An agonising beep and the worst nightmare

How do you cope when you lie in bed with a ringing in your ear after a noisy night? And what if that ringing isn't gone the next morning? And never goes away? Tinnitus is every musician's worst nightmare. Far more of them struggle with it than you might think. Five artists talk about their relationship with the ringing in their ears.

All of these musicians suffer from tinnitus...

Milo Driessen (29)

Goldband member

"I was just banging against the walls of my bedroom at night, that's how bad it was"

Singer of the Netherlands' hottest festival act Goldband, who will perform three times at AFAS Live next year and are booked for Pinkpop

"I've always had a sensitivity to loud noise. I would come home from my first high school parties, and my ears would be ringing in bed. The next morning it was always gone. But once, I hung 20 centimeters in front of the speakers for hours at techno club Perron Rotterdam, during a set by Len Faki or something. The next morning I woke up, and the ringing was still there. This was about 10 years ago now. I have a high-pitched ringing, a kind of whistle, and often a low hum too. I was shocked by it, but I just went on with my life. I had a condition I had to take into account, and I did; I had custom-made earplugs when I went out, good earmuffs when I worked in construction. I was dealing with it without too much stress, and that is very important."

"During the corona situation, I wasn't feeling quite as good about myself. I was suffering from anxiety, from an anxiety disorder, and that ringing became one of the pillars my anxieties focused on. That was a very complicated time. At a certain point, I was really going crazy. A sleep problem also developed. You start focusing on that again: “Damn, I can't sleep. Damn, I hear that ringing. Damn, I can't sleep. Damn, I hear that ringing.” At one point, I was just banging against the walls of my bedroom at night; that's how bad it was. The more attention you give it, the harder it gets. When you reach a phase where it's a bit harder to accept things, tinnitus is a very nasty condition to have on top of that. Everywhere you go, you start thinking: I hear it. When you're talking to someone. When you're walking through the Scheveningen dunes."

"At the same time, things were going better and better with Goldband, and to take the next step, we had to start working with in-ear monitors. Earbuds you wear on stage, through which you hear the monitor sound, can sing better, and can communicate with each other without the audience knowing. Well, I thought: “FUCK YOU. I'm not going to do this!” Since I got tinnitus, I haven't used earbuds anymore; I never listen to music on the go. If I literally put a little speaker in my ear? Wouldn't that just make it worse? I do have in-ear monitors now, with a custom-made ear cup, but I do find it difficult. You have to turn them up pretty loud to drown out the venue's system, which is beyond my limit. My sound engineer is going completely crazy because of it; I'm constantly turning the volume knob on that thing. For songs where I can keep the beat and pitch right anyway, I turn it down a bit. Then I don't have ideal sound in my ears, but oh well, at least I'm protecting myself a bit better." "That ringing is ultimately a matter of getting used to it. It's not a matter of life or death; you can deal with it. When I caught it, I told all my friends: buy fucking earplugs and just get used to it. But I've been bothered by it more again for about a month now; I feel like the ringing has gotten louder, and that's something to worry about again. It's taking up a more central place in my life again."

Stephen Emmer (64)

Award-winning media composer

Composed the theme tunes and theme songs for NOS, RTL, Editie NL, RTL Boulevard, Per Seconde Wijzer, RTL Late Night, among others, and worked with Lou Reed, Chaka Khan and Tony Visconti.

"In the eighties I played in a band from Liverpool, The Lotus Eaters. We rented Motörhead's PA system, including the crew. Those guys in sleeveless denim jackets who would shout during the soundcheck: 'Yeah, go ahead and play!'" I gestured: “I can’t hear anything...” I saw them jokingly nudging each other, and then I heard my own key playing back really hard. I didn't end up with a ringing in my ears immediately, but something probably got damaged back then. You never know when that damage will be triggered.

Fast forward to twenty years later: I had a hearing test and it turned out I had a huge noise dip in a certain frequency range. They were going to test that by seeing how loud sound I could tolerate. I went way too far: bring it on, bring it on, bring it on. Then they turned the volume up so high that I got a ringing in my ears that I’ve never gotten rid of. I really went completely crazy. That was in October, and I thought: I won't make it to Christmas. I couldn't make music for quite a while, maybe even a year. I was so desperate. Yeah, what am I supposed to do now? Should I become a forest ranger? Retrain as a landscape architect?

