RSM People: Jay Blanes
For Jay, his pursuit of a career in music was not necessarily compatible with his anxiety disorder, the act of making music for joy sometimes at odds with the act of striving for success. Find out how RSM was able to help Jay manage his anxiety and what it has meant for his career.
What first made you want to pursue a career in music?
My grandmother had always wanted to be a singer, so I had her influence growing up, listening to music with her and playing with other members of my family. I started with classical piano, then the electric guitar, then started singing, uploading videos to YouTube and lastly writing. But the moment I decided to go for it and to make music more seriously was during my second year at university, when I didn’t really know what I was going to do career-wise. I was studying Business, but music had always been my passion.
I went to an Ed Sheeran concert; he’s always been someone I’ve looked up to. At that moment, I got this feeling that that might be what I wanted to do, the scary realisation that maybe I had to do that. From there, I started reading up on the biographies of other musicians and noticed that they weren’t superheroes, they had real life stories like mine. So, from there I started working on an EP to release. That all happened in Barcelona, then I went on an exchange to Los Angeles, and soon after I moved to the UK. That was three and a half years ago now.
My influences were all British or American and I had a lot of interest in the language. Moreover, I came to London on a school trip as a teenager and I really fell in love with it. On a different trip, I had discovered busking, which is something you can’t do as easily in Spain. I first tried busking in Santa Monica while I was in Los Angeles, and then again here in the UK. For many months, I was a full-time busker!
You have spoken about your anxiety disorder previously; do making music help or hinder your management of it?
I first became aware of my anxiety disorder after I had to stop busking, during Covid. I used to be a nervous and stressed kid, but I never reached a breaking point. However, during lockdown it got worse. Making music is a double-edged sword, it helps when you’re flowing, but it can also have the opposite effect if you become too much of a perfectionist or demanding.
What doesn’t help is the music industry, especially if you have to navigate it on your own as an independent artist. You need to make a lot of content to build a fan base, and even if you do, royalties and monetisation will not be high enough to pay the bills. And all of that is assuming the algorithms have got enough data on you to start recommending your music, which can take quite a long period of time and a big marketing budget.
Another source of anxiety is how the “artist” role is evolving as music becomes a commodity. Technology has always been used in music to make things easier. You can take me as an example: I produce with virtual instruments and a keyboard. While MIDI and samples democratised production and reduced the costs of entry for new producers, it also removed session musicians from studios. In 15 years, AIs could be doing everything a producer and a songwriter do at a fraction of the cost.
I understand musicians and creators will not disappear, but I see all these trends and I worry about the role of the artist being narrowed to the personality, appearance, and messaging side of it.
What made you first seek out support from RSM?
At some point during the pandemic, I realised that I could use some help. I was feeling sensations in my body that did not go away. Someone introduced me to mindfulness, which helped for a while, but then things got worse to the point I couldn’t self-manage it. That’s when I sought help from BAPAM, which assigned me a therapist. As I was running out of sessions, I reached out to RSM and they were able to fund more treatment. It was a surprisingly easy process.
I have always had these expectations and dreams about what I should accomplish, and, being completely DIY, I think it’s reasonable to get disappointed when something doesn’t work; so I got burnt out. With RSM’s support, I was able to get through that period, which allowed me to take a step back, revisit the dreams and ambitions I had envisioned when I was in my second year at university and reassess where they came from. I realised I wanted to enjoy what I was doing; I didn’t want to get triggered by my passion. Music is meant to make me happy.
How has the support helped with your anxiety?
There’s a level of self-awareness you can only achieve after a lot of work on yourself. This has been the main gift therapy has given me. It has also helped me realise that when, back at university, I thought I knew what I wanted, I was actually being arrogant. How can my present self know what the future self will want?
There was something my therapist, Gabriella, said that shows my growth during this period. She reminded me that when we first met, anxiety would be something I would want to ‘solve’ or ‘eliminate’, but a few weeks ago I described it in a different way for the first time. It has now become a set of ‘guardrails’ that I can use to keep me on track, and to point me back in the right direction. It follows a test and pivot mentality that I’ve always had. You test something and if it goes wrong, you change course and move forward, and test again. Not always in a straight line, but you are progressing. Anxiety symptoms, for me, are what makes me keep changing course, but always progressing.
What do you have planned for 2023? Will we hear new music?
Actually, I’ve just released my first track since my last EP, and I have three more fully mastered waiting to be freed into the world! I’m planning to follow another ‘waterfall’ release plan, as we call it, where you release a few singles and then an EP. My girlfriend says it’s my best work! When I started doing music, I used to do a lot of sad stuff, but I think therapy has helped me to work on my sound and allowed me to do more upbeat stuff!
It’s quite hard to hold the ones I have ready, there’s a part of me that wants to release them, but it gives me time to work on new material and manage stress. What I will often do is post snippets on Instagram or give early access to my newsletter subscribers to get this need to share out of my system! Also, the moment that a song is released, it’s not yours anymore, so by keeping them for a little longer, I can feel them closer for that bit longer.
Click here to listen to Jay’s new track. To find out more about Jay, visit his website at www.jayblanes.com. You can subscribe to his newsletter here.
If you or someone you know is struggling, we’re here to help. Contact our Casework team on 020 7629 6137 or casework@rsmgb.org