Simon Rowbottom is a musician and psychotherapist, and a member of the English alternative rock band The Boo Radleys, best known for their hit Wake Up Boo!. We talk about his early life with music, the rise of the band, and what it feels like when success looks great from the outside but feels very different on the inside. Simon describes the difference between process and outcome, how pressure can drain the creative spark, and what it was like to walk away when the band split.

We explore how he found his way into therapy, how years of touring and chronic stress shape the brain and nervous system, and the psychological challenges that musicians often face. And we talk about The Boo Radleys reuniting more than two decades later with a different mindset. No expectations. No pressure. Just the simple joy of making music again and expressing what is happening inside through sound.

Connect and Learn More

The Boo Radleys: thebooradleys.com
Music Industry Therapist Collective: musicindustrytherapists.com
Simon’s novel: Thimblerigger

RESOURCES

Albums: C'mon Kids, Kingsize, The Wall

Bands: Bon Jovi, Eggman, Happy Mondays, My Bloody Valentine, Oasis, Paperlung, Pink Floyd, Primal Scream, Ride, Simon & Garfunkel, The Boo Radleys, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Wedding Present

People: Alan McGee, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dick Green, Elvis Costello, Martin Carr, Timothy Brown,

Songs: Wake Up Boo!, When I'm Sixty-Four

TV shows: Boys from the Blackstuff, Top of the Pops

Bernd Haber is the author of Fritz Häber, The Complete Diary: 16 Months in an American POW Camp, drawn from his grandfather’s journal and interview. We talk about German history, communism and capitalism, East Germany, Berlin, ideology, freedom and control, family memory, generational change, communication, war, sudden shifts, personal turning points, and how an ordinary life can be shaped by circumstance, intertwined with other people, history, and forces that push us in new directions.

Bernd is also someone whose own story reflects these themes. We talk about growing up in East Berlin, watching the wall fall, stepping into the West, and eventually building a new life in America. His path is shaped by history, serendipity, opportunity, unexpected conversations, and small moments that opened new possibilities. This episode looks at how history, choice, external forces, and timing collide to redirect a life, and why talking with parents and grandparents, and understanding their experiences, can transform how we understand ourselves.

Connect and Learn More

Book: Fritz Häber, The Complete Diary: 16 Months in an American POW Camp

Website: 16monthsaspow.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/berndhaber

RESOURCES

Bands: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf

Books: Blitzed by Norman Ohler, Life of Service, Man of Purpose by Jim Waite, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse,

People: Albert Einstein, Barbara Minton, Bob Dylan, Herbert Haber, Hermann Hesse, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, John Kay, Joseph Goebbels, Tom Gundelfinger O'Neal, Wilhelm I, Wilhelm II, Winston Churchill

TV Series: Babylon Berlin, Titans: The Rise of Hollywood

Barbara Minton is a psychologist and musician who creates neuroscience-informed music designed to support and heal the brain. In this episode, we explore the relationship between music and the brain, and how we can use it to guide or change our mental and emotional states.

We talk about how music affects the brain, the difference between making it and listening to it, and why different genres influence us in different ways. We get into transcendent and altered states, how music can support grief, loss, pain, insomnia, and emotional processing, and how individual differences like ADHD or PTSD shape the nervous system’s response. We also look at music as a tool for social connection and the unique experience of creating and playing music with others.

We discuss how different instruments feel to play, what makes the guitar and pipe organ special, and how music ties into memory. We explore how to use it deliberately to enhance learning and recall, why our emotional reactions to songs change over time, and how lyrics shape the way we see the world. We also explore why certain genres explode at particular moments in history, why pop music remains so consistently popular, which musical elements most strongly affect the brain, what it feels like to make and play music, how live music differs from recorded music, and the overall healing power of music.

Connect and Learn More

Website: musicandhealing.net

Album: Calm the Storm

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/barbara-minton-057957164

RESOURCES
People: Ana Lapwood, Aretha Franklin, Calum Graham, Freddie Mercury, Hans Berger, Peppino D’Agostino, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Songs: Amazing Grace, Pavane for a Dead Princess

Studies: Contrasting effects of music on reading comprehension in preadolescents with and without ADHD (Madjar et al., 2020), Human song: Separate neural pathways for melody and speech ( Hamilton, 2022)