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Artist News
Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos not quitting music, but is going to focus more on mental health support for artists
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 26 July 2017
Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos has responded to recent reports that he is quitting music, saying that this is not the case. He does, however, plan to spend time focussing fully on his Wishart Group mental health advocacy organisation, and to that end will take “time away from being a commercialised artist”.
Among a number of tweets discussing mental health awareness at the weekend, Angelakos wrote: “Until it is safer and healthier for us to be advocates, to be a writers, producers, and performers, I simply cannot continue making music”.
This led to numerous reports stating that Angelakos was putting Passion Pit on hiatus or quitting music altogether. But it’s not as simple as that, he says. He will continue to make new music, but you might not hear it for a while. Either way, there are plenty of Passion Pit releases in the schedule. However, right now, he feels he needs to focus fully on The Wishart Group, meaning promoting his music will have to wait.
“Contrary to the headlines, I am not really on hiatus”, he wrote in a statement to Pitchfork. “That might be a bit of a casual word to use in this scenario. I make music everyday, it’s part of my life. I just played a show and I am about to officially release an album. The proceeds from the album are going entirely to psychiatric scientific research at The Stanley Center / Broad Institute. I was an artist before I was signed and working within this industry, and (as confusing as it may be to many people, myself included) I am continuing to be an artist with or without the industry”.
He continued: “What I am actually doing – what I have said I am going to do – is all the work required in the development of The Wishart Group. It requires my full attention, which means taking time away from being a commercialised artist. It requires me to explain this because the idea that we can do several things at once and really create change, especially in the realm of mental health, is clearly not working. It’s just not enough, though I wish it were”.
“I cannot continue to operate in this space, this industry, due to the way that it functions and treats people that work for it or create within it”, he went on. “It does nothing to promote the health required in order to produce the work it sells. The risks associated with being a commercialised artist and embarking on a typical album release, like endless promotion and touring, have nearly killed me”.
As previously reported, Angelakos launched The Wishart Group earlier this year. The organisation aims to provide musicians with legal, educational and healthcare services and has already raised over $250 million of funding.
Of his commitment to the organisation, he said in the statement: “I only have a certain amount of attention, so it should be used carefully. I started The Wishart Group and will be focusing full time on its developments. I will be advising other industries, and doing any work that is required at this current juncture until I have achieved certain goals and helped build a new system. We need better systems, systems that can actually contain and tend to workers, like artists who want to and have been contractually signed into deals to make music for people”.
Read Angelakos’ full statement here.
