Longtime musician Marc Lee Shannon, former lead guitarist for Michael Stanley & The Resonators, will bring his mental health platform to the TownHall II Integrated Health Services’ community picnic as a guest speaker on Sep. 11 at the Hometown Bank Plaza in Downtown Kent.
“Number one, it is always an honor to do this kind of thing,” Shannon told The Weekly Villager on Aug. 1. “I don’t always accept these types of invitations. I have to personally feel aligned with the mission and values of an organization to accept. It is really an honor for me to be able to associate with this institution and this organization, mostly because of the leadership, mostly because of the people and mostly because of the work that they do.”
Shannon, a certified peer recovery supporter and supervisor of the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, will not only appear as a guest speaker but will also entertain the audience with his newly formed band “My Other Brothers”, with a collection of original songs and a few cover performances.
After the disbanding of Michael Stanley & The Regulators, Shannon has continued performing, just recently forming his new band which released their first album last October.
Shannon has had an independent partnership with TownHall II as a mental health advocate, sponsoring him on a radio segment of FM 92.1 The Summit called “Feel Better-er Moments.” He also is a published author, having released two autobiographies chronicling his battles with substance addiction, in addition to publishing a weekly editorial at Substack.
According to Shannon, for the longest time he believed he just had a drinking problem when he was younger. It was not until after he decided to stop drinking, did he discover that he also had some other demons.
“I was not able to do it on my own, so I had to get help and when I finally got some treatment, I finally started to realize I was not a bad person, I was a person who struggles with a personal and mental health issue,” he added. “That is when I started getting counseling; I started realizing that the disease model of addiction was a mental health issue. That was one of the things which I had pushed down when I was a kid and never dealt with.”
Having become the lead guitarist for Michael Stanley & The Resonators, Shannon said at that point he was already a public figure, so his personal life was accessible to the public. Once he received treatment, he did not shy away from his struggles but embraced them and decided to become a mental health and substance abuse advocate for others.
He added that his public admissions of his own experiences with alcoholism have helped him stay sober throughout the years.
“Helping others helps you and there is nothing that is more reinforcing than what you have done for yourself. Helping other people, it is like being a coach,” he said. “It is really rewarding, and it does make a difference to me personally. It is not for everybody, but for me it does make a difference.”
Shannon has not only chronicled his days when he drank regularly but he has also used his personal experience with his own mental health afflictions and drinking to give himself a musical identity. Most of his songs have held the central theme of overcoming and rising up against adversity.
“I think it is really at the central core of who my subliminal identity is really all about,” he said. “Most artists, I think, have an identity but most of the really important artists have a subliminal identity, before you even hear their music. You know what their message is, and I think that is a pretty important ingredient in today’s art world. You have to be about something.”
Shannon said his mental health platform has only been elevated since he partnered with TownHall II, immediately identifying with its mission statement and values.
“Hardly ever do I find people I don’t like but rarely do you find something in people that you go right away, ‘Wow, I really like these people,’ he noted. “That is how it felt from the first moment I met them, I was like, ‘Yep these are cool people’, I really like these people and I feel that we just felt a common synergy and a purpose.’”