So, I suffer from a ringing in one ear. Over time, that ringing has changed. By now, my left ear is completely deaf, and you would think that the ringing would disappear as well. Well, apparently not. I still hear that thing every day, even though I haven't been able to hear with my left ear for about four years. And something new has been added, and that isn't very nice: a high-pitched ringing that comes and goes.

I understand when it happens now; it occurs when I'm stressed. It is a C#. That makes playing music very difficult; you temporarily have out-of-tune music. It is a tragedy. A therapist advised me: keep trying. Step by step, I succeeded. Coming up with music was the hardest part; that was impossible with that clashing note in my ear. First, I started arranging some music from my old band, adding guitar and drums. That is how I very gently slid back into making music, and after a year, I could compose again.

For years, I didn't tell my clients about the tinnitus. I suspect they might drop me because they would assume: “He probably can't do it anymore.” But I have all kinds of tools. I mix things with someone else, I can listen to music well in mono via plugins, and I can do a lot of checks. This is how it sounds through AirPods, this is how it sounds through a Blaster. And I have no control over the noise, but after years of trying, I am starting to gain control over the ringing. That is possible with breathing exercises. Moreover, there is a book in Dutch: Eerste Hulp bij Oorsuizen (First Aid for Tinnitus), by Dr. Olaf Wagenaar. A clinical psychologist with lots of practical tips to ensure you break out of that vicious cycle of stress and tinnitus.

"The funny thing is: I feel that I did my better work after I got that condition. I have a simple, down-to-earth explanation for it myself. People who have had a shocking experience—a triple pneumonia, balancing on the brink of death—often say things like: “I even think a little bird sings more beautifully now than before.” You have a heightened awareness, you experience everything more intensely. More gratefully. I actually experience that in making music and composing as well. It seems as if I can go deeper now."

"The House of Representatives is going to discuss hearing damage soon, and the State Secretary will then sit down with the covenant partners. People from the events industry who often have an economic interest in this, and who are already reacting defensively: 'We are not going to turn down the volume.' But I want artists to sit down with the State Secretary as well. I want to do this through an action group: Artists Against Tinnitus. I have started a petition for it: Listen to Us. The entire Health Council report only states how to prevent hearing damage proactively, with earplugs and a new noise standard. But what about all the people worldwide who already have it? You can truly speak of a looming hearing damage epidemic. I believe musicians should unite to urge the government to put more pressure on the pharmaceutical industry."

IJsbrand van Eerdenburg (26)

Ybra, resident DJ and producer for Gotu Jim.

"I had the summer of my life. In the last two weeks, Jim and I had a show almost every day. We performed at Lowlands, were there as visitors at the same time, and had a rather fun and heavy weekend. A week later, I was lying in bed and heard something in my right ear that made me realise it was all in my head. I found that really scary for a moment. After two weeks I accepted it, and after that I lived with it just fine for a month. And then? Then it got a lot worse after an evening at an Amsterdam bar. Not even at a concert. And after that, my life turned into a bad movie in a matter of days. I am normally extremely careful with my hearing, but in a pub you don't always think about your earplugs. That just goes to show what a silent killer tinnitus is." "It's not really a ringing, more like a little vacuum cleaner that I hear.

It gets drowned out quite quickly; when I'm walking in the woods with the dog or talking to someone, it doesn't have to be bothersome anymore. But at moments when you want to rest, want to sleep, it is very complicated. It came as quite a shock: I can still imagine so well what absolute silence sounds like, and now I've lost that. It drives you crazy. I was already very afraid of ever getting tinnitus; it was my worst nightmare, which really made me panic. I couldn't sleep anymore; I was really going crazy.

I had to reinvent myself, that's how it feels." "The moment something like this happens, the control freak in you comes out and you scour all of Google. Of course, you shouldn't do that. But what I found out is: if you go to an ENT specialist in Germany with this problem, you get a course of IVs that lasts ten days. They say that with that, they can limit the damage and sometimes even get rid of the ringing. I went to Germany for that; I just wanted to give it a try, but honestly, it didn't make much of a difference.

