A Conversation with Jenna Andrews on Mental Health & the Music Industry
WITH A FRESH GRAMMY NOMINATION AND A PODCAST FUELING THE DESTIGMATIZATION OF MENTAL HEALTH - Singer, songwriter and vocal producer Jenna Andrews somehow does it all. Radiating a true passion for her work, both from music to her podcast The Green Room, Andrews brings a genuine approach to every project she’s involved in. What started as an idea for Andrews to speak with fellow artists and go a layer deeper behind the making of a song evolved into a podcast that allows her audience to connect with artists and professionals in the field of mental and emotional health. Previous guests have included Lennon Stella, Kiesza and Rebecca Black, with each episode highlighting an honest discussion amongst the guests, mental health professionals and Andrews herself. In partnership with The Jed Foundation and She Is The Music, The Green Room creates an important space for vulnerability and learning while touching on struggles many share and relate to.
Hours before Andrews took the time to speak with us via Zoom, she was nominated for a Grammy award for her work on BTS’ “Dynamite”, an incredible honor and feat. It’s clear Andrews’ hard work continues to pay off across her career, all while she sticks to an attitude of positivity and gratitude. Tune in to The Green Room to witness the important work she is doing in the mental health conversation and read below to learn more about the birth of the podcast, how she hopes to expand it and more.
LUNA: How are you doing? How are you taking care of yourself these days?
ANDREWS: This year has been such a crazy year on so many different levels. I think career-wise for me it's been such a great year. It's been my best year which is interesting given it's been such a dark year. I feel really blessed and I feel really lucky to not be sick, have a great career year and be able to work from home really effectively. Obviously everything going on the world affects you in waves, so I sort of go in and out of waves, but generally speaking, I personally have been really good and I feel very lucky for that. I typically like to keep positive spirits and I feel like that really helps. I believe that when you have good energy, it's a mind body and soul thing. In general, it just helps your overall outlook on life. I think that's a big part of self care - keeping spirits high as much as you can, and having positive mantras that you tell yourself.
LUNA: It's been interesting to see that despite everything going on a lot of people are doing really well in their career. There's a weird conflict because of course they want to celebrate their wins but also they gotta read the room.
ANDREWS: So many of my friends are experiencing a similar thing, it's weird. I think the universe is sort of challenging us this year, as human beings. It's sort of making you see yourself through a microscope scope, more than I think you would have been able to see that in normal life, because we're sitting here and we're at home. I think that the more time you have you start to evaluate what you really want to do, what makes you happy, as well as who you are, what your purpose is, and what do you want to achieve. In a time like this in crisis, people think, "Oh, wow, we're so lucky to have this life." So I think that's part of it, because I think everyone is sort of like, "Okay, well, this is my one life and 2020 is the last year let's go!"
When I feel like everything is sort of on the line, there's more like bravery and opportunity to take risks. I think a lot of times people, including myself, were nervous about those things. Let's say you aren't happy with something then you would continue to do something that makes you unhappy, and you wouldn't necessarily make a change but because of this year, it's been the time that people are just like,"Screw it we have one life."
LUNA: Going off of that, you just got your first Grammy nomination - congrats! That's crazy - how are you feeling about it all?
ANDREWS: It's so crazy because we did it all over Zoom, how crazy insane is that? That's really the most surreal thing. Given this year and the challenges it brought, we managed to do that and freaking get a Grammy nomination! It's unbelievable. I think right now it's still sinking in. Being nominated for a Grammy alone is a huge bucket list thing. It's so weird to even hear you say it - it's so crazy!
LUNA: Shifting gears to The Green Room, you started it as a way to talk about mental health in the entertainment industry, which is super important. We're seeing a lot of initiatives regarding mental health in the industry and a lot of ways to get more involved with it all. What led to you deciding on playing a role in this movement through this conversation style series?
ANDREWS: Last year I was sitting down with my managers and initially it was supposed to be sort of a backstage look at the songwriting process. I know a lot of people have done that, but I guess the way that I was wanting to do it was more about the songwriting process often feels like therapy sessions. People in music specifically, or any form of entertainment where you're purging emotion in your art, has also come up in a good way throughout this year. We're actually able to place our emotions somewhere, which is really good and ultimately makes the art.
So the beginning idea was to be able to showcase that, and I wasn't necessarily thinking it was gonna be 100% aligned with mental health per se, but it was more about the process of how that feeling can be and the way artists, songwriters, and everybody in the room, comes to where the song actually evolves. That's really interesting for people to actually see that side of things. I think there's a lot of different shows that have tried to do something like that, but I definitely think that there's an emotion that's brought out. There's just something about when you walk out of a songwriting room, it feels so cathartic.
