Supporting an Artist - Part Two: Health

On January 18th, I released the first installment in Knightengale Music’s “Supporting an Artist” series, in which I discussed financial reasons for supporting an artist. This week I want to expand on what artists go through from a medical point of view in order to provide us with entertainment, because “break a leg” doesn’t remotely cover it.

On rare occasions a show, or a tour in extreme cases, will be cancelled because of an injury or other emergency that calls an artist away from their normal schedule. A recent case is that of the upcoming U2 360 tour, which was put off when lead singer Bono required surgery on his back. What you don’t hear about though, are the countless times throughout a tour when an artist goes on stage sick with the Flu, or a broken limb, simply because “the show must go on”. When fans are sick, they may miss out on going to a show, or doing something else that they would like to be able to, but overall, it is easy to just stop and rest. Regardless of how bands feel, if they stop to think about it or say no to a show because they’re tired, pretty soon everything will come undone. While substance abuse remains a problem in the industry, there are still far more problems that an artist has no control over that they fight past for the fans. They destroy themselves for us and ask little in return. Lead singers such as Matt Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold, and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, have required surgeries on their throats to fix various problems that would have eventually kept them from singing. In 2005, Foxy Brown was diagnosed with “sudden hearing loss”, but she is far from alone. Although technology has made it possible to make professional grade earplugs that filter some of the noise, there are still far too many musicians who suffer from hearing loss due to working around such loud equipment.

I realize this article is not particularly long or well written, but it is simply meant to once again explain that all of these problems are yet another reason not to pirate music. Half the bands out there already know that a certain segment of their concert-goers didn’t even pay for their album, and while they appreciate the interest, they would appreciate you actually paying for the albums a lot more. The industry works hard to keep you happy, return the favor.