January 22, 2025 • 25 mins
Join Lynn Hoffman for this powerful episode of Music Saved Me with Simon Davies, the Executive Director of Teen Cancer America, a dynamic charity founded by Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who. Simon discusses with Lynn the incredible work that the charity does in transforming the health care system by creating specialist facilities and programs for young adults with cancer. Simon Davies knows first-hand about the healing power of music, and he shares this with Lynn on this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Music Saved Me.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
You know, I think to be able to give back,
you know, their their talent and their creativity to people
that are going to benefit from it on a deeply
personal level is a gift, and I would like to
think that they can all recognize that that what they
have is a gift to be able to help people
(00:24):
through difficult times.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm Lynn Hoffman, and welcome to this episode of the
Music Saved Me podcast, the podcast that delves deep into
the healing power of music. If you like this podcast,
thank you so much. Please share it with your friends,
and also please check out our companion podcast from Buzznight
Media Productions called Taking a Walk Music History on Foot,
hosted by buzz which is available wherever you get your podcasts.
(00:49):
Now today, I'm so excited I get to speak with
Simon Davies. He is the executive director of Team Cancer America,
which was founded by Roger Daltrey and Heat Townsend of
The Who Now. Simon and his team have a mission
which is increasing the survival and improving the lives of
adolescents and young adults with cancer by transforming hospitals to
(01:12):
better serve their needs. It's a noble cause and We're
thrilled to have them here. Simon, welcome to music save meh.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's a pleasure to be here. I'm really looking forward
to the conversation me too.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Let's start out by having you tell us about the
important work of Teen Cancer America and how you became involved.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, well I'll go back a long way, so well,
we'll just start with seeing Cancer America to begin with.
But basically, as you know, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend
of the who are the founders of this organization, and
it's really built on a lot of work that happened
in the UK. I was the chief executive of an
(01:55):
organization called Teenage Cancer Trust in the UK and we
did a lot of work there. Roger and Pete love
what we'd achieved and they asked me to do something
to help them develop a charity here in America, which
I did with a not with an idea that i'd
end up here, but I have ands eleven years later
(02:16):
that I've now been the executive director of Ting Cancer
America and we've made a lot of progress here, so
I'm excited about that. But the principle of why we
do what we do is really very simple. The health
systems as they are established now and have been for
(02:39):
many many years, are siloed principally into pediatric cancer care
and adult can sircure and pediatric can sircure. The average
age of a hospital in the US in a pediatric
hospital is six and in the adult world, the adult hospitals,
(02:59):
the average ages sixty. And it doesn't take much imagination
to think about that from an adolescence point of view
or a young adults point of view. We work with
adolescents and young adults, and both of those communities feel
very left out of the environments and the places that
(03:20):
they find themselves in because it's isolating to be amongst
very young children and everything is designed around Disney and
all of the things that you expect to see at
a children's hospital and that are six foot adolescent doesn't
really feel like they fit into. And likewise, in the
adult world, most everything is geared up towards much older
(03:43):
people and feel very isolated in that setting. And our goal,
our mission is to change really and create a new paradigm,
which is adolescent and young adult cancer, so that coming
together pediatric and adult care in order to create a
specialty that's just around adolescents and young adults, and that's
(04:08):
on the basis of their clinical needs in terms of
the treatments that they have, because sometimes those have been
designed for older or younger people and they're not right
for this age group, but also their psychological and social
welfare whilst they're being treated, and making sure that they
have opportunities to experience what they need in terms of
social support, in terms of the experience that they have,
(04:31):
the environment even that they're in that's created much more
for them, and create a specialism. So we're kind of
trying to, I suppose, bring about an awkward merger how
you might describe it, between two silos that have not
communicated well before and bringing them together to develop a
(04:53):
specialist service for these young people and ultimately improve their
experience and their outcomes and their survival.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's very special what you do, and when you do
think about it, when you put it that way, you
don't really ever see or hear anything that's geared towards
this critical time in people's lives when they're growing I
mean young like you said, and old, but right there
in that sweet spot. It's so so critical. Besides all
(05:22):
the other things that they're dealing with in their life,
then they've gone to keep this on top, which is
what really made me so excited to meet you. When
I did our pats crossed at an event that you
were throwing and it made me see I believe Rob
Zombie was there. So there was this music element, and
