Bill Ryder-Jones

Welcome to episode 172 with Bill Ryder-Jones, who is a singer-songwriter, musician, music producer and composer.

Bill was a co-founder of The Coral, which they started when he was 13, and he played lead guitar on the first five albums, eventually leaving in 2008.

It was around then that Bill started to experience depression, agoraphobia and panic attacks which would eventually lead him to leave The Coral at the height of their success.  At that time, it wasn’t made public that Bill’s mental health issues where a result of witnessing the death of his brother in a freak accident while they were on a family holiday as children..

After the breakdown that followed, Bill started to work on his solo career and to date has released 5 albums under his own name and has collaborated with the Arctic Monkey, Graham Coxon and Paloma Faith and produced records for the likes of Mick Head and Saint Saviour and many others.

His latest record, Iechyd da, was released in January to a fanfare of praise and glowing reviews and its already a contender for album of the year.

In this episode I chat to Bill about the album, the songs and the upcoming tour.

We chat about Bill’s experiences with agoraphobia and how it affects him day to day and in relationships and we chat about touring, drinking, getting older and making music.

We also chat about panic attacks and dealing with fear and being alone how sometimes choosing an unhealthy coping strategy is choosing the lesser of many possible evils.

I loved chatting to Bill.  He is such a lovely man and we laughed a lot despite getting in to some really deep topics.  I’m a huge fan of his music so getting the opportunity to ask him about it was a personal podcasting highlight for me and I can’t thank him enough for his openness and his time.

Follow Bill on socials @billryderjones tour dates and tickets available now at Bill Ryder-Jones (billryderjones.co.uk)

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

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Thanks for listening!