Check Your Head podcast combines musicians, mental health

The past 18 months or so have been really tough on everyone’s mental health, including artists of all stripes. Not everyone wants to go into therapy or knows how to get started, so why not create a podcast that features conversations with musicians and mental health experts to help everyone along? 

That’s the idea behind Check Your Head: Mental Help for Musicians, “a podcast where notable musicians and experts share their solutions to mental health and wellness, hosted by Mari Fong, a longtime music journalist and life coach for musicians.” 

The podcast, now in the top 5% of global listenership, wants to help normalize the conversation on mental health and encourage people to take care of their own, Fong says. “When you’re experiencing a mood disorder like anxiety or depression, you can feel emotionally exhausted, unmotivated and confused. By providing a big list of solutions on our website, it makes it easy to find the right fit, especially when solutions for recovery are so individual.” 

There are currently more than 125 solutions for people, including the Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance, LGBT National Help Center and Black Mental Health Alliance, along with links to Headspace, the Drinker’s Helper and Mooditute. For musicians looking for additional help, there’s information and access to Backline, SIMS Foundation and the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. And everything is made available for free, a critically important offering given that so many musicians and their crew have been sidelined for so long due to the pandemic. 

Recent guests on the podcast include Jesse Leach of Killswitch Engage, Hanna Hooper from Grouplove, Brain Wheat of Tesla, Winona Roak and Dr. Dan Reidenberg, a suicide prevention expert from SAVE.org and meditation expert Richard “Wolfie” Wolf. 

The two-year-old podcast includes conversations with a range of musicians from across genre lines, from Gilby Clarke of Guns ‘N’ Roses and Fred Armisen to Shaun Morgan of Seether, Linda Ronstadt and Grandson. Each episode features advocates on a different topic, including suicide prevention, psychiatry, relationship advice and music therapy.