also you had them in the creative process, which I
(05:43):
think music well. On this podcast, we talk about how
music can be a healing device, and so that's why
I was so interested in having you come on to
talk about this, because you do bring a lot of
that creative together to help them manage. Also, I've had
a lot of artists come on this show, young and writers,
(06:08):
Beth Nielsen, Chapman, Danielia Cotton. I can go on a
list who have faced this in their lives and persevered
because of the music. Yeah, so I had to talk
to you.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It was my mission.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Can you share a personal experience where maybe music has
helped you through a difficult time?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Boy?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Many you know, I think music is such a is
such a a genre which I think connects everybody in
so many different ways, and I can think, I mean,
I guess you know, the most the most emotional of
(06:56):
the music that has affected me is to you know,
the love of my life. And I still now listen
to music that means something to our relationship after almost
fifty years of being together. You know, and there are
you know, there there, there are, there's music that evokes
those moments from many years ago when we first met,
(07:19):
and it's you know, it's a it's a motivational thing
in our in our partnership, and we share it.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
In your opinion, what makes music so powerful? What is
it about music that helps so much with with our emotions,
with our healing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I mean, and this isn't just a viewpoint, you know,
this is proven. You know that music does have an
intrinsic value in the healing process. And for example, we
are now embarking on a global initiative to have young
people share the music that has helped them get through
(08:01):
their cancer experience. And so we're creating a global playlist
from all around the world that people are contributing to
of the music that has helped them during their cancer journey,
so that we can have this as a library and
accessible to all the people that are going through And
I think it's a you know, it's a visceral thing.
(08:22):
You know music inspires people anyway, but I think it's
a place that people turn to at times of crisis
where they can really connect with something that is meaningful
to them and gives them, you know, confidence and can
(08:42):
help them through those moments.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I couldn't agree with you more. And mental health is
also a pretty significant topic, especially recent days. How do
you think that musicians can use their platform to address
mental health issues, which I would assume is a large
part of going through a diagnosis of cancer, much less
(09:06):
just teenage.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean there are many kind of stress points,
you know, and feelings of depression and hopelessness and isolation,
and so music can often be an inspiration or a
therapy or a relaxation during a stressful moment. And I
(09:31):
think musicians that are you know, have the especially for
young people. You know, musicians that they know and that
they love anyway, are tremendously powerful in their lives. You know,
people will not just talk about this piece of music
(09:51):
that got me through. It'll be this artist that got
me through, because it's their songs and what they create,
and so that has meaning. And so from a musician's perspective,
you know, I think to be able to give back,
you know, their their talent and their creativity to people
(10:11):
that are going to benefit from it on a deeply
personal level is a gift, and I would like to
think that they can all recognize that that what they
have is a gift to be able to help people
through difficult times.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Speaking of gifts, can you tell us where we can
hear or see some of these songs that you're collecting
from around the world from teenagers.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, we're going to be creating out a special part
of our website. We've only just started, but we will do.
You can go to to Team Cancer America dot org,
which is our website, so that again teen Cancer America
dot org and you can find out about all of
our music initiatives there. But we're going to create this
(10:59):
global list and have that link so that people can
just come to the site and add their own.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Their own music. That's great, Well, thank you and please
keep us posted on that. I definitely want to know.
Have you seen any changes in how society views mental
health in relation to the arts over the years.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I mean, I think that certainly mental health is hugely
on the agenda at the moment, which is great. People
are being much more open about it, and there's a
lot more talk about it. When I think about adolescents
and young adults particularly, there's an awful lot that's related
to social media and some of the challenges that that
(11:42):
brings in terms of its opportunity but also its challenges
in some of its sort of social isolation that sometimes
has created. And so I think mental health is definitely
it's definitely on the agenda. It's being talked about more openly,
(12:03):
and people are talking personally about their experiences, whether there
artists or whether they are people who are going through
a mental health crisis. So I think it's it's also
it's a kind of a normalizing process. You know, we
all have struggles, and there's a sort of spectrum from
(12:25):
you know that just the everyday anxieties through to the crisis.
