Rockstar Rod's battle with his demons

Idlewild's Rod Jones has got a lot to get out. Which is probably why he speaks at a rate that a stenographer would find hard to follow. But then he's spent most of his life bottling things up.

You might imagine that as lead guitarist of one of Edinburgh's most successful bands, spending his life touring the world, living in Los Angeles and Edinburgh, and making money doing what he loves best, all would be sweetness and light in his world. Yet, as in the best of all creative genius stories, the Idlewild musician has been hounded by the black dog of depression – a mental illness he believes started in his school days.

However, it is only in the last two years that he has received a diagnosis for the overwhelming feelings of despair he finds himself experiencing whenever events in his life start to get too much for him.

"Finally finding out that I suffer from depression, it made a lot of sense of things," he says. "There have been so many times when I just wanted to disappear, to literally vanish so that I wouldn't have to deal with anything, so to be told that there is a reason for feeling like that, well, it makes things quantifiable. It was a weight off my shoulders."

The diminutive 31-year-old certainly doesn't appear as if he could carry too much on his narrow frame.

He looks healthy – a tan and lightened hair courtesy of some LA sun (an Obama badge also testament to his recent American trip) – but an air of fragility still surrounds him.

Without doubt, though, he's in a much better place mentally than he was two years ago, when he quit California to return to Edinburgh and his flat on The Shore, after his relationship with musician Inara George ended. He'd been ill, and he'd just discovered that a childhood girlfriend had died of a brain haemorrhage the previous month.

"It's always an accumulation of things for me that trigger it," he says. "Everybody who suffers from depression has different triggers. For me, it's stress and when there's so much going on that I start to feel overwhelmed. I think it began with exam stress with me as a teenager when I was growing up in Leeds. I think I thought that was the way all teenagers felt, or that I was a bad person who had negative thoughts.

"Then, when I came to Edinburgh University to study, I was doing a course I had no interest in (production design]. I started to miss classes and work, fell behind, had student debts... it was all becoming too much. And it was embarrassing to think that other people were coping and I couldn't.

"And then an old school friend committed suicide and I think that just took me over the edge. I didn't want to see anyone, or go anywhere. It was a very confusing state of mind to be in when you're 18. I did put a brave face on, but I was lying to my parents about what was happening, which was also stressful, and all of that together just made me depressed.

"I did think about suicide, but not to the extent that I would have done anything. But I did just want to disappear."

The only good thing in Rod's life at that time was Idlewild. He had not long met Roddy Woomble and the other founding members of the band, and they knew they could make it if they gave themselves enough time. Rod – whose parents are both classical musicians and who had played piano, trombone and violin as a child – had taught himself to play guitar, and music was his only outlet.

"I eventually was honest to my parents about what was going on – they had been very concerned about me, but you don't want to let them down, do you? I wanted to stay in Edinburgh, so I got a job in clothes store Flipp and paid back my student debt, while the band was getting its act together. I was lucky that the band did take off."

Success followed – if slowly – but that didn't mean the depression went away. "I was still having these episodes of feeling down, a lot of which seemed to be about relationships, including with others in the band. Depression is something a lot of people don't realise they are suffering from. It's such a grey area for a lot of people – are they depressed or just having a bad day? The thought of going to see a doctor because I was feeling down never crossed my mind. It wasn't until friends made me go that it made sense to me that this was something that had been occurring throughout my life."

Two years ago is when he hit "rock bottom", he admits. "I moved back from LA because my relationship had broken up and I had lost another close friend. Things got on top of me. My brain was going 2000mph but my body was going 1mph.

"Also, not knowing what it was and keeping it to myself didn't help, it just made it more severe. Putting a brave face on is more stressful. My friends made me go to a doctor, who thankfully suggested counselling rather than medication. But even then... well there's a stigma attached to it, people think you're not really ill, so I didn't want to talk about it. It wasn't until I was pushed to talk to a counsellor that I came to terms with it.

"I realised that talking was the best thing for me – it might not be for everyone – and so I opened up to my friends and family. Now they know the signs as well as I do, so it's a lot less likely to happen, or to be as bad. For the first time in my adult life I feel in control."

Talking then is what Rod's doing a lot of. So much so that he's got involved with the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival to support the charity Breathing Space – the very counsellors who have helped him through some rough times.

"When I found Breathing Space was involved, I said yes immediately. So I've organised a gig at the ABC in Glasgow tomorrow night – pulling in a few favours from other bands. They have been great for me. They don't offer advice, but ask the right questions to help you figure out why you're feeling the way you do – and that's different for everyone.

"It's been a huge weight off my shoulders to know that people know, and I'm not embarrassed about it. I think everyone will be hit by depression at some point in their lives, so it's something that society has to accept."

The future for Rod now is finishing Idlewild's seventh album, gigs at King Tut's in December and then back to work on his first solo album. "Having depression hasn't been good for my creativity," he says. "I look at what I wrote then and I think it's rubbish. What I'm writing now, looking back on it all, is much better. I just hope people will want to hear it."

• The SMHAFF gig Music Like a Vitamin is at the ABC, Glasgow, tomorrow, and includes performances by Sons and Daughters, Twilight Sad and Norman Blake. Doors open 6.30pm, tickets 3.

FAR FROM IDLE

IDLEWILD formed in 1995 in Edinburgh, and consist of Roddy Woomble, Rod Jones, Allan Stewart, Gareth Russell and Colin Newton.

Their first gig was in January 1996 in the Subway club in the Cowgate. By 1997 they were playing in London and had signed a deal with Food Records/EMI.

They hit the mainstream in 1999 with When I Argue I see Shapes, which went into the UK singles chart at number 19. The following year their second album 100 Broken Windows entered the UK charts at number 15.

2001 saw them make it big in America, and in 2002 the single You held the World In Your Arms entered the UK charts at number nine, their biggest hit to date.