I didn’t get on any public transport for
about three years, my anxiety was
just that bad. Hi my name’s Mark and
I’m a music producer & songwriter
The reason why I got into production was
about ten years ago I read the book
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” which is all about the
creation of the Pet Sounds album by The Beach Boys and
it goes into great detail like, it’s super nerdy that
book and I just loved it. I’d never been interested in music production
at that point. I was always interested
in writing and playing but, at that point I
had such bad anxiety I couldn’t play so when
I realised that there was this whole world of
production I was like “Hey I could still be involved in music
and not have to go on stage and play
it at the end of the day”. I didn’t get on any
public transport for about three years,
um I didn’t go to the cinema, I avoided gigs like the plague.
I didn’t even like going to college at that point,
like, I hated the fact that we were in
a small enclosed room. My anxiety was
just that bad. Like my whole life
up to that point I’d always wanted to be
a touring musician that was my focus was to
be out on the road and playing anything,
like I learned guitar synth, drums, bass
cause I just wanted to play anything
I just wanted to be in a band and play
And then all of a sudden all this
anxiety just like, swept over me and yeah
I couldn’t… I didn’t get in a
taxi for about five years. So before I was a
producer I was an engineer. Ye know...
I set up all the cables ran all the mics,
like, did the drums did the amps,
and then I’d sit back and someone else
would actually hit record. Like the producer would
take over the session. And it wasn’t until I
realised that the sessions I was running myself,
I was doing the production work for like,
the producer came in and was like:
“Hey man why are you calling yourself
an engineer when you’re doing
so much production work?” and I was like:
“I didn’t realise I was doing production work”
When I’m producing, like, it’s a weird sense of pride
like, you know you’re taking this song from its
demo stages all the way through to its final stages
It’s a cool sense of pride once the song’s finished
A band that I work with, 100 Fables had a
full summer of festivals lined up and their
guitarist became super ill but I wrote the songs
with 100 Fables so I said:
“Hey, look I know all the guitar parts
why don’t I just come out on the road with you?”
And I didn’t really think it through and I remember
the first night just going “Uhh... shit like tomorrow
we travel all the way to the Isle of Wight
in a van and that’s like a 7 hour journey!”
and I didn’t sleep a wink, like, not at all
I was pretty anxious all night, but then like you know
we drove, we got to the festival
There was no panics, there was moments of
panic in my head but there wasn’t any real
issue with Fables. And then you know
the next day we got to perform at the
Isle Of Wight festival and like
there must have been like, five hundred to a thousand
people at our stage and it was incredible
And I think like, if any other gig had
been like the starting point, I probably wouldn’t
have done it but, like, you can’t turn down
opportunities like that. You know bands play for
a lifetime and don’t get opportunities to play those
sort of festivals so... My advice for anyone in
the music industry that suffers from anxiety is,
go for it because at the end of the day like
the first time I stepped back on stage I was
freaking out but then I realised, like, you know
it’s only half an hour. And sometimes I still freak
out and there isn’t much I can do about it,
but it is only half an hour of like dread and
terror and then it’s over. Everyone in that room
is nervous and anxious and like, weirded out
by different things. You know yours are maybe
just a wee bit more worn on your sleeve
than theirs, but I wouldn’t really let that ruin what
you want to do so if you wanna pick up
a guitar, play piano or sing, just do it.
The worst that could happen is you can get
in your own head and freak out for half an hour,
but then you’re off stage and you can go
get a sandwich and it’s all fine!