And I think just that openness and how you know,
music is related to that, and it's being expressed in
music and song, and it's being expressed by the people
who are the creators of it. I think this has
(12:47):
to be just a very positive message for the world.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Looking ahead, what are your goals for the next few
years with Team Cancer America.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, in terms of our core work, just with the hospitals.
You know, we're probably working with about sixty hospitals now
we'd like to be working with a couple of hundred.
So we want to make sure that every single young
person in America has access to these specialist services and
facilities and can feel comfort and help by that. But
(13:23):
we also have been doing a lot of work on
developing a music program, which is we call it Play
It Back, and it's a music education program for young people.
My colleague Kellery Gan and Kenny Matthis who's the music educator,
they had got together and created this thing and it's
(13:47):
really taken off and it's down to their knowledge and
expertise about how to work with these young people that
it's as successful as it is. And it was started
actually at the request of two parents, two sets of parents,
both of whom had lost their sons around the same
(14:11):
time to different cancers, but around the same age the
same time, and they both said to us, we love
what you do, want to we want to support you.
But what really made a difference to both of our
sons was music and their ability. They were both they
were both singer songwriters, and they had used music and
(14:35):
poetry as a way of getting through the cancer experience,
even though they didn't survive, and they said, we would
like to raise some money for you, but we'd like
it to go into a music program. Now, these were
not rich people, and they were at the kind of
bake sale level of fundraising, and they between them they
(14:57):
managed to get together about twenty thousand dollars over about
a year and they helped us create this play at
Back music program, which we have now extended. I mean,
it's now an extraordinary program. And the premise behind it
is it's not it's about it's accessible to anybody who's
(15:18):
going through cancer, regardless of their musical ability. But it's
all about helping them to become singer songwriters. It's about
their enabling them, at whatever level of ability they have,
to be able to express themselves through music and to.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Record that.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
And we help them not only record it, but record
it to a very high standard so that they actually have.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Whether they whether that ever would get.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Used commercially or whatever, that might be their thing, but
at the very least, it's a legacy of a very
good quality thing. And I want to just share something
with you because today today from one of the parents,
I got a. I got a card with one thousand
dollars from one of those parents who give us us
(16:10):
some money every year, and he said that today is
Danny's birthday, and Danny was his son, and he wanted
to give this gift to us for our player Back
music program because we've connected, we've reconnected with them and
we keep giving them updates on how it's going and everything,
and they're.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
So happy to have been part of it.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
And it's a card and it is with a quote
on it from one of Danny's songs, which says the
sky is bright with tender hope, and that's one of
his one of his poems. And they just keep giving
(16:54):
to us. And there's a picture of Danny.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
He was lost.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Oh what a handsome young man.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Beautiful guy to learn about. And there's a Dannyilly dot com.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
You can look at Dannyiley dot com and learn about
him and see his music. But that inspired us. They
inspired us to say, right, we're going to do this thing,
and it's become a really important part of what we do. Obviously,
we want to get all that change done in hospitals,
but we know that music is incredibly important to young
people going through this terrible disease. And what we are
(17:32):
enabling them to do is to write their own music,
to write their songs, and we connect them around the country.
So we have young people in different parts of the
country who are making music together because we had to
do that. We used to have it just as an
LA base, and then the pandemic came and so we
(17:54):
thought we were better go online and do this thing.
And now we have young people all around the country
working together, and we have some great musicians and artists
that have come along and helped us. And not just
not just the musicians and artists, but also technicians. We've
had engineers help us, We've had producers help us example,
(18:18):
but we've had some great people. You know, there's a
lot of opportunity for people to get involved, you know,
especially people, you know, creative people who want to help
young people and provide some sort of mentorship or help
them with learning a new instrument or whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Or even just to find an artist that gives them
solace just to listen to. Whether they're listening to it
or creating it, it all goes, I think hand in hand,
which is why I wanted you to come on because
besides just hounding you that I can do your commercials.
I want to do more to help this cause because
(18:56):
it is such a wonderful opportunity to give back, and
it's so I don't know how to explain it. It's
just not maybe as as known for for the reason.
And I know when it first arrived with Roger behind it,
that really gave it some incredible momentum.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
For sure, you know, and obviously having the having somebody
like that who is fantastic, but John Oates who I
mentioned earlier, and he has been incredible and not only
is he given studio time and help people out, but
he's also put our young people in his video of him,
you know, and he's very personal about it, and that's
(19:40):
what we love about it. And Roger has been the
greatest ambassador you could wish for Pete too, but Pete
Pete's you know, is he helps in a quieter way.
