Raleigh Ritchie

I listen to Jacob and find I have similar recollections of my teen years. It’s a notoriously difficult time, but in recent years with social media and the glamorisation of mental illness in the media, we are seeing more and more young people struggle with anxiety and depression. He talks candidly about his experiences with self-harm and the effect it still has on him today. “I was watching a film from the mid-90s the other day and the little boy in the film was self-harming. And it was quite similar to the way that I used to self-harm. At the time I never would have called it that because my understanding of self-harm was one thing and there was only ever one kind of portrayal of it on TV or the way that people spoke about it. So I would never have characterised it in that way. Now I understand what I was doing. I understand what it is, I understand what that instinct is. It’s interesting that I feel, as I’m getting older, I’m starting to see those things more, even though they’ve been around forever.

I’m working with a charity at the moment who provide counsellors to schools. These kids need a space to speak with someone who isn’t their teacher or parent. It’s also elective so you can, if you are a child or young person and you feel like you need to speak to somebody about something, then you can anonymously say that you want to go and speak to somebody and they’re there. The charity works all over the country and I just think wouldn’t it be amazing if we had a system where it didn’t need that to be funded from outside sources like charities alone” As he opens up to me I commend Jacob on how comfortable he feels baring his soul to someone he just met 20 minutes ago, even braver he wants it all on the record for you to hear. But if you break down Andy you essentially gain access to all his thoughts, both highs and lows.

“I’m still trying to figure it out as I go along and check in on myself. I have very low self-esteem which is something that people are always really surprised to learn, especially about anybody that does anything that’s is remotely public. Just because I’m working in an industry where you’re constantly being compared to other people doesn’t mean I don’t have issues with my self-esteem. Perception is big currency in the music industry which I’ve really had to wrestle with. To the industry, I’m a songwriter, I exist on the basis that everything is subjective. Like you’re writing about a subjective experience and you’re trying to articulate yourself In the hope, or at I’m writing this in the hope that other people are like ‘Oh, you’re like me’. Because that’s what music did for me when I was growing up. When I couldn’t connect with family or friends there were musicians and filmmakers and artists that I felt understood me.

So I feel like that’s partly my responsibility to take forward. Saying that I’ve really struggled with it. I still do, especially the comparisons between other people. It may be a cliche, but I put my heart and soul into my music about quite fragile things. And it’s hard to reason with the idea of like somebody saying, that isn’t good enough. So you almost have to remove yourself. You don’t want to think about that too much. Because then you’re not being true to yourself. Particularly with the last album because I didn’t have to discuss it too much with anybody like I did the first album. But I’ve realised If those feelings are there, then I feel like I know that I’ve told the truth. I feel like I know, I’ve done what I was supposed to do.”
Jacob has two very distinct aliases through which he shares his work, I wanted to find out whether this was a conscious effort to separate his worlds. “100%. I think at first, it was a symptom of perception. Even though I’ve been making music the whole time, long before I did any kind of acting, I was really conscious of how people would perceive me. I think, particularly in this country that we really love to perpetuate an underdog narrative which I think is really unhealthy. I think it encourages people with low self-esteem to feel like they have to stay in that place. To succeed, you have to be struggling, you have to be suffering, you have to be at rock bottom. And if you’re not at the bottom, then you’re too privileged to need help or you’re too privileged to be worth anybody’s ears. So at first, the label really wanted me to use my own name and I just didn’t want to do it. With the name Raleigh Ritchie I thought a lot to myself am I credible? But now I’m just glad that I’ve got another name because I think it’s helped me say what I want and not feel self-conscious about somebody assigning it to my name. The irony being that Raleigh Ritchie says all the stuff that I don’t feel like Jacob can”.

Andy is one of the best albums to come out of 2020, in her review one of our writers Jade Poultney called it “An encapsulating diary you can’t put down, each song retelling a different stage of his journey through therapy dealing with mental health in an increasingly clearer way. It’s melancholy, it’s sad, it looks at depression, anxiety, loss and uncertainty but no track is miserable, they are upbeat, light and pleasant to listen to.”

“Andy was my granddad’s nickname. His full name was Basil Anderson but people called him Andy for short. A friend of mine started calling me Andy which made me feel connected to him again. At the time my granddad’s house was separate so it was a real safe place for me. At the time it felt like he’s he was a human being who wasn’t complicated. So when I wrote the album, it felt like it felt really me., I just wanted to call it something that reflected that. I would have called it Jacob if I didn’t think that it was so corny. So calling it Andy was my way to have my cake and eat it.”

With our conversation focusing on what’s helped form the narrative behind his music, I wanted to find out what works as the medicine for him.“When I was in a really bad place, I would try and express it, and I couldn’t articulate myself. I found things confusing or overwhelming and It would manifest in unhealthy things. But when I could get myself to a place where I could just write it down where it’s not just swimming around in my head, it made sense all of sudden.”

“My daughter has been really good for me, not that it’s her responsibility to be. I know there’s gonna be times where we’ll test each other, I’m sure, but just looking after her is a really good way of me feeling present. Obviously, not everybody has a child but for me that’s been really helpful, for me I find myself living in the past or future so It’s forced me to be in the moment.”

Andy is avaliable to buy and stream now.