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- Olga Heijns, who manages high-profile dance music artists like Laidback Luke and Blasterjaxx, told Business Insider the death of Swedish DJ Avicii in April has "accelerated change" in the industry.
- Avicii's death was by suicide. Two years prior, he had retired from touring after repeatedly warning that the lifestyle was going to kill him, but that he was being pressured to continue.
- A number of other dance artists, including Laidback Luke, have publicly experienced "burnout" and have even quit the tour circuit because of it.
- A 2016 study showed that 69% of musicians had experienced depression, while 71% have had panic attacks and/or high levels of anxiety.
- This is heightened in the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) world, where artists get little sleep and play shows year-round.
- Laidback Luke told Business Insider that in 2018 "we finally get to talk about it, you're finally not being judged."
- However, he believes there should be guidelines on how many shows a DJ can play and how many flights they can take.
- Heijns also stresses there's a "huge role" for managers, labels, and agents to let artists know it's OK to say no — and that they're not expected to be "always on."
My memory of Avicii, the Swedish DJ and producer who was found dead in Oman in April, is a good one.
During my final year at Western University in Ontario, Canada, I went to one of his shows with some friends, dressed in neon and wearing sunglasses at night like an idiot.
The atmosphere — and the music — were euphoric, and his energy on stage was contagious.
It was the one and only time in my life I experimented with drugs.
I got home at around 4 a.m. covered in sweat, took a shower, and slept until what must have been mid-afternoon the next day.
It was the type of night most people have once or maybe a handful of times before getting on with their life.
But for EDM DJs, this lack of sleep, demand for energy, and even involvement in drugs and alcohol can happen every night.
Olga Heijns, who looks after high-profile dance music artists through her management company Unmanageable Artists, knows this all too well.
Heijns' career in music saw her work in promotion and for labels like Colombia Records before she entered the world of management in 2001.
Over the years that followed, she developed a number of other businesses — including a booking agency, a publisher, and her own label, Mixmash Records — but is now focused mainly on artist management.
Throughout her time in the industry, she has seen a number of her artists experience "burnout" from the lifestyle — including Dutch DJ and record producer duo Blasterjaxx and fellow Dutch DJ and music producer Laidback Luke, an artist she currently works with who was a close friend and mentor to Avicii, real name Tim Bergling.
The pressures of the EDM world
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Berling's death was by suicide at the age of 28, with his family stating he "could not go on any longer" and "wanted to find peace."
He had retired from touring in 2016, citing a series of health concerns that included acute pancreatitis, in part due to excessive drinking.
In a documentary titled "Avicii: True Stories," released in October 2017, he repeatedly warned that the touring lifestyle was going to kill him, but that he was being pressured to continue.
"There's a huge difference between [artists in the dance space] and artist in the pop/rock/hip hop scene," Heijns told me.
For starters, she said that other artists are used to a more cyclical life.
"If they're successful, they'll have a two year tour, come off the road, spend Christmas, holidays, and birthdays with family back home, take some time off, then go back into the studio," she said. "There's an end to it.
"With DJs, it just goes on full year round. There's always a holiday somewhere, which means there's a dance party. There's summer or a festival around the world at all times."
Because of this, she said a lot of dance artists have the idea that they can't miss out.
"'This is the one show that will be super important, I can't afford to miss it,' they'll say. They're suffering from a pressure that's not comparable anywhere else. It's constant deadline upon deadline."
'Everything is personal'
![Olga Heijns]()
It often goes unsaid that it's not just the artist who experience the pressure, but also their teams and managers — like Heijns — too.
"The professional team to a certain extent are suffering from strenuous demands," she agreed.
However, she added that for an artist, "everything is personal."
"People will judge me, my appearance, the things I say. That adds up a little bit with the pressure of the world leaning on you."
"There's very little difference between what an artist in dance music does and their personal sphere," she said. "When they get feedback on Instagram and criticism on Facebook, everything feels really personal. It's a little bit of a rabbit hole."
She added: "Representing various artists, I can see criticism on a post, but it's not directed at me. There's a lot more distance between what they experience and what we experience."
