Olivia Rodrigo promotes mental well-being on tour by funding therapy for her team
Image: Instagram
Singer Olivia Rodrigo has set a precedent in the music industry by ensuring that her entire touring team has access to free therapy.
The initiative was recently revealed by Daisy Spencer, Rodrigo's guitarist, during an appearance on "The StageLeft Podcast".
Spencer described the experience as one of the "coolest things" to encounter while on tour.
Spencer shared that throughout the recently concluded record-breaking "Guts World Tour", the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter and her tour manager, Marty Hom, made it a priority to make therapy accessible for all band members and crew.
Guitarist Daisy Spencer says Grammy Award-winning singer, Olivia Rodrigo paid for the tour team to have therapy during her 'Guts World Tour'.
Image: Instagram
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'I am a huge advocate of therapy, I had just kind of fallen off for so long. I've been struggling to find the right therapist and then on the 'Guts World Tour' they made accessible free therapy for all of the touring personnel.
"I have never had anything like that, and that reignited the importance of therapy to me because I had just kind of fallen off for so long," Spencer said.
"And then suddenly I had this free resource of incredible therapists, and I utilised the crap out of that. I was going, you know, once a week, once every other week, whenever I could. And it was even during the off time, we also still had access to this resource, honestly that was one of the coolest things that has ever happened on tour.
"That is one of the best things you can give to people, is accessible free therapy because it can get kind of expensive and that's just life sometimes, you have the money and sometimes you don't.'
The "Vampire" singer's decision to provide therapy aligns with her own advocacy for mental health awareness, a topic she has openly discussed in the past.
With a family background steeped in this field - her father, Chris Rodrigo, is a family therapist - the significance of mental health is not lost on the young artist.
In a past interview, Rodrigo shared: "A lot of people think, listening to my music, that I'm a really sad, depressed person and that couldn't be farther from the truth. Definitely not at all crying on my bedroom floor all the time.
"But it's fun to write about stuff like that, like if I was just writing about how I was happy, going to get my iced latte every morning, nobody would listen to it, it wouldn't be interesting," she continued at the time.
The mental health landscape for those in the music industry poses challenges. Online reports note that musicians are up to three times more likely to experience depression compared to the general population.
Factors such as financial pressures, hectic schedules and lifestyle choices contribute to these alarming statistics.
Back to the podcast interview, Spencer also revealed the personal therapeutic benefits derived from this opportunity.
"Therapy does open up some old wounds for me, like I have just a lot of unprocessed trauma. I've been touring since I was 17, I've seen a lot of stuff ... Now at 31, I'm doing baby Daisy a good justice of finally getting to hear baby Daisy's story of what they were going through when I was younger and everything.
"It's been a gift for real. I feel like it is such a gift to be able to look within yourself and have someone else help you bring some stuff out of you that you might otherwise on your own not be able to get there.
"That's the gift that therapy has given to me, is that I am able to really flesh out some stuff from my childhood that needed a voice," Spencer said.
Watch the full podcast below.
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