Fatboy Slim Is Using Therapeutic DJ Workshops to Tackle Mental Illness
Fatboy Slim’s personally funded DJ workshop series in Sussex, England, for people suffering from severe mental illness, blend music therapy with hands-on DJ training.
Inside Fatboy Slim’s Funded DJ Workshops: A New Approach to Severe Mental Illness
By Daniel Alexis of Midnight Rebels
Norman Cook, the man who made an entire generation lose their shit to “Right Here, Right Now” and turned Brighton Beach into a heaving mass of 250,000 ravers, is doing something that might be even more legendary than his 90s output. The 62-year-old DJ is personally bankrolling workshops that teach people with serious mental health conditions how to spin records. And according to both participants and therapists, it’s literally saving lives.
“We’ve encountered individuals who were suicidal, visiting A&E nightly for weeks, and they’ve participated in these workshops and found inspiration,” says Natalie Rowlands, the Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist who developed the programme with Cook. “They’ve begun DJing and invested in their own equipment. DJ workshops do more than just teach music mixing; they help individuals discover their rhythm, confidence, and voice.”
From “Drugged-Up Lunatic” to Mental Health Champion
Cook isn’t just throwing money at a cause that sounds good on paper. He’s been through the wringer himself. The superstar DJ spent years battling addiction before completing a 28-day rehab programme in Bournemouth in 2009. He’s been sober for 14 years now, and he’s refreshingly honest about how dark it got.
“I was a drugged-up lunatic in the 1990s,” he told Square Mile in 2022. His drinking had spiraled to the point where it was affecting his health and family. “I went to 28 days of boot-camp rehab in Bournemouth. Not the Priory option, it wasn’t fancy-pants at all,” he explained in a 2015 interview.
Music was his way out. And now he’s paying that forward. “I’ve had my own issues with mental health and a lot of friends of mine as well and it’s just something that’s very, very close to me,” Cook told Channel 4 News. “Music can really help in mental health. It’s just about that pure genuine therapy of music.“
The Workshop: Where Beats Meet Therapy
The Fatboy Slim DJ Workshop Programme has delivered 30 sessions across Sussex over the past year, working with people aged 23 to 58 who are living with schizophrenia, personality disorders, bipolar disorder, and eating disorders. It’s a collaboration between Cook, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, and their charity Heads On.
These aren’t just one-off PR stunts. Cook shows up, gets behind the decks with participants, and actually teaches them the craft. “I think when they see a DJ in person and then you go through the mechanics of it, it sort of breaks down that taboo and it becomes personal and then it’s just you and the music,” he explained in a YouTube interview.
The workshops happen in both community venues and inpatient psychiatric settings, because not everyone can leave the hospital, but everyone deserves access to creativity. Professional DJs from Audio Anonymous/Atomic Drop join Cook to provide ongoing instruction.
“The Best Experience of My Life”
Jessica Button, who went through the programme, doesn’t hold back: “Learning how to DJ with Fatboy Slim has been the best experience of my life, and the Sound Minds event was the cherry on top. I found the entire event to be so liberating, and it has greatly enhanced my mental health. Music is indeed a magical healing tool.“
Another participant named Rob shared: “I’ve always enjoyed music, all my life. The joy it can bring through darker times. Learning to DJ with Felix has opened up a part of myself long forgotten. It has been a fantastic opportunity to be involved in this.”
On September 24, 2024, 13 participants got to perform live at Rockwater Hove alongside… Fatboy Slim himself at an event called Sound Minds. For people who had been suicidal weeks earlier, standing behind the decks in front of a crowd wasn’t just a gig. It was proof that recovery is possible.
“Watching participants, many of whom have faced significant mental health challenges, discover the joy of mixing music and expressing themselves creatively, has been truly inspiring,” Cook said after the event. “Music has played a vital role in my own mental health journey, and it’s a privilege to share that healing power with others.”
The Programme Continues After Overwhelming Success
Following the transformative impact of its first year, the Fatboy Slim DJ Workshop Programme has been extended for at least another year thanks to Cook’s continued financial commitment. The announcement came in October 2025, confirming that more people struggling with severe mental illness will get the chance to learn behind the decks. 1
The decision to continue reflects the programme’s measurable success and the overwhelming demand from both participants and mental health professionals who’ve witnessed its impact firsthand. Cook’s ongoing personal investment ensures the workshops will keep running across Sussex community venues and inpatient settings.
“Music is therapy. Music is medicine”
The Science Actually Backs This Up
Before you dismiss this as feel-good fluff, know that the research is solid. A 2022 meta-analysis in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity found that music therapy shows a medium-to-strong effect in reducing stress-related outcomes in mental healthcare settings. Another systematic review found that high-dose music therapy, more than 15 sessions, had strong positive effects on schizophrenia symptoms, particularly improving negative symptoms, depression, anxiety, and social functioning. 2
DJing specifically engages multiple cognitive domains at once: sustained attention, procedural memory, executive functioning, motor coordination. The cognitive demands of beatmatching and blending tracks require the kind of focus that can quiet intrusive thoughts and provide relief from the constant mental noise that comes with severe mental illness.
“Modern DJing has a multitude of rehabilitation benefits, including motor/co-ordination skills, visual processing, attention, concentration, memory, executive functioning and confidence/self-esteem,” notes research from the BPM Rehab DJ Training Academy. 3
The Electronic Music Community Gets It
On Reddit’s r/EDM community, people shared their own stories about how electronic music saved them. “Prior to getting into the rave scene and electronic music, I was in a really bad place. I was a depressed teenager that had a lot of misplaced anger and I really felt like I didn’t belong anywhere,” one user wrote. “I went to my first rave when I was 16 and the experience changed me to my core.”
Another commented: “EDM has given me the freedom to express the emotions my family and friends said was uncomfortable.”
A blog post from London Sound Academy describes how learning to DJ helped someone through depression: “Anxiety and depression are probably the last things most people will think about when DJing. Depression has affected me deeply but learning to DJ and produce has been a particularly helpful part of the process of dealing with my demons.”
Why This Matters More Than Ever
People with severe mental illness die 15 to 20 years earlier than the general population and face massive barriers to participating in the arts. NHS mental health services are stretched beyond capacity, with underfunding and limited access leaving vulnerable people falling through the cracks. 4
“Against a backdrop of sustained financial pressure and increasing need for NHS mental health services, the Fatboy Slim Programme is a shining example of what can be achieved when we approach things differently,” says Rachael Duke, charity director at Heads On.
The programme is part of Heads On’s Creative Recovery approach, which aims to reduce that mortality gap by increasing people’s confidence in managing their mental health, improving quality of life, and building social connections.
In a world where mental health services are constantly being cut and people are left to fend for themselves, this kind of direct, personal intervention, a celebrity using their resources and platform to actually help people, not just post about it, feels revolutionary.
“Music is therapy. Music is medicine,” as Cook told reporters. For the people going through these workshops, those aren’t just words. They’re the difference between another night in A&E and standing behind the decks, creating something beautiful.
- https://health.yahoo.com/conditions/mental-health/articles/fatboy-slim-mental-health-workshops-050355113.html
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17437199.2020.1846580
- https://nrtimes.co.uk/the-cognitive-rehabilitation-benefits-of-modern-djing-bpm/
- https://www.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk/about-us/news-events/latest-news/sound-minds-power-music-mental
Daniel Alexis also known as DASD, is a bedroom DJ and music producer from Manila, and an IT student using the power of the web to express different insights and perspectives through writing with the hope that you may discover new and exciting things, and inspire others to express themselves!