Roger's the lead singer, you know, and he's his you know,
what he's done for us and the way he's connected
(20:01):
us with other people in the music industry and helped
us is.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Second to none. I can't you know.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It's a gift from heaven to have someone like Roger
helping you, for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Roger's the best. And John Oates he recently just did
an episode of Buzz Night's Taking a Walk podcast, which
is great if you have a chance to check it out.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I love that. I'm glad that he's a very warm
and loving human being.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
For sure, he sure is, and he's real as real
as it gets. And I think that's another thing that's
so important about what you're doing and what's happening, what
it seems to be happening in the world today with
the stigma of mental health, where people want to talk
and they just want to be real. They just don't
want to hear things that are heavily produced and perfected.
(20:51):
They just want the truth. They want to hear and
feel and know what people are going through so they're
not alone.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, connection. You know, you know, we're in
a world where it's possible to become very isolated, and
I think, you know, music is another way of connecting
and engaging and it's so important. It's so important, and
mental health in any kind of circumstances is a challenge.
(21:20):
If you're having mental health challenges at the time of
battling cancer, that's you know, that's a double whammy. That's
just so difficult to deal with. And to some extent,
everybody who goes through cancer has some kind of mental
health challenges for sure, because you know they're they're facing
the prospect that they might not survive. But young people
(21:44):
going through it, you know, it's a it's a difficult
time in life. There are changes they're you know, they're
they're they're going through bodily changes, they're going through psychological changes.
There it's it's an important time of education, it's an
import on time, a career development. All these things can
get messed up completely and that messes with you. That
(22:07):
messes with you when you're going through it. So it's
you know, the things that you can find to help
you get through the night. And music is a big
part of that for young people, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Let me ask you before I let you go, how
do you personally stay inspired and connected to music in
your everyday life?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You know, I've got a very broad spectrum of music
interests and I am I like to I like to
listen to music according to what my mood is, and
I guess that's the same with everybody. So I'm not
trying to suggest I'm very special, but you know, you know,
there are times, you know, when you need a good
(22:50):
rock song, and there are times when you need a
good ballad and being a being a part of that
and having a you know, having a I'm pretty sort
of open mind about the interest that I have. So
you know, I can listen to Andrea Bacelli's Romanza.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
And and then you know, one of my all time
favorite American bands from when I was a teenager is
an old band called the Marshall Tucker Band, and you know,
they're all kind of you knowastic classic stuff, and you
know that can get me going. But you know, I've
(23:29):
just started getting into you know, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga,
you know, and that single that they've got.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I love it, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So it's it's just it's just an everyday part of
my life, and you know, you've got to make the
most of it. And you know, you use your catalog
for the for helping to inspire you in any part
of your day.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, it's like you open your medicine cabinet, pull out
this can't pull out the CD anymore, though you have
to Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
You know, well, hang on a minute, what cs and
cassettes are making a comeback?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
No, tell me more. How do you know?
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well you can read it in the in the news.
They're the new vinyl.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Oh so now vinyl came back, and now it's gone
to get.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Back and now everybody's getting out there old take cassettes
and you know we used to make those compilation tapes,
you know, and they're listening yes, yeah, yeah, And then
CDs too. CD's is not their place. So it's interesting.
I think we are. We're going through a few you know,
you need a bit of retro in order to counterbalance
(24:44):
the kind of high tech that's taking us an AI
and all that stuff. You know, a bit of retro
is good.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
For the soul.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
I love it. On that note, it's a perfect way
to end our conversation, although I don't ever want to
end a conversation with you. Simon Davies, Thanks so much
from Team Cancer America and my life in general. Thank
you so much for being here on Music Scation.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Thank you for the opportunity. It was good to talk
to you.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I love love our conversations, and thank you for all
your support because you're a special person to the charity
as is buzz Oh.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Before you go real quick, one more time, play it Back?
