About Matt Thomas
Twenty years inside the music industry. His own addiction and the long road to recovery. Fifteen years of clinical practice with artists, executives, and families in crisis. That combination is rare. The work it makes possible is different.
Pillar one
Music industry insider
Twenty years at the heart of major record labels: Mercury, Universal, Warner Bros. Not observing the industry from outside. Living and leading inside it.
Pillar two
Lived experience
A long private struggle with alcohol and prescription medication. Recovery in 2006. The discovery of ADHD, OCD, and anxiety disorder underneath it all. He knows what it costs to ask for help.
Pillar three
Clinical practitioner
Fifteen years of frontline practice: crisis intervention, addiction case management, conflict resolution, and neurodiversity support. In the same industries he came from.
EMCC-Accredited
Psychosynthesis Coach
Addiction Professionals
Registered Practitioner
"I have been in every room this work takes place in. I know what the industry does to people because I lived it. I know what addiction costs because I paid it. And I know what recovery makes possible because I built a second career from it."
There is a very short list of people who understand the music and entertainment industries from the inside, have been through addiction and recovery themselves, and have then spent fifteen years as a practitioner helping others through exactly that. Matt Thomas is on that list.
He spent twenty years as a senior executive at major record labels, working with artists at the highest levels of the industry. He saw at close range what that world does to the people inside it: the pace, the pressure, the way identity gets built around performance, and the silence around everything underneath. Then it happened to him. A long private struggle with alcohol and prescription medication ended with recovery in February 2006, and what followed was not just sobriety but clarity — including the discovery of ADHD, OCD, and anxiety disorder that had been driving his behaviour for decades.
That sequence shapes everything about how he works. Understanding a touring schedule is different when you have lived one. Sitting with someone in early recovery is different when you know what the first weeks actually feel like. Navigating a label's response to a crisis is different when you have spent twenty years doing that job. He does not approach these situations as an outsider who has studied them. He approaches them as someone who has been inside them.
His particular specialism is the relationship between neurodiversity and addiction, an area where conventional treatment frequently falls short, and where genuinely informed support can change outcomes that would otherwise repeat.
Background
A career built inside the industry
Matt spent two decades at the heart of the global music business, rising from junior marketing roles to senior leadership positions at major record labels including Mercury, Vertigo, Phonogram, Universal Music Australia, WEA London, and Warner Bros Records UK.
Working directly with artists, managers, and creative teams during one of the most commercially vibrant eras in recorded music gave him an intimate understanding of what life in the spotlight actually costs, the intensity, the pace, the relentless expectation, and the human toll that rarely makes it into the press release.
Alongside his label career, he managed artists including the re-formed Squeeze and singer-songwriter Bo Bruce, experiences that sharpened his understanding of the complex relational dynamics within bands and creative teams, and planted the seeds of what would become his life's second act.
The turning point
Recovery, and what came after
After a long and private struggle with alcohol and prescription medication, Matt entered recovery in February 2006. It was, by his own account, the greatest risk he had ever taken, asking for help.
What recovery opened up was not just sobriety, but clarity. Among the most significant discoveries was the relationship between his addiction and his neurodiversity — the ADHD, OCD, and anxiety disorder that had been driving his behaviour for decades, long before anyone had given them a name. For Matt, as for many people, addiction had not arrived in a vacuum. It had arrived as a solution, the best coping mechanism available to a brain that was wired differently and had never been understood in those terms.
Understanding that connection transformed not just his recovery, but his entire approach to working with others.
This insight, that addiction and neurodiversity are frequently entangled, and that treating one without understanding the other will often fail, sits at the heart of his clinical approach.
Practice areas
What he does
His work focuses on the moments where traditional support structures often struggle, where human relationships, emotional distress, professional obligation, and organisational responsibility collide at once.
Crisis intervention
Direct, discreet support for individuals in acute difficulty.
Conflict resolution
Within bands, creative teams, management structures, and organisations.
Addiction & recovery support
Individual case management, care coordination, and long-term recovery architecture.
Neurodiversity & addiction
Specialist support where ADHD, autism, OCD, or other neurodiverse conditions are entangled with addiction or mental health challenges.
Coaching & guidance
For artists, managers, executives, and professionals navigating pressure, burnout, and transition.
Duty-of-care advisory
Helping companies understand and fulfil their responsibilities toward the people they work with.
Matt developed the Four Levels of Conflict Chaos, a framework for understanding and resolving escalating interpersonal and organisational conflict, developed from more than a decade of frontline practice within the creative industries.
Wider work
Organisations he has co-founded
Co-founded 2016
Music Support
In 2016, Matt co-founded Music Support, the UK charity that provides confidential help to people working in the music industry who are experiencing addiction, substance misuse, or mental health challenges.
What began as a volunteer-led initiative now operates a peer helpline, therapy services, crisis support, Safe Hubs at major festivals, and industry-wide awareness initiatives, reaching thousands of people across the UK music industry each year.
Chair of Trustees since founding
Director (four years)
Attune
Matt was a Director of Attune for four years — a specialist organisation providing mental health and addiction support to people working across the creative industries.
Attune worked with artists, management companies, labels, and sporting organisations to build structured, sustainable systems of support around the people in their care.
Creator of the Urgent Response Guide
Media & advocacy
Public voice
Matt is a frequent speaker and commentator on addiction, mental health, neurodiversity, and duty of care, and has appeared across press, radio, and television in this capacity.
He served as communications consultant for The Forward Trust's Taking Action on Addiction campaign, the UK's largest national initiative addressing addiction stigma, and wrote and produced the short film Don't Let Addiction Steal Their Dreams, which premiered at BAFTA at an event where HRH The Princess of Wales spoke about the importance of tackling addiction stigma.
He has advised on addiction storylines for major UK television and radio productions including The Archers, Emmerdale, and Casualty, and co-founded iCAAD, the International Conference on Addiction and Associated Disorders, described as the largest addiction and mental health conference company in Europe.
He is the co-host of Empathy for the Devil, a podcast that explores the lives of iconic musicians through the lens of mental health, trauma, and addiction, seeking not sensationalism, but understanding.
The approach
How he works
Matt runs a discreet private practice, Bulbarrow Consultants, supporting individuals, families, executives, and organisations from any background dealing with complex addiction and mental health situations, often in circumstances requiring complete confidentiality and a carefully coordinated team of specialists.
His approach is shaped by a simple belief: that human connection is the most powerful force in recovery and change. He does not operate from behind a desk or at arm's length. He gets involved, sometimes intensively, over extended periods, until the situation is stabilised, a path is clear, and the people he works with have what they need to move forward.
Clients come to him when the conventional options have run out of road, when they need someone who understands both the clinical and the human dimensions of what they are facing, and when absolute discretion is not optional.
"Matt expertly and calmly guided me through an extremely stressful period, when trying to support my brother to get help with his alcohol and drug addictions. He went well over and above what was required, taking calls out of office hours and reassuring when I had to disengage as it all got too much. Thanks to Matt's patience and expertise, my brother has now taken initial steps towards recovery. I can't thank him enough."
Explore working together
Whether you are an individual in a high-pressure role, a family navigating a complex situation, or an organisation with duty-of-care responsibilities, Matt is available for a preliminary conversation.
Get in touch