There is no recognised medical treatment; cognitive behavioural therapy works better. You realise how psychological it is, how much influence stress has on it. Well, when this happens to you, EVERYTHING is stress and the condition seems much worse. But there are long waiting lists to get help, which shows just how big the problem is and how many young people who have partied a lot struggle with it." Two months have passed, and I am already feeling very different again. By now, I am sleeping well again; I have an app with nature sounds that I place to the right of my pillow. And I dare to go back into the studio, too. There, it felt as if my greatest fear was dispelled: that it might get in the way of the music. But it didn't; I wasn't bothered by it at all during the entire studio session. After various hearing tests, no damage was found; I can still hear everything just as well as before. I have been doing much better since then. But I do have that ringing.

Dirk Zandvliet (31)

Saxophonist of Gallowstreet

"There are too many musicians struggling with tinnitus; it is good to talk about the circumstances in which we work as performing artists. These are the kinds of things: being careful with your hearing and how to deal with hearing damage? I was always very careful with my hearing. If you deal with loud noises, you need protection. You wear a seatbelt in the car too." "I've had my tinnitus since 2017 or 2018. I was playing at a club night with Wicked Jazz Sounds, the monitor was too loud, the vocalist hit a high note, and shrill feedback occurred, BANG, just as I had briefly turned off my in-ear monitor. I noticed it immediately. Then came the fear. Oh fuck. The first thing you find out is that there is no medical intervention. At most, something vague involving magnets, an experimental therapy, but nothing conventional.

Fuck, is this for the rest of my life? It is literally a grieving process, the swan song of one of your frequencies. A tiny hair gets flattened, your brain turns the frequencies up to full blast to compensate for the lack of sound. I spent a good few months dealing with that, became panicked by loud noise, and wondered: “Fuck man, is this my job? Am I doing the right thing here?” Now there is always that awareness: I make sure I have custom-made hearing protection, I ensure my in-ear monitors aren't turned up too loud. That awareness is always there, because the last thing you want is to make it worse. That is where the real horror stories are.

"Eventually, you build a relationship with that ringing: okay, it's there, I can't control it, but I can control the emotional reaction to that ringing. I now see it as an indication: if the ringing gets louder, then I'm not sleeping enough or not taking good enough care of myself. I've come to see that as an alarm signal. Maybe I need to stop drinking alcohol, be careful with drugs and going out, create a bit more sharpness in my life. I approach it more positively now."

Joost van Bellen (60)

DJ, party organizer, writer and disco dinosaur

"As with so many things in life: you have to turn it around; who knows, you might get something good out of it."

"At one point, earplugs were handed out to the staff at the RoXY, but I never really wore them. When I have them in, I feel like I'm not really there anymore. As if the rest of the world passes me by like a movie. The tricky part is: if you play with a DJ who does have earplugs in, he usually turns his monitor sound up very loud, much louder than I do. Then I usually recoil in shock." I currently have two different hearing problems. One is that I have a dip in the mid-high range, which means I sometimes can't understand people; I'm becoming a bit deaf.

The other problem is tinnitus, ringing in the ears. That is also in the mid-high range. It consists of different layers on top of each other, intermingling. It is a high-pitched sound like you used to hear on television: a test pattern with a very loud beep. That is what I have. It also sounds like fighter jets are flying very high over me. It sounds like static electricity. There is also a buzzing sound in there. You can go absolutely crazy if you start concentrating on it, if you start feeling very guilty about it. For example, I find it very difficult to enjoy silence. My mother-in-law had a house in France; her husband had just passed away. I was staying with her to write. We sat outside as the sun set. She said: “Listen to this moment, it is so beautiful. I always did that with my husband; now I can do it with you. This is the moment when it becomes completely silent.” "At that moment, that ringing drove me crazy for a bit."

"But I turned it around thanks to DJ Ardi B, who once wrote a piece about it in the RoXY newspaper. That one day the clouds parted, God appeared, and stuck his finger out at him. The tip of his index finger landed in the DJ’s ear, God pulled it out, and he said: 'And now you are rewarded with the holy ringing and you are truly a DJ.' So yeah. It is a blessing, that is how you have to see it. I am a romantic. As with so many things in life: you have to turn it around; who knows, you might get something good out of it."

"When the sound in the clubs is turned down? That is like playing football with a deflated ball. You need volume to convey the feeling. To be swept along by it both mentally and physically. I want to feel that bass in my stomach. I want to screech around the corner during a break. So be it, tinnitus."

Sign the 'Artists Against Tinnitus' petition here

[VPRO - 3 Voor 12 - Timo Pisart - 12 December 2022]