And where can people find all of this stuff we
were talking about.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Go to our website in Cancer America dot org. That's
te N Cancer America dot org and make sure that
you look into you're looking out for the Play It
Back music program. And then there's an amazing podcast series
called The Real Me and that's all about how it's
(25:45):
telling young people's stories at the same time as talking
about the music that they've created and listening to it.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Thank you, Thank you.
Music Saved Me.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
You know, I think to be able to give back,
you know, their their talent and their creativity to people
that are going to benefit from it on a deeply
personal level is a gift, and I would like to
think that they can all recognize that that what they
have is a gift to be able to help people
(00:24):
through difficult times.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm Lynn Hoffman, and welcome to this episode of the
Music Saved Me podcast, the podcast that delves deep into
the healing power of music. If you like this podcast,
thank you so much. Please share it with your friends,
and also please check out our companion podcast from Buzznight
Media Productions called Taking a Walk Music History on Foot,
hosted by buzz which is available wherever you get your podcasts.
(00:49):
Now today, I'm so excited I get to speak with
Simon Davies. He is the executive director of Team Cancer America,
which was founded by Roger Daltrey and Heat Townsend of
The Who Now. Simon and his team have a mission
which is increasing the survival and improving the lives of
adolescents and young adults with cancer by transforming hospitals to
(01:12):
better serve their needs. It's a noble cause and We're
thrilled to have them here. Simon, welcome to music save meh.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's a pleasure to be here. I'm really looking forward
to the conversation me too.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Let's start out by having you tell us about the
important work of Teen Cancer America and how you became involved.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, well I'll go back a long way, so well,
we'll just start with seeing Cancer America to begin with.
But basically, as you know, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend
of the who are the founders of this organization, and
it's really built on a lot of work that happened
in the UK. I was the chief executive of an
(01:55):
organization called Teenage Cancer Trust in the UK and we
did a lot of work there. Roger and Pete love
what we'd achieved and they asked me to do something
to help them develop a charity here in America, which
I did with a not with an idea that i'd
end up here, but I have ands eleven years later
(02:16):
that I've now been the executive director of Ting Cancer
America and we've made a lot of progress here, so
I'm excited about that. But the principle of why we
do what we do is really very simple. The health
systems as they are established now and have been for
(02:39):
many many years, are siloed principally into pediatric cancer care
and adult can sircure and pediatric can sircure. The average
age of a hospital in the US in a pediatric
hospital is six and in the adult world, the adult hospitals,
(02:59):
the average ages sixty. And it doesn't take much imagination
to think about that from an adolescence point of view
or a young adults point of view. We work with
adolescents and young adults, and both of those communities feel
very left out of the environments and the places that
(03:20):
they find themselves in because it's isolating to be amongst
very young children and everything is designed around Disney and
all of the things that you expect to see at
a children's hospital and that are six foot adolescent doesn't
really feel like they fit into. And likewise, in the
adult world, most everything is geared up towards much older
(03:43):
people and feel very isolated in that setting. And our goal,
our mission is to change really and create a new paradigm,
which is adolescent and young adult cancer, so that coming
together pediatric and adult care in order to create a
specialty that's just around adolescents and young adults, and that's
(04:08):
on the basis of their clinical needs in terms of
the treatments that they have, because sometimes those have been
designed for older or younger people and they're not right
for this age group, but also their psychological and social
welfare whilst they're being treated, and making sure that they
have opportunities to experience what they need in terms of
social support, in terms of the experience that they have,
(04:31):
the environment even that they're in that's created much more
for them, and create a specialism. So we're kind of
trying to, I suppose, bring about an awkward merger how
you might describe it, between two silos that have not
communicated well before and bringing them together to develop a
(04:53):
specialist service for these young people and ultimately improve their
experience and their outcomes and their survival.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's very special what you do, and when you do
think about it, when you put it that way, you
don't really ever see or hear anything that's geared towards
this critical time in people's lives when they're growing I
mean young like you said, and old, but right there
in that sweet spot. It's so so critical. Besides all
(05:22):
the other things that they're dealing with in their life,
then they've gone to keep this on top, which is
what really made me so excited to meet you. When
I did our pats crossed at an event that you
were throwing and it made me see I believe Rob
Zombie was there. So there was this music element, and
also you had them in the creative process, which I
(05:43):
think music well. On this podcast, we talk about how
music can be a healing device, and so that's why
I was so interested in having you come on to
talk about this, because you do bring a lot of
