. I had to make major decisions in my life that upset the image I had of myself. I had to accept I had to lose the image of myself."

Hair loss, superficial perhaps, was one of the things that forced him to reassess who he was.

"Just little things like that change your perspective of who you are."

He adds: "[Touring] America changed me a lot. I became greedy. It was all about wants and needs and that's not me as a human being.

"That's not the kind of person I am and I didn't like the person I'd become."

I got to the point where I was having 10-15 panic attacks a day, which was quite awful Rob Harvey

Harvey had always been a deep thinker and thought he could change the world, but he was starting to doubt his beliefs and his thoughts were turning dark.

He had kicked a longstanding cannabis habit, but was drinking and eating to compensate. He had lost direction and was starting to panic.

After their second album, Harvey says he was "bullying myself mentally" over his perceived failures, and lost confidence in himself as a performer.

"I was putting myself under a lot of pressure and allowing past failures and things like that to control the moment, instead of just expressing myself like I used to be able to.

"I'd lost that especially as a performer. I was half the singer I used to be," he recalls.

Negative thinking became an addiction, he says, and he describes conversations in his head as "mild insanity".

"Do you know that fella Gollum from Lord of the Rings? It was a really mild version of that."

At his worst point, he was suffering up to 15 panic attacks a day.

"I kept thinking 'Hang on a sec, I've should have a good life here, why am I feeling this way?'

The band have played festivals such as Isle of Wight and T in the Park

"I'm in what I believe to be one of the best bands in the country and I'm sat panicking about random stuff, distorted thoughts.

"Suicide became an option. I became a very unhappy young man. But even suicide is the act of an ego - that's the final act of an ego to protect oneself from being wrong."

His body was talking to him, Harvey feels.

"It was panicking," he says.

"When your body's physically shaking and you can't keep still and you're sweating, and you're sat watching your TV, and your heart's like a machine gun, that's when I got to the point where I was thinking, 'there's something not right here'."

Harvey spoke to his manager, who told him he had been depressed for some time.

"Which is what I needed to hear, so I checked in and got myself sorted for a few weeks," Harvey says.

"After that it's just been constant care and attention. I've been sober for two-and-a-half years now.

"Staying fit, eating well, seeing a regular therapist whenever I can, whenever I've got things to talk about."

Album therapy

The singer is constantly trying to keep on top of his thoughts and "stay present as opposed to living in the past or the future", he says.

The frontman, who has been performing at festivals across the world this summer, says he now has a new lease of life on stage.

That coincides with a new album, the band's first for four years, which Harvey has used to tackle his demons.

"You just need to look down the song titles to know that," he says. "Strength In Numbers... The Spike refers to addiction - wants and needs and the grey areas in between.

Another song is titled Drugs. "I've tried illegal drugs and legal drugs and they're both shit. All it does is stops us from discovering who we are. I don't know why people are so afraid of reality.

"So there was a mild fascination with addiction and what drives people. Songs called The Left Side and Get Through It are obvious ones.

"That was like therapy, writing those lyrics."