‘I wasn’t in the best shape’: Birds Of Tokyo’s Ian Kenny reveals painful divorce and mental health spiral led him to write hit song Good Lord
Birds Of Tokyo frontman Ian Kenny has revealed the painful story behind his hit new song Good Lord.
Speaking to Adelaide Now on Sunday, the Australian rocker admitted he wrote the gut-wrenching ballad as a way of dealing with the mental health fallout of his acrimonious marriage breakdown in 2017.
‘I wasn’t really in the best of shape and I didn’t know how much I had in me (musically) or how much I wanted to talk about it all,’ he told the publication.
‘I wasn’t in the best shape’: Birds Of Tokyo’s Ian Kenny (pictured) has revealed his painful divorce and mental health spiral led him to write the 2019 hit song Good Lord
Struggling to cope with the emotional pain, Ian initially turned to drinking but later decided to channel his feelings into writing music for Birds Of Tokyo’s new album Human Design.
‘And then it started feeling like it was helping … it didn’t in the beginning’, he said of the cathartic song-writing process.
Ian told the publication that showing emotional vulnerability also helped him form deeper bonds with his bandmates.
‘We talk a lot now, about what’s health communication’: Ian told the publication that showing emotional vulnerability also helped him form deeper bonds with his bandmates. Pictured: Birds Of Tokyo, November 2019
‘[My bandmates and I] talk a lot now, about what’s healthy communication, what’s a healthier picture of the modern man and forgetting all those layers that build up,’ he said.
In a previous interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Birds Of Tokyo’s bassist Ian Berney admitted he was concerned for his bandmate’s mental health following his messy divorce.
‘It wasn’t easy watching Kenny get through that stuff. In fact it was heartbreaking because he’s such a good mate,’ he said.
‘You can get stuck in a loop that you can’t get out of sometimes. So I was worried,’ he added.
These days, frontman Ian is in a much better place and has even found new love.
Since its release in February 2019, Good Lord has gone double-platinum and received overwhelming critical acclaim.
At the ARIA Music Awards of 2019, the song was nominated for Song of the Year.
It was also nominated for Most Performed Australian Work of the Year and Most Performed Alternative Work of the Year at the APRA Music Awards in 2020.
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