that creative together to help them manage. Also, I've had
a lot of artists come on this show, young and writers,
(06:08):
Beth Nielsen, Chapman, Danielia Cotton. I can go on a
list who have faced this in their lives and persevered
because of the music. Yeah, so I had to talk
to you.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It was my mission.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Can you share a personal experience where maybe music has
helped you through a difficult time?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Boy?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Many you know, I think music is such a is
such a a genre which I think connects everybody in
so many different ways, and I can think, I mean,
I guess you know, the most the most emotional of
(06:56):
the music that has affected me is to you know,
the love of my life. And I still now listen
to music that means something to our relationship after almost
fifty years of being together. You know, and there are
you know, there there, there are, there's music that evokes
those moments from many years ago when we first met,
(07:19):
and it's you know, it's a it's a motivational thing
in our in our partnership, and we share it.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
In your opinion, what makes music so powerful? What is
it about music that helps so much with with our emotions,
with our healing.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I mean, and this isn't just a viewpoint, you know,
this is proven. You know that music does have an
intrinsic value in the healing process. And for example, we
are now embarking on a global initiative to have young
people share the music that has helped them get through
(08:01):
their cancer experience. And so we're creating a global playlist
from all around the world that people are contributing to
of the music that has helped them during their cancer journey,
so that we can have this as a library and
accessible to all the people that are going through And
I think it's a you know, it's a visceral thing.
(08:22):
You know music inspires people anyway, but I think it's
a place that people turn to at times of crisis
where they can really connect with something that is meaningful
to them and gives them, you know, confidence and can
(08:42):
help them through those moments.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I couldn't agree with you more. And mental health is
also a pretty significant topic, especially recent days. How do
you think that musicians can use their platform to address
mental health issues, which I would assume is a large
part of going through a diagnosis of cancer, much less
(09:06):
just teenage.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean there are many kind of stress points,
you know, and feelings of depression and hopelessness and isolation,
and so music can often be an inspiration or a
therapy or a relaxation during a stressful moment. And I
(09:31):
think musicians that are you know, have the especially for
young people. You know, musicians that they know and that
they love anyway, are tremendously powerful in their lives. You know,
people will not just talk about this piece of music
(09:51):
that got me through. It'll be this artist that got
me through, because it's their songs and what they create,
and so that has meaning. And so from a musician's perspective,
you know, I think to be able to give back,
you know, their their talent and their creativity to people
(10:11):
that are going to benefit from it on a deeply
personal level is a gift, and I would like to
think that they can all recognize that that what they
have is a gift to be able to help people
through difficult times.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Speaking of gifts, can you tell us where we can
hear or see some of these songs that you're collecting
from around the world from teenagers.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, we're going to be creating out a special part
of our website. We've only just started, but we will do.
You can go to to Team Cancer America dot org,
which is our website, so that again teen Cancer America
dot org and you can find out about all of
our music initiatives there. But we're going to create this
(10:59):
global list and have that link so that people can
just come to the site and add their own.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Their own music. That's great, Well, thank you and please
keep us posted on that. I definitely want to know.
Have you seen any changes in how society views mental
health in relation to the arts over the years.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I mean, I think that certainly mental health is hugely
on the agenda at the moment, which is great. People
are being much more open about it, and there's a
lot more talk about it. When I think about adolescents
and young adults particularly, there's an awful lot that's related
to social media and some of the challenges that that
(11:42):
brings in terms of its opportunity but also its challenges
in some of its sort of social isolation that sometimes
has created. And so I think mental health is definitely
it's definitely on the agenda. It's being talked about more openly,
(12:03):
and people are talking personally about their experiences, whether there
artists or whether they are people who are going through
a mental health crisis. So I think it's it's also
it's a kind of a normalizing process. You know, we
all have struggles, and there's a sort of spectrum from
(12:25):
you know that just the everyday anxieties through to the crisis.
And I think just that openness and how you know,
music is related to that, and it's being expressed in
music and song, and it's being expressed by the people
who are the creators of it. I think this has
(12:47):
to be just a very positive message for the world.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Looking ahead, what are your goals for the next few
years with Team Cancer America.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, in terms of our core work, just with the hospitals.
