Guy Garvey has revealed he considered committing suicide.

Guy Garvey

Guy Garvey

The Elbow frontman, 41, has admitted he was once plunged so deep into depression that he contemplated taking his own life because he thought people would view him as a "hero."

He explained: "In my early 20s, in retrospect, I was very depressed, worryingly so ... My situation was horrible. I often pondered suicide. And also that thing young men often have, I thought there was something heroic in it. The way music idols were held up because they were dead, the way Nick Drake was talked about, Kurt Cobain, there was some kind of heroism in it, which is obviously ridiculous. It leaves a trail of destruction. There's nothing remotely heroic about it."

The 41-year-old singer believes he sunk into darkness after he'd been kicked out of college, failed to gain a degree like the rest of his siblings, and struggled to make ends meet.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper's Weekend magazine, he said: "I hadn't gone to university, I'd stayed with the band, I didn't have any money. Where I was living in Bolton was poverty-stricken, and the kid across the street was being neglected to the point of abuse. I tried to get involved and could do nothing. It was just a hard time."


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