00:00hey everyone i'm brent i'm zach and you're from the band shinedown and we are here to talk about
00:06mental health um how have we seen mental health conversations evolve since we've been doing this
00:11um a ton i think i'm not trying to specifically call out a a group of people but i think a lot
00:20growing up in the era we grew up in for men especially you just kind of would push that
00:24down and you wouldn't necessarily talk about i think now that we live in a space where men feel
00:29more comfortable talking and everyone feels more comfortable talking about mental health and it's
00:32that's kind of the goal is when you realize that you have someone to talk to about it and you don't
00:37have to internalize these things you realize that talking to anyone helps and so i think that since
00:43we started making music and i mean we've had songs about mental health and stay one if you start all
00:47the way back to a song like 45 um you know i think that now we see that people are open to that
00:53conversation and it's not a taboo thing and you don't have to feel like less of a human to talk
00:58to someone else about what's going on in your life and realize that it helps and we also just
01:02look at mental health as just as important as your physical health so once people started talking
01:07about it more you know it's out there so that we can help heal each other so sometimes when you're
01:13looking at what someone's going through whether it be you or someone else you know the worst thing
01:19you can do is be quiet like you've got to talk about it like you said a lot of times you're told to
01:24just kind of keep it to yourself you've got to express yourself and you know there's people out
01:29there that can help you understand what's going on you know as you grow um and you get older you
01:34change and you know you have to have a skill set and a toolbox if you will of uh maybe certain you
01:41know tools that you didn't have before so the biggest thing is like talk about it and express how
01:45you feel let's talk about our uh our fan base our fan base um talking about mental health and how we've
01:51i mean i think it really you know we've had songs about it since day one if you look at save me if
01:56you look at 45 if you look at songs off sound of madness but it really the conversation really
02:02started around get up i feel like in 2018 which was an obvious song about our bass player who was who
02:09suffers from clinical depression and and goes through it and has this great life and you know when
02:14you're talking to him you're like well man all these things around you why don't why can't you just
02:19feel better then you realize it is a deep-seated mental thing that he has to deal with every day
02:23that he doesn't want to deal with he wishes it wasn't there but when that song came out you really
02:28saw our fan base and community kind of start talking about those things and really discussing
02:33it and pouring out to us how they felt and things that they were going through and i think that's kind
02:38of how we built this fan base that we have now is through that you know we don't shy away from that
02:42we don't you know we've done you know we've been a part of the american foundation for suicide
02:47prevention since then and um going on like 14 years yeah and so for us and doing the suicide
02:53walks in washington dc every year and you know i think that and our fans showing up to that helps
02:57too so i think that seeing our fans know that it's okay to discuss these things means a lot to us and
03:03the fact that we could even if we had a small part in opening that door for them to to feel better
03:09about themselves or realizing that they have someone they can talk to that's i mean if you can save a
03:14life by telling someone it's okay to talk to someone you've done the biggest job in the world
03:17that you could ever do yeah and i mean for us like you know the way we look at it is we only have one
03:22boss in this band it just happens to be everybody in the audience so you know they express how they
03:28feel towards us we express how we feel towards them and that's why the community is so real and honest
03:33and you know we take care of each other
03:35you