You know, we're probably working with about sixty hospitals now
we'd like to be working with a couple of hundred.
So we want to make sure that every single young
person in America has access to these specialist services and
facilities and can feel comfort and help by that. But
(13:23):
we also have been doing a lot of work on
developing a music program, which is we call it Play
It Back, and it's a music education program for young people.
My colleague Kellery Gan and Kenny Matthis who's the music educator,
they had got together and created this thing and it's
(13:47):
really taken off and it's down to their knowledge and
expertise about how to work with these young people that
it's as successful as it is. And it was started
actually at the request of two parents, two sets of parents,
both of whom had lost their sons around the same
(14:11):
time to different cancers, but around the same age the
same time, and they both said to us, we love
what you do, want to we want to support you.
But what really made a difference to both of our
sons was music and their ability. They were both they
were both singer songwriters, and they had used music and
(14:35):
poetry as a way of getting through the cancer experience,
even though they didn't survive, and they said, we would
like to raise some money for you, but we'd like
it to go into a music program. Now, these were
not rich people, and they were at the kind of
bake sale level of fundraising, and they between them they
(14:57):
managed to get together about twenty thousand dollars over about
a year and they helped us create this play at
Back music program, which we have now extended. I mean,
it's now an extraordinary program. And the premise behind it
is it's not it's about it's accessible to anybody who's
(15:18):
going through cancer, regardless of their musical ability. But it's
all about helping them to become singer songwriters. It's about
their enabling them, at whatever level of ability they have,
to be able to express themselves through music and to.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Record that.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
And we help them not only record it, but record
it to a very high standard so that they actually have.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Whether they whether that ever would get.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Used commercially or whatever, that might be their thing, but
at the very least, it's a legacy of a very
good quality thing. And I want to just share something
with you because today today from one of the parents,
I got a. I got a card with one thousand
dollars from one of those parents who give us us
(16:10):
some money every year, and he said that today is
Danny's birthday, and Danny was his son, and he wanted
to give this gift to us for our player Back
music program because we've connected, we've reconnected with them and
we keep giving them updates on how it's going and everything,
and they're.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
So happy to have been part of it.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
And it's a card and it is with a quote
on it from one of Danny's songs, which says the
sky is bright with tender hope, and that's one of
his one of his poems. And they just keep giving
(16:54):
to us. And there's a picture of Danny.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
He was lost.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Oh what a handsome young man.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Beautiful guy to learn about. And there's a Dannyilly dot com.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
You can look at Dannyiley dot com and learn about
him and see his music. But that inspired us. They
inspired us to say, right, we're going to do this thing,
and it's become a really important part of what we do. Obviously,
we want to get all that change done in hospitals,
but we know that music is incredibly important to young
people going through this terrible disease. And what we are
(17:32):
enabling them to do is to write their own music,
to write their songs, and we connect them around the country.
So we have young people in different parts of the
country who are making music together because we had to
do that. We used to have it just as an
LA base, and then the pandemic came and so we
(17:54):
thought we were better go online and do this thing.
And now we have young people all around the country
working together, and we have some great musicians and artists
that have come along and helped us. And not just
not just the musicians and artists, but also technicians. We've
had engineers help us, We've had producers help us example,
(18:18):
but we've had some great people. You know, there's a
lot of opportunity for people to get involved, you know,
especially people, you know, creative people who want to help
young people and provide some sort of mentorship or help
them with learning a new instrument or whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Or even just to find an artist that gives them
solace just to listen to. Whether they're listening to it
or creating it, it all goes, I think hand in hand,
which is why I wanted you to come on because
besides just hounding you that I can do your commercials.
I want to do more to help this cause because
(18:56):
it is such a wonderful opportunity to give back, and
it's so I don't know how to explain it. It's
just not maybe as as known for for the reason.
And I know when it first arrived with Roger behind it,
that really gave it some incredible momentum.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
For sure, you know, and obviously having the having somebody
like that who is fantastic, but John Oates who I
mentioned earlier, and he has been incredible and not only
is he given studio time and help people out, but
he's also put our young people in his video of him,
you know, and he's very personal about it, and that's
(19:40):
what we love about it. And Roger has been the
greatest ambassador you could wish for Pete too, but Pete
Pete's you know, is he helps in a quieter way.