Speaking to me last week, 42-year-old Laidback Luke, born Lucas Cornelis van Scheppingen, agreed. "My manager works super hard, she's always online, you can always reach her, but the difference is that I'm in the public eye as well. People will judge me, my appearance, the things I say. That adds up a little bit with the pressure of the world leaning on you."
The signs of burnout aren't always clear
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It's not always obvious when the pressure is becoming too much for an artist until it's too late, according to Heijns.
She represented Blasterjaxx at the time when Idir Makhlaf from the duo made a public statement saying he was coming off the road due to panic and anxiety attacks.
"I noticed that touring did not sit good with Idir at all, he was definitely showing all the signs of suffering from anxiety," she said, but added that he felt 'I'm not supposed to feel like this, I can't let my partner down, If I stop I basically sabotage him too.'"
She said while there was an "overwhelming response" to his statement that he would no longer tour, certain people in the industry clearly didn't understand.
"Certain promoters were saying 'If you make a goodbye gig I'll pay you X, Y, Z,' using it to try and negotiate something out of this," she said.
Just last month, Dutch DJ Hardwell — or Robbert van de Corput — announced he would no longer be touring, citing that his career "leaves too little energy, love, creativity and attention for my life as a normal person to do so."
Heijns said Hardwell "seemed in great spirits" and had said he was working out and taking time off.
"For us, there were zero signs for Robbert... It sounded like he was making all the right decisions, and still only a few weeks later it was the straw that broke the camel's back apparently."
"The study also found that musicians may be up to three times more likely to experience depression than the general public."
According to a study of 2,211 musicians published by UK charity Help Musicians in 2016, 69% of respondents had experienced depression, while 71% have had panic attacks and/or high levels of anxiety.
The study also found that musicians may be up to three times more likely to experience depression than the general public.
A separate Help Musicians UK study of 500 participants found that the stressors that could impact a musician's mental health included lack of sleep, consistency, and proper diet, physical conditions, performance anxiety, fear of judgment, loneliness, discrimination, bullying, and familial problems.
While it can be depression they experience, some have also cited what's known as "burnout."
In a blog post for Psychology Today, Susan Biali Haas, M.D. wrote that the two conditions can overlap — but for a person to be diagnosed with burnout, three components need to be present.
These are "emotional exhaustion" (feeling tired all the time, and even after time off), "cynicism/depersonalization," which she described as having "a growing sense of detachment from your work," and "reduced personal efficiency," or losing confidence in the ability to do your job. "You work harder and harder, but seem to accomplish less," she wrote. "Your productivity has dropped significantly, and your belief in yourself has fallen along with it."
Having already suffered from two burnouts in his life, Laidback Luke — another artist I witnessed on stage during my university days — recently reached his threshold once again.
"I was always the kid that would say burnouts are for sissies, that's not going to happen to me, [but] after half a year or a year of not sleeping... not eating well, I finally hit my threshold, [and] all I could do is lay in bed for two weeks feeling major anxiety," he told me.
![Laidback Luke]()
He said that his symptoms were different every time, from a change in sleeping and eating patterns the first time around and not being able to switch off to using alcohol to "run away from real life."
His most recent burnout, however, started after the death of Avicii, to whom he was close.
"I was at the playground with my daughter but it felt like 1,000 men were coming to get me."
"All of a sudden I would be in regular environments, I would get chills or tinglings inside of my body... [They would keep] on building a little bit," he said.
He began to have "huge panic attacks" as well.
"My whole world was caving in," he said. "I was at the playground with my daughter but it felt like 1,000 men were coming to get me."
Heijns added that she didn't see it coming.
"He's not a new kid on the block, he guides other young talents, in reality he has all the tools. He knows we support a healthy and balanced lifestyle and still, it took him experiencing the passing of Avicii, and then also Hardwell announcing he was taking time off to look after himself, for it to have a serious impact on Luke, for him to realise 'my pace is still too fast.'"
Laidback Luke predicted Avicii's death in 2016
![Laidback Luke:Avicii]()
Avicii had joined a forum for young artists and producers set up by Luke, who Heijns called "a coach to all these kids," at a young age.
