TOPLINE
FROM THE DESK OF
I
N THE GO-GO DAYS OF THE MUSIC
industry, Jodi Milstein climbed
her way up from an intern at A&M
Records to its senior director of artist
relations and artist development. Along
the way, she worked closely with bands like
Soundgarden and Blues Traveler, co-
managing Korn early on before leaving to
help run Lionel Richie’s touring business.
But as the Los Angeles native watched
many of the acts in her orbit begin
to grapple with depression and drug
overdoses — from Kurt Cobain in 1994 to
Blues Traveler bassist Bobby Sheehan
in 1999 — Milstein decided to head back
to school. Now, she works as a licensed
marriage and family therapist and licensed
professional clinical counselor, having
opened her own music-world-focused
therapy practice in 2008, followed by
a separate RockStar Therapy website a
couple of years later.
“Even as a sociology major, I thought
I’d like to work with recovering teenage
drug addicts; it was always this thing in
my head,” says Milstein, who eventually
decided, “Maybe that recovering teen
drug addict could also be an adult
musician addict.”
Charging upward of $500 per one-hour
group therapy session with bands — and
sometimes their spouses — as well as
individual artists, producers and music
executives, Milstein says about 75 percent
of her clients come from the music world,
attracted to both her familiarity with the
business and her comfort level with larger-
than-life stars from her days riding on tour
buses. “[They] feel like I can understand
that mentality,” she notes.
In the wake of a fresh string of tragedies
— from Prince’s fatal opioid overdose
in April 2016 to the recent suicides of
Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and LinkinBY HANNAH KARP
PHOTOGRAPHED BY NOAH WEBBJodi
Milstein
The label veteran-turned-music
therapist on providing help for
artists and industry execs alikeFOUNDER, ROCKSTAR THERAPY“We try to get to what
that underlying issue
is,” says Milstein,
photographed Aug. 6
a t h e r o f f i c e i n L o s
Angeles, about working
with artists dealing
with stage fright. “It’s
trying to uncover what’s
underneath it and then
working on today what
you need to do.“Park’s Chester Bennington — business
is, for better or worse, booming. At the
same time, therapy is shedding some of its
stigma in the social media age: Katy Perry
livestreamed her own therapy session on
YouTube in June as part of her Witness
album rollout, and JAY-Z rapped, “My
therapist said I relapsed,” on “Smile,” a
track from his June album 4:44. The 2004
documentary Some Kind of Monster, which
showed the members of Metallica talking
out their trust issues with performance
coach Phil Towle, also helped warmartists to the benefits of therapy.
From her lofted office just off of the 405
freeway deep in the San Fernando Valley,
Milstein spoke to Billboard about band
dynamics, contract-negotiation anxiety
and how to stay married on tour.
How did you get into the music
business?
It was a brief internship for college
credit. I was in the video department [at
A&M], and right next to it was the touring
department. The head of the department22 BILLBOARD | SEPTEMBER 2, 2017