Kaskade addresses depression and anxiety, in open form letter following Avicii’s death

While speculation has quelled over the circumstances and manner of Avicii’s death, his passing has been a catalyst for many artists to speak out and battle their demons. While many of your favorite artist’s lifestyles seem overtly glamorous and wholesome, to plenty of others it’s an extremely lonely and dark path that is never accurately portrayed. Mental health concerns are a very pressing issue to the touring musician, and following Avicii’s untimely passing, a certain friend named Kaskade has addressed his viewpoints on depression, anxiety and it’s effect on those in the music world in an open form letter to his fans.

With artists becoming more engaged on socials – their image, overall engagement, and interactions are something most artists take to heart and can also be extremely vulnerable to. Spending hours on planes, hotels, and transportation alone mostly, time can seem almost endless with social media becoming a hole most artists fall into to distract themselves. Unfortunately social media often times ends up a trap and rather toxic to many artists as it only creates a never-ending cycle from their fans who demand more music, more interaction, and more tours and ultimately more sacrifice for the human behind the brand. In an excerpt from his statement, Kaskade addresses how insignificant social media is for all those dealing with social anxieties saying,

“I cannot carry your despair for you and I cannot fix it. But I can let you know that the pictures of perfection we are all forced to reckon with on every online platform and every surface real life interaction are not real. They are a fraction of a picture, not even a corner piece to a puzzle.

This is only a brief part of the discussion on mental health, but an important start, and for many artists, depression and anxiety are something that is dealt with every day and addressed even in bite-sized doses. In fact, even Ghastly recently came out about his sleep schedule being naturally altered so he won’t “miss a flight, a show, etc…” all of which expressed or not, relate back to anxiety.

one unforeseen circumstance of touring is developing a minimal sleep method. i now can only stay asleep for about 4 hours at a time.
no matter how much i want to sleep longer – my brain is trained to wake me up so i don’t miss a flight, a show, etc ?

— g h a s t l y (@Ghastly) April 17, 2018

Nonetheless, depression and anxiety aren’t static conditions and as fans, we should continue to try and positively impact our favorite musicians. Let’s take into account there’s a difference between unreasonable hate and constructive criticism when being critical and that it’s possible you could be the difference by reaching out to your favorite musicians in emotional distress.