Heijns added that the first gig Avicii ever played was for Luke at an event in Miami, and he went on to release under Luke's record label.
"He gave me a very sincere but oh-so-tired smile when he saw me. Soon after, he was onstage playing his amazing music — and that's when it dawned on me. This wonderful and talented kid might not overcome his struggles."
"It was a mentor/mentee relationship," she said. However, of Avicii's struggles, she added: "One of the biggest heartbreaks for Luke was that he could see it happening."
In 2016, Luke wrote an op-ed for Billboard calling for fans to pay attention to what was going on in the industry after Avicii announced his retirement from live performances following health issues related to alcohol and exhaustion.
"The first few years of heavy touring can have a major impact on a person's life, health, and sanity," he wrote. "DJs on tour average about four hours of sleep per night, and with drinking, afterparties, adulation and everything that comes with it, it's easy to lose oneself."
He wrote that when he saw Bergling in August 2015, he "looked terrible."
"He gave me a very sincere but oh-so-tired smile when he saw me. Soon after, he was onstage playing his amazing music — and that's when it dawned on me. This wonderful and talented kid might not overcome his struggles."
It was at that moment he envisioned his friend, then 26, joining the infamous "27 club" of music and film stars who died at that age.
"It sounds horrible but it's the truth, and I can't take back the overwhelming sense of frustration I felt," he wrote. "It was like watching Amy, the recent Amy Winehouse documentary, and suddenly realizing that you too were laughingly belting out her lyrics — 'They tried to make me go to rehab/I said no no no' — while we all watched the spectacle, seeing tragedy unfold and not doing a damn thing."
In his Billboard piece, he called Avicii's choice to retire "a brave decision — to walk away from the light, in both figurative and literal senses" — but unfortunately it wasn't enough. Avicii may not have joined the "27 club," but he was found dead at the age of 28.
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"It's heartbreaking for [Luke]," Heijns said. "At the time he tried to reach out to Tim, but he was already so closed off to the rest of the world and Luke physically couldn't reach out to him any more. It was a big personal loss for him."
Of Bergling's death, Luke told me: "It's been a massive shock. Avicii was one in the making for years, [but] all of us pretty much ignored that.
"Mental health issues were only for crazy people, not guys who were making millions of dollars and were incredibly famous. This shook us awake heavily."
Drug and alcohol abuse is just a symptom of the problem
While she believes the industry's attitude towards substances have changed, Heijns said: "Let's not deny that drugs and alcohol are very much a part of nightlife."
Last month, rapper Mac Miller died of an apparent overdose at the age of 26 following struggles with substance abuse — and he's the latest in a line of artists to do so.
Speaking to THUMP, Vijaya Manicavasagar, Director of Psychological Services at the Black Dog Institute, a non-profit established to research and treat mental illness, said that artists are at "particular risk of mental health issues not only because the lack of sleep and unhealthy lifestyle make it hard to keep 'your moods and emotions at an even keel,' but also because partying hard can mask people's underlying troubles."
"If they're feeling low or if they're feeling anxious, they might attribute it mistakenly to, 'oh well, I've just been partying very hard, I'm hungover, whatever', so they may not even realize that actually there is an underlying problem here," Manicavasagar said.
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Luke told me that by age 31, he had incorporated drinking into his schedule more and more until he got his second burnout.
"There was never time to have a hangover," he said. "I remember sitting on airplanes, standing in lines at airports either being drunk or hungover, coming home to my wife and two small kids, a grumpy and stressed out dad because of the hangovers.
"It took me a few weeks to recover from that. I left the alcohol behind, which kept me going for another 10 years."
Heijns added: "Usually people trying to escape the problem in their lives, excessive behaviour becomes part of that, which can be drugs, alcohol, sex, eating. Whatever takes you away from not having to face what the actual problem is."
Accelerating change in the industry
Heijns believes the industry has been changing since before Avicii's death — but his passing has "accelerated" the process.
"I don't know what happened with Avicii...He had already been off the road for so long... But the fact that people are now talking more about this, that press are taking the time to shed a light on it, that is something that has come out of that."
"The fact that people are now talking more about this, that press are taking the time to shed a light on it, that is something that has come out of that."
