James McMahon

The Proper Mental Podcast

Welcome to episode 149 with James McMahon, a journalist and podcaster who spent a long time working at the NME, editing Kerrang! and interviewing pretty much everyone in the music industry.

James has lived with OCD for most of his life, although for a lot of that time he had no idea what it was or how to get help.

In this episode James and I chat about his own particular brand of mental illness, how it showed up and how it’s impacted his life over the years.

We chat about the support group he attends and the importance of community and relatability and we chat about how mental illness impacts the people around us.

We also chat about getting well and trying to stay there, empathy and what it’s like to have too much of it, Joe Rogan, Twitter, and the state of the world in general.

I’m a big fan of James’ podcasts and I was an avid reader of the NME during the era that he was there so it was really cool to chat to him!

Follow him