Two years ago Lauren Aquilina released her first and only album before calling it quits touring and releasing music due to the negative impact it had on her mental health. Since then Lauren has been writing songs with and for other artists, until recently. Last night Lauren released a single ‘Psycho’ (which is ace, go check it on Spotify here) On her live stream she answered the question “When will you be touring?” It was more an ‘if’ than ‘when’. Lauren explained that right now she couldn’t “mentally do it yet” and followed it up with “I’d love to be able to get to a point where I can tour again”. I LOVE the new track ‘Psycho’, I’ll definitely be shouting along to it in my car (I can’t sing, so shouting it is.)

I just hope that the pressure of the music industry doesn’t get in the way of Lauren doing what she loves. She’s 23, and it took a lot of courage to stop recording and touring 2 years ago but hopefully now any record labels will not pile on the unhealthy pressure that led Lauren to that decision. In 2016 Lauren was under a lot of pressure to release her first album and wasn’t gaining traction from radio stations etc and when a huge amount of money is being spent on an album release questions are going to be asked. But that means artists aren’t then creating because of their love of it but because of the demands from those who are expecting too much. People often assume artists are confident and bulletproof because they continually put themselves out there and open. Except they are like everyone else, they have their own struggles, demons and uncertainties. The added pressures from the music industry, from labels, managers, press and sometimes fans just exacerbates the artist’s mental health. We need to support and encourage artists to do what is right for them. I photographed Lauren several times when she toured and played at festivals and hope some time in the future I can again.

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