Coming into this year, I did a Grammy event with Alice and Olivia and the Jed Foundation, which is a nonprofit for mental health. That was right before quarantine hit and that's how I was introduced into Jed foundation, and all the proceeds from my event went back to mental health. So coming into The Green Room, we circled back to the original idea, but we were thinking more about the mental health aspect of it. This year especially, people are isolated and feeling really lonely and need sort of something to feel a little bit more connected with other humans, especially people they look up to. In our industry, I think about the fans that are looking at their favorite artists, and they think that they're the best thing ever.
What if you could actually sign in and listen to them talk about how they made their songs or why were they were feeling that way? Somebody asked me recently ‘why do musicians end up having an addiction problem?’ I think that's totally a stereotype, it's not really about that per se and it's not a musicians only issue, it's everybody. Musicians and actors are highlighted because they're in the public eye. The point is to unite and be able to have a talk about these musicians' experience in life and have the audience, or fan, realize this is not so dissimilar to how they feel. There's something really cool to say, "I wrote this song, when I was in this dark time, and this is how I felt." And for the fan to hear that they went through this, and maybe they don't have to feel so bad for going through it themself.
As a kid growing up with many different issues, whether it be anxiety or an eating disorder, I wish that it was so easy just to talk to a mentor or have somebody that could help make you feel less alone.
LUNA: It's a way to just connect people on a different way that we don't see as much and like you said, for a fan to be able to hear that other side of it just makes all the difference.
ANDREWS: 100%. I've seen it on these episodes too. We provide hotlines but I'll see people ask therapists that we have on the show, serve a great purpose because they can actually give someone real advice and after the show they can actually find resources from the Jed foundation itself, or the therapist usually offers their services as well. I like the idea of having a real therapist alongside an artist and me. The conversation of really talking about what mental health is and how it really affects people. These kind of things help it feel even less like a stigma.
LUNA: Now mental health conversations are less stigmatized, but we need to be careful that it's not the hot topic for now, rather we need to permanently shift the culture.
ANDREWS: Yes, and I guess that's part of why I feel the need to say that too. For me, as I mentioned my eating disorder and anxiety, because I went through those things and other things too, like being bullied in high school, and things that have lived with me in my entire life up till now, and has affected me tremendously in the way that I live in my adult life.
Selflessly, I love doing The Green Room because it makes me feel good to give back and selfishly, it feels good! Even for me, when I'm doing these conversations I come out of them and feel so good. It's like going to therapy. I feel like I'm a very open person and I love being open. I always tell people it's all up to your comfortability, but I found in my life, the more open the better. When I was less open and more repressed and nervous about saying anything embarrassing, it was worse because I was ashamed. Which like, why?
LUNA: You've had such a variety of guests, but you're ultimately always able to find some sort of common ground and it's something that you're all are able to connect on and touch on. What's been the biggest surprise you've had throughout the series?
ANDREWS: I didn't necessarily expect it to go this far. In the beginning, obviously being in quarantine and not being able to leave your house, it was like,"Okay, this is great, let's get these conversations rolling." But now I'm very driven to really make it something important. I really hope to be able to contribute to mental health in a way of donations and also just the community aspect. I just think it's so much bigger than us. In terms of everything in my world, like in terms of making a song, I really think the biggest thing is being able to give back to somebody, or to yourself. That's what we do when we write a song - when you go in and you write a song, you really get everything out that you need to get out and there's no better feeling.
Somebody told me the other day that Robin Williams said once you make such and such amount of people laugh, hundreds of thousands of people, it's harder to get stimulated by normal things. That's sort of why I think people do sometimes turn to drugs or alcohol because you feel bored. I was talking to another therapist about that the other day. Boredom is such a cause for those kinds of things. It's us challenging our minds and being able to do other things to be able to feel stimulated in that respect. I'm mostly surprised by how much I really feel so driven. Not to say that I wasn't as the beginning, I've always cared, but to make this sort of a mission to really try to do something bigger than just a superficial goal.
LUNA: How are you hoping to expand The Green Room?
ANDREWS: We're actually putting together all the episodes that we've done thus far and we're gonna make it official podcasts and put it up on Apple, and Spotify, which is great. We're talking to different sponsors and things like that, just to grow it all. I'm in the midst of sort of talking to a bunch of people to figure out if I'm going to start doing seasons or whatnot. I think I want to continue doing them on YouTube and do video because I love the idea that you can see someone and really have that interactive experience. But, I also feel like having a podcast to just listen is also really great. I'm also just looking to talk to different guests, and cover different sorts of topics that I haven't covered and speaking to therapists about different techniques and whatnot. On a couple of episodes we did guided meditation, which I thought was so important.
