Joe Day, Mental Health Interview, 16.3.20
It was a bright sunny day for once and I found myself in Plymouth at the top of a car park, interviewing Joe Day, the Pitcher UK guitarist and vocalist, as well as founder of a new solo project under the alias of Novels. about his musical endeavours, but mainly his thoughts on the relationship between creativity and mental health...
At what age did you first start being creative...
I guess I've always been creative in the sense that I've always had an interest in music. It sounds horrifically overly profound but creativity came to me. I was encouraged when I was younger to perform musically (as a vocalist) through a youth club. The moment I started performing music, creativity came to me. I thought, okay if I'm going to do this I might as well learn how to play an instrument at the same time, at least I can sing songs without having to listen to backing tracks so I learned guitar.
What sparked your creativity...
I don't think I ever made a conscious decision to be creative. I have what I would call a high output personality, and by that I mean, I'm the sort of person that if something comes to me I have to put it out, otherwise it doesn't make sense.
Do you feel like you create to make sense of the world...
I was being creative to make sense of my own head. I'm an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) sufferer so a lot of the facets of my personality revolve around that. The high output personality I have is attributed to this. My brain is working at such a fucking ridiculous capacity that if I don't start writing that song then I'll feel off and weird. That energy gets pent up and turns into negative emotions. So when I’m creating I'm trying to regulate my own brain to stop things from getting too hectic.
At what age did you start suffering from poor mental health?
My early teens was when things first started cropping up, mainly at eleven or twelve. The only reason I say that is because, when I look back on it now I can see all the occasions where I'd resonate with particular types of art. As well I think being around certain people at that age and feeling like a bit of an outlier because of the things I was feeling and thinking. I knew from a young age that I was different, my brain chemistry was unique at that time. The last thing I want is to say that I'm the only person who experiences these things but at that time I felt like I was.
Do you think there is a correlation between when you started being creative and a dip in your mental health...
Definitely. When I started writing songs for myself I quickly realised I was making songs based on my experiences and I learned that writing songs made me feel better because it was effectively a diary. Through writing songs I was able to output the feelings I had in such a way that got them down, I was telling someone about them and it made me feel better.
So I started writing more songs as things progressively got worse so to me there's undoubtedly a correlation.
How does Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) affect your everyday life…
Living with it is a full time job because you don't get a break from it. It’s similar to anxiety in that everything will make you feel anxious in some shape or form unless you take the steps to calm yourself down. There’s no escape. The brain chemistry of someone with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is that you're always going to have more than one thing to do at once and you're not going to be able to do all of it. When you wake up in the morning you have to say, ‘What am I going to do today? What of those thirty things am I going to do because I'm not going to be able to do all of them’. So you pick out the things that are fulfilling to you and you do those. You learn your patterns and you decide what impulses are healthy and what ones aren't. I know I've got Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) for life and I have to work alongside it as best as I can.
How do you feel creativity affects your mental health...
It depends on what creative I'm being and the context of the creativity. There will be times when my anxiety will kick off and I'll think this is a perfect opportunity to have some creative output. I know what I need to do to make myself feel better. That is to get the thoughts I'm having down and the way I've learnt to do that is through lyric writing. I take myself out of the situation and through allowing my creativity to flow, I can articulate this cacophony of emotion that I'm feeling and it sort of puts it to rest. I think it’s a really positive way of approaching mental health.
Is there a negative side to this...
There may be times when I'm like ’Oh my god I've got loads of ideas right now’ but when I sit down to be creative the idea is bigger than I'm capable of. So the anxiety will set in because I've thought of a song from beginning to end and I want to get it done before the idea goes away. I'll sit there and fall into a state of ‘Jesus fucking Christ, what a failure I am, I can't even write a song!’
The one thing I've found with poor mental health is that you're sat in the moment all the time. If in that specific moment things haven't gone well everything I've ever done is pulled into question. I've learned how to pull back from that but creativity can be a double edged sword. Sometimes my creativity can be a massive comfort and sometimes it can be the thing that ruins my day.
Do you have any particular creative tricks that you employ during dark times…
If I'm in a period of poor mental health just sitting down and belting songs out seems to get it out of my system. It’s all about getting my pent up energy out. It all stems from my Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). If anyone has seen me perform with Pitcher on a day where I'm not doing well they'll notice that all of the lyrics are screamed. The singing isn't there, I just start shouting everything. I need to get it out of my system and that's my way of doing it.
It really isn't a decision though, it’s just what happens. It's the musical equivalent of throwing mugs at a wall and smashing porcelain because it makes you feel better. That's literally what it is.
Do you think there should be a bigger emphasis on creativity as a therapy tool...
Yes but I don't think it should be forced. What I've found is that only certain people find creativity therapeutic. I don't think the emphasis should be on being creative but on having the choice to be and allowing people to have the tools for more positive mental health decisions.
When I was in school and I was suffering from poor mental health I'd always go to the music block and I'd sit and play guitar. I was really fortunate to have that because to my knowledge it's being phased out. The arts in general are not being supported in education and I think that a lot of young people may suffer because of the cut backs.
Tell me about your new project Novels. and why it’s so important to you…
It's the first opportunity I've ever had to have complete creative control over what I'm doing. I get to sit down at the PC when it suits me and if I suddenly feel creative then I get to be. Working in a collaborative setting means you have to hold yourself back and I've learned that holding myself back is where some of my issues stem from. It's not that I don't want to collaborate because I love what it produces but I've learnt that in order to maintain my mental health I need to have a creative output that is mine. I know whatever the day entails I'll get to go home and write about and that's a massive comfort to me.
You can check out Joe’s musical projects through the following links;
https://www.facebook.com/novelsmusiq
https://www.facebook.com/pitcherbanduk