NOT JUST MUSIC… Notes on Mental Wellness from a Touring Musician

Part of what makes me excited about booking a festival is the opportunity to be intentional about artists who represent the core pillars of the festival, especially Mental Wellness and Community Connection.

Being a touring artist requires incredible mental & emotional stamina. We learn how to cope socially, how to give ourselves rest, how to manage depression and anxiety, the ups and downs of the music industry, and our own identities. The life of a musician is a giant lab for self-work within community.

I have selected this year’s lineup because of their incredible talent, but also because they stand for the fact that we all deserve to be well: to be treated with dignity, to be held in community and to be able to live and speak and sing our truths. These artists get on stage day after day in ways that make a more beautiful, honest and heart-ful world for all of us. I’m so grateful to their work.

So, whether it’s Semler’s music that processes religious trauma on queerness or The PInkerton Raid’s songs that shine light on the plight of lower-class Americans, the bands coming to Soil & Sky this year are all humans who I admire, trust and am thrilled to share a stage with.

With Love, David Wimbish