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Touring can bring opportunity and connection, but it can also place musicians and crews under sustained emotional and physical pressure. Long drives, late nights, demanding workloads, limited budgets and time away from home can combine to create isolation and anxiety.
A new initiative aims to make professional support more accessible to people working on smaller tours. The Pay It Forward Fund, established by Tamsin Embleton and the Music Industry Therapist Collective, is intended to provide occupational health, mental-health education and pastoral care for artists and crews.
Why smaller tours can be especially demanding
The fund’s focus reflects the conditions of many smaller tours, where financial margins can be nonexistent. The work may involve driving between shows, neglecting physical needs and managing repeated changes in place and routine.
Those pressures can be accompanied by isolation, emotional and geographical displacement, vulnerability and anxiety. The programme is intended to connect people with therapists who have lived experience in the music industry, giving touring personnel access to support shaped by an understanding of their working environment.
Lessons from life on the road
One speaker involved with the initiative described Radiohead’s early touring years as a sharp change from the band’s previous experience, which had largely involved playing in Oxford for five or six years before being signed.
In 1992, the band played small venues in a van. The following year included touring in the United States, with the second half of 1993 forming part of a long period on the road. During the band’s second extended tour that year, the speaker said they withdrew and experienced what they called “impostor syndrome” and anxiety.
The anxiety began to affect their playing and became noticeable by the end of the tour. The speaker said that talking with their wife, and later with a manager, was invaluable. Members of James and REM also became mentors when Radiohead opened for those acts.
The speaker said comparable support had not been available for bands playing the kinds of venues Radiohead encountered at the beginning of its career.
Support built into touring
On Radiohead’s tour last autumn, the Music Industry Therapist Collective helped establish an initiative for the health and well-being of everyone working on the tour. Introductory sessions were offered during rehearsals and production build, while confidential drop-in therapy was available to anyone in the touring party during the tour.
The model is designed to make support part of the working environment rather than something people must seek only after reaching crisis point. The speaker, who has volunteered for the Samaritans since being a student, said they understand the importance of talking.
What the fund offers
Initially, £272,000 is being provided to finance 150 practitioner tour teams over three years. Applications for the Pay It Forward Fund are open.
The fund grew out of the type of help the Music Industry Therapist Collective already provides on larger tours. Its broader aim is to extend mental-health and pastoral support to smaller touring teams, where resources and access may be more limited.
The collective has also published Touring And Mental Health: the Music Industry Manual, edited by Tamsin Embleton and published by Omnibus.
AI tools were used to assist with the preparation of this article.
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