Kevin Kaarl on depression, tour life, and the value of vulnerability
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We partnered with the Hi, How Are You Project backstage at ACL 2023. Check out this raw and grounding conversation Guido Peluffo had with Kevin Kaarl about the intersection of mental health and music. Kaarl is a beloved Mexican singer-songwriter who advocates for mental health awareness and is finding new fans worldwide with his newest album, Paris Texas. Check out our full series of ACL artist interviews here.
(This following was translated from Spanish. To watch the video with audio in Spanish, click here.)
Q: You just played the biggest stage at the festival and you also came from a huge tour in Europe. How do you feel after all that?
A: It was incredible, really. I have enjoyed it like never before.
Q: I’m glad you had a great time, but during that tour, you had many shows in a short time. How did you handle your mental health?
A: The truth is, I didn’t know how to handle it well. It was very hard. You feel like the life of a rockstar, a musician, is incredible, but actually living it? It’s a bit strange never feeling at home. And little by little, you start to feel like you don’t know where you are, where you belong. That depression you always get while on tour — the only way to cope with it is to just surround myself with friends, talk about my problems, obviously always with a psychologist, to get help. It’s a little complicated to know how to handle it. It’s like, no one ever tells you how you can handle that depression that an artist can get while being on tour. It’s something that no one ever talks about. I feel we should be paying attention to that sector, the life of a musician, and start to raise awareness of how people cope with this and the seriousness of these problems.
Q: How are those conversations going? And have you seen how a routine or conversation has changed you?
A: The truth is my crew has always been my friends, and I’ve always known how to handle it with them and with my manager, who always supports me in every aspect. To be honest, I had to medicate myself because I had a serious problem with chronic depression and anxiety. But, at the same time, I was able to cope with the help of a psychologist, talking about how I feel and not keeping it to myself — because that’s the real problem: keeping your problems to yourself. The truth is that in my crew, we are always very open. Always expressing how we feel because we are very aware that tour life will always give you mental health issues, even physical health issues. We always get sick while on tour. So it’s talking and talking and talking and not letting it consume you completely.
Q: So, on that tour, did you enter into a routine to help you combat the stress or anxiety that you have? Is there something specifically that you do to help yourself?
A: There’s always a routine you have to do, but don’t let that routine consume you so much. Change it from time to time. Like I said, always talk, it is the most important thing of all. Staying busy helps a lot to cope with all of that, because sometimes it does make you get up even if you don’t want to, and, little by little, force yourself to do certain things that will make you feel better in the long run.
Q: In the Latin American communities, we see the development of more machismo issues and everything. That men cannot cry, they cannot express themselves. You and your lyrics are very sentimental. You feel a lot in your songs. Is there something about your creative process that inspired you to write these songs with so much emotion?
A: I feel like when you feel bad, and have those serious depression issues, being able to find a way to write it exactly how you’re feeling it — in a lyric, in a song — I feel that it helps a lot to understand yourself and to feel more liberated. And I feel like it helped me a lot. I released Paris Texas, which is my latest album. I released it last year and, in it, I talk about all those problems of depression, of feeling alone, of not knowing who you are. Because music changes you.
Q: With your art, you were expressing yourself and taking care of your mental health at the same time.
A: It’s a cliché, but the truth is that when you express yourself through art, it will always, always make you feel better. And I feel like it’s good therapy, so to speak.
WATCH THE INTERVIEW