LUNA: That's a huge part of the mental health conversation too. It's more than just let's, "let's talk it out". Let's find ways to really have an impact on your life and how you're feeling through mindfulness and meditation.
Richard Wolff did a guided meditation and spoke about his panic attacks that he had and I relate to that because I started having really bad panic attacks like 10 years ago, too. His first episode with having panic attacks really inspired him to get into mindfulness. How you can be mindful through music is actually so powerful with everything that we're talking about, and I just loved that episode. Every time I do these things I'm always challenged by something. There's always something I learned which is so valuable.
LUNA: You have experience with a lot of different sides of the industry from songwriting to producing, so get to see more than just one side of it all. So with this experience, what positive changes have you seen as a result of this push towards a cultural shift with mental health with what you're doing?
ANDREWS: I feel like it's shifted me in the reason why I really do what I do. When I was conceptualizing this whole idea, I don't think I even realized how deep the therapy process was inside of this songwriting session, and how much it's helped me throughout my own life. There are so many dark times where I feel like music saved me and I think those things can relate to a lot of different people. I've really learned that and I feel like it's been so positive because I feel like I've different intentions going into every session now. Or even everything that I'm doing because I feel like it's a bigger thing.
While I do still have anxiety, I feel a little less relieved and less pressure going into it all and more thinking "You're not just doing this for you, you're doing this for a bigger thing to help somebody. Also, it's okay if you don't write a great song, especially if it made you feel something. It doesn't have to be a hit. Not everything has to be a hit and you don't have to have commercial success. You can write songs because it's cathartic for you and somebody that's listening will relate to it, and you might change their life."
I love that thought because I feel like before I would put so much pressure on myself to always deliver something for somebody else - I'm a people pleaser. I feel less like that with The Green Room because I think when I think of other people and what everyone's going through, you just think, "Why am I focusing on things that are so meaningless? When you could focus on something more important?" It starts to center everything and you start to feel a bigger sense of purpose.
I feel like I've never felt like that before. Since quarantine happened, I got a house because we're working from home and usually my fiancé and I live in apartments. Now I look at nature. When you look at water, like an ocean, you're looking into something that feels so much bigger than you. At the end of the day, of course your problems matter. When people say "Why should I be complaining about this if other people are going through such and such?" Which is right and that's human conditioning to feel empathetic. I hope people feel that way, but at the same time, you're allowed to feel anything that you feel.
I just love looking at something bigger. The one thing that I always try to tell myself is to loosen the grip - you don't have control of every situation. Looking at nature, it's like infinite and you just feel more grounded and it all doesn't matter as much as we think. We put so much pressure on us on ourselves.
LUNA: This year really showed that life is gonna move forward regardless, so the question is more so how are you gonna go along with it you know?
ANDREWS: I really don't think anything is by accident. This is absolutely happening on purpose, I think that we needed everyone needed to be checked. The way that we were functioning, in America but also outside of America globally, the fact that the pandemic hit everybody on a global scale. I know that we've had a year that feels completely divided in America, but in a weird way, I hope ultimately this will connect people on a global scale more because everyone's going through a similar thing.
LUNA: Moving forward, what do you hope the upcoming months bring you?
ANDREWS: I hope we win the Grammy! I'm just kidding, in regards to The Green Room, I hope that I can just continue to help people and broaden the audience in the sense that I feel like people have somewhere to sort of turn to and be like, "Hey, I feel better because I watched or listened to this.”
I'd love to just raise as much money as I can for for for mental health as well because that's a big mission as well as it's doing real change. I don't want to just talk about it, I actually want to be able to give back. I love the idea of being able to completely do this for a bigger cause. I really hope that it all continues to grow. I guess that's all you can really hope for, and I don't have control over everything but that's what we'd love to achieve.
CONNECT WITH JENNA ANDREWS
LISTEN TO THE GREEN ROOM
-
From Pavietra 🕊️ https://t.co/BXVgWlZud8 -
slowthai by Rosie Matheson 🤩 https://t.co/z7SDfFQ5iF
-
RT @i_D: Ian Kenneth Bird photographs young punks on Polaroid: https://t.co/MKT0tMUqO9 https://t.co/a0tTl12ML5
-
RT @AnOtherMagazine: #DreamHome – this isolated idyll in the mountains of Lanzarote 🌵 📸 via Nowness, photography by Clemence Blr 🔁 https://t.co/GUusdxD0cg