She said the main difference is how people "immediately act" now when someone speaks out about their mental health.
"In my beginning years, working with a certain artist, for sure he was having anxiety attacks, but at the time I thought he was being a diva," she said. "I was saying, 'Why are you not getting on this plane, we've put so much work in and there's so much at stake,'" she said. "But somebody in that situation can't explain it sometimes, can't find the words to explain what's going on."
She added that having artists like Hardwell publicly acknowledge what they're going through is "very helpful for all these other guys that might be going through the same thing, rather than what might have happened in the past — a silent exit or 'exhaustion,' whatever you could spin to not call it what it is."
Since Avicii's death, Luke added that people in the industry have also been coming to him to talk about their mental health problems.
"It's been good, I feel there's an overall sense of positivity and understanding in there, I think that will help all of us," he said. "I had my first burnout when I was 21. What I love about 2018 is that we finally get to talk about it — you're finally not being judged."
![Laidback Luke]()
Still, there's a long way to go in changing behaviours when it comes to the "always on" attitude that exists in the music industry.
"If you start where it's expected for you to be always on, that's a vicious cycle," Heijns said. "You can't always be on 24/7, for years on end. It's something you can do for a period of time if you're working towards something, but the way I approach it, your job should be structured in a way where you could do it in normal office hours.
"You should have time off, you should be able to have a weekend off, and if you are working over the weekend, you should have other days off."
She added that it's her responsibility to let her team know it's okay to say no — and to lead by example by personally trying to switch off.
"There's a huge role for people in my position," she said. "That means managers, responsible people at the label, agents, to really sift through what is absolutely necessary, [and say] 'Is this the way that we need to get it done?'
"Sometimes you say no even when the artist is inclined to say yes. Change the narrative."
"Sometimes you say no even when the artist is inclined to say yes. Change the narrative."
Still, she acknowledges that while she has years of real life experience, she shouldn't be the sole person providing mental health support.
"I don't think there's enough people out there that make an artist feel comfortable enough to open themselves up to help... It doesn't sync up with what their reality is," she said.
Luke also believes that artists need more formal support.
"DJs need to have a union where people look after our schedules, time zones, travel," he said. When I interviewed him in 2017, he told me he was taking more than 200 flights a year. "There should actually be guidelines on what the maximum amount of flights are that a DJ should take, like 'you can only do four shows at a time.' Flight attendants or any other type of job have one."
'We're being fooled by society'
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One way Luke is trying to slow down his pace is by cutting back on the time he spends on social media.
"I used to say, whenever I'm on vacation, keep on emailing me, [but I] can't do it any more," he said, adding that he's also taking a day off from responding to Twitter and Instagram comments.
"It's [people like Avicii] that give us the proof that we're being fooled by society to work as hard as you can to make the most money you can to be as famous as you can."
"Social media has opened my eyes to how damaging it is for our mental health," he went on. "Something like Instagram, obviously people put up their best lives, and as a human you start comparing. You think your life and you are nothing, and everyone is great except for you."
A study last year found that Instagram was the worst social media platform in terms of the impact it has on the mental wellbeing of young adults — and Luke said it has an effect on everyone, no matter who they are.
"I get confronted with loads of things and comments, obviously a lot of positivity as well, but it's easy to get ticked off by someone who has a bad day and feels like they need to make a comment at you," Luke said.
He added that it's a mistake to see the life someone appears to be leading in the public eye and assume they must be happy.
"It's easy if someone makes a tremendous amount of money and has all the success they've ever dreamed of, to say 'why are you complaining,' not acknowledging their struggles," he said.
"I, for one, would love for people to understand life isn't about money and fame, it's [people like Avicii] that give us the proof that we're being fooled by society to work as hard as you can to make the most money you can to be as famous as you can.
"Within that we forget to live, to enjoy life — we forget the little things which are big things, and just to take care of yourself."
If you work in music and are struggling to cope, or know someone who is, you can contact Music Minds Matter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 0808 802 8008 or MMM@helpmusicians.org.uk.
SEE ALSO: DJ and producer Avicii warned 'I'm going to die' in a documentary released 6 months before he was found dead at 28
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