HAPPY Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder has backed the findings of a new study into mental health in the music industry.

Can Music Make You Sick? reveals that musicians are three times more likely to experience anxiety and/or depression than the general public.

The report, commissioned by the University of Westminster, looks at the working lives of musicians and how the industry’s often unstable working conditions provide the ‘perfect storm’ to foster mental health struggles.

Ryder, who grew up in Little Hulton, said: “Mental health is the biggest challenge facing musicians, especially now. When music is your whole life it can become very hard to see where you begin and where you end. For musician’s the challenge of taking care of themselves and their loved ones can literally tear them apart.”

The findings have now been published in a book by Sally Anne Gross and George Musgrave.