Courage takes many forms and sometimes the hardest thing to do is to stand up in public and admit that you have a condition which has a stigma.
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The country music star, Col Finley, is open about the depression which has laid him low and with which he still has to cope.
“I still suffer from depression”, he said – and you might think that in the very macho world of country music that that’s a big thing to say.
He says that he once got heavily into alcohol and drugs but came to realise that they weren’t the fundamental problem – depression was also part of it. “I think I took up those things to cover for the fact that I felt down.”
His new album, has a bare-your-soul song about it – “Above the Blue – where he throws light on his afflictions. He says he’s “sober and clean” now and “in control” – not cured but master of the “black dog” of depression.
Realising he was depressed led him, firstly, to try to deal with it (and without medication) but, secondly, to help others cope with it, particularly school kids.
He goes into high schools to talk about the problem – “they put musos on a pedestal”, he said, so he hopes his message has weight.
He is particularly worried about the high rate of youth suicide in this part of New South Wales. “The youth suicide rate is through the roof”, he said. Grafton, for example, had one of the highest youth suicide rates in Australia.
In Glen Innes, the High School has had to deal with a suicide.
The country music singer-songwriter believes that part of the general problem is social media, not so much in terms of bullying but because it gives an illusion of intimacy. It creates a false empathy: “Social media is a massive problem. Social media has stopped us being social. That's what I try to talk about – get your social aspect back.’
He wants people to relearn – or not forget – how to react with fellow human beings face-to face.
He is playing the Services Clubs in Glen Innes on Thursday, June 14 (entrance: free) and Tamworth, the following night as part of his current “Don’t Let the Coffee Go Cold” tour.
Before that in June, he plays Nashville, Chatanooga, Fort Worth in Texas, and Memphis, the heartland of country music where he has a following.
He’s also recently released a new album, “The Collective”, celebrating 25 years in the music business, writing, recording and performing. “I Didn’t want to tell you my story I wanted to sing it to you”, the promo material quotes him as saying.
After a quarter of a century in a tough business, his head is older and wiser.
His voice remains fabulous.
