As the founding drummer of Maroon 5 during the band’s meteoric rise, Ryan Dusick had achieved what most musicians only dream of. He was playing sold-out arenas and touring the world as a member of one of the hottest music acts of the time. He was also headed for a serious mental break that would alter his life’s trajectory.
“It was very confusing at the time,” Dusick says of the whirlwind tour supporting the band’s debut album Songs About Jane. “We were having huge hits on the radio, our video was in heavy rotation on MTV and VH1, and we were playing arenas. All of these wonderful things we had dreamt about for a decade were coming true. But I was really starting to struggle and break down.”
“Being someone who always puts a lot of pressure on myself and feeling like I had to perform at such a high level every day, it was a ticking time bomb that would lead to this physical problem I was having—pain in my right shoulder—becoming a full nervous breakdown where my nervous system decided I had pushed myself too far and it wasn’t going to allow me to play the drums anymore.”