Roger's the lead singer, you know, and he's his you know,
what he's done for us and the way he's connected
(20:01):
us with other people in the music industry and helped
us is.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Second to none. I can't you know.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It's a gift from heaven to have someone like Roger
helping you, for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Roger's the best. And John Oates he recently just did
an episode of Buzz Night's Taking a Walk podcast, which
is great if you have a chance to check it out.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I love that. I'm glad that he's a very warm
and loving human being.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
For sure, he sure is, and he's real as real
as it gets. And I think that's another thing that's
so important about what you're doing and what's happening, what
it seems to be happening in the world today with
the stigma of mental health, where people want to talk
and they just want to be real. They just don't
want to hear things that are heavily produced and perfected.
(20:51):
They just want the truth. They want to hear and
feel and know what people are going through so they're
not alone.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, connection. You know, you know, we're in
a world where it's possible to become very isolated, and
I think, you know, music is another way of connecting
and engaging and it's so important. It's so important, and
mental health in any kind of circumstances is a challenge.
(21:20):
If you're having mental health challenges at the time of
battling cancer, that's you know, that's a double whammy. That's
just so difficult to deal with. And to some extent,
everybody who goes through cancer has some kind of mental
health challenges for sure, because you know they're they're facing
the prospect that they might not survive. But young people
(21:44):
going through it, you know, it's a it's a difficult
time in life. There are changes they're you know, they're
they're they're going through bodily changes, they're going through psychological changes.
There it's it's an important time of education, it's an
import on time, a career development. All these things can
get messed up completely and that messes with you. That
(22:07):
messes with you when you're going through it. So it's
you know, the things that you can find to help
you get through the night. And music is a big
part of that for young people, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Let me ask you before I let you go, how
do you personally stay inspired and connected to music in
your everyday life?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You know, I've got a very broad spectrum of music
interests and I am I like to I like to
listen to music according to what my mood is, and
I guess that's the same with everybody. So I'm not
trying to suggest I'm very special, but you know, you know,
there are times, you know, when you need a good
(22:50):
rock song, and there are times when you need a
good ballad and being a being a part of that
and having a you know, having a I'm pretty sort
of open mind about the interest that I have. So
you know, I can listen to Andrea Bacelli's Romanza.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
And and then you know, one of my all time
favorite American bands from when I was a teenager is
an old band called the Marshall Tucker Band, and you know,
they're all kind of you knowastic classic stuff, and you
know that can get me going. But you know, I've
(23:29):
just started getting into you know, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga,
you know, and that single that they've got.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I love it, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So it's it's just it's just an everyday part of
my life, and you know, you've got to make the
most of it. And you know, you use your catalog
for the for helping to inspire you in any part
of your day.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, it's like you open your medicine cabinet, pull out
this can't pull out the CD anymore, though you have
to Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
You know, well, hang on a minute, what cs and
cassettes are making a comeback?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
No, tell me more. How do you know?
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well you can read it in the in the news.
They're the new vinyl.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Oh so now vinyl came back, and now it's gone
to get.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Back and now everybody's getting out there old take cassettes
and you know we used to make those compilation tapes,
you know, and they're listening yes, yeah, yeah, And then
CDs too. CD's is not their place. So it's interesting.
I think we are. We're going through a few you know,
you need a bit of retro in order to counterbalance
(24:44):
the kind of high tech that's taking us an AI
and all that stuff. You know, a bit of retro
is good.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
For the soul.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
I love it. On that note, it's a perfect way
to end our conversation, although I don't ever want to
end a conversation with you. Simon Davies, Thanks so much
from Team Cancer America and my life in general. Thank
you so much for being here on Music Scation.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Thank you for the opportunity. It was good to talk
to you.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I love love our conversations, and thank you for all
your support because you're a special person to the charity
as is buzz Oh.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Before you go real quick, one more time, play it Back?
And where can people find all of this stuff we
were talking about.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Go to our website in Cancer America dot org. That's
te N Cancer America dot org and make sure that
you look into you're looking out for the Play It
Back music program. And then there's an amazing podcast series
called The Real Me and that's all about how it's
(25:45):
telling young people's stories at the same time as talking
about the music that they've created and listening to it.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Thank you, Thank you.
Host
Lynn Hoffman
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