Josh Groban opens up about anxiety, depression early in career: 'I was terrified' and 'full of self-doubt'
Multiplatinum recording artist Josh Groban was discovered at the age of 16, but he says he struggled with a deep sense of self-doubt, anxiety and depression at the start of his music career.
The singer opened up on "The View" Thursday about his childhood, the pressure of performing in front of thousands of people at a young age and how social media puts a new kind of stress on artists today.
Grammy Award-winning producer and composer David Foster came across Groban in the late 1990s when Groban was 16-years-old. Groban said it was "an incredible thing" to be discovered by someone who "produced so many of the vocalists that I want to listen to all day, every day."
As a teenager in high school, Groban was "still a kid" himself, he said.
"I was a student and a professional at the same time, and I was terrified," Groban said. "I was full of self-doubt."
He went on to say that although the public often "saw a really poised, professional kid singing for a much older audience," this was not how he felt on the inside.
"In my head, in my ears, I'm going, 'You suck... What are you doing? Get your scrawny ass out of there,'" Groban said. "Inside, I was dealing with tons of doubt and anxiety and have battled depression since I was a kid."
In Groban's 2018 album "Bridges," his song "River" is about grappling with his ongoing battle with anxiety and depression, he said.
"It's only in the last five or six years I've started to feel like I put in my hours. The nerves are now energy. I could channel them into excitement," Groban said. "Now the pacing backstage is 'I just want to get out there and control this' rather than 'I'm going to get out there and I don't know what's gonna happen.'"
Groban gave guidance to his younger self as well as teenagers who are coming up in the music business and looking for advice.
"I would have told myself to be kinder to myself, and just [to] stop and enjoy," he said. "Slow down time and take in those moments because it happens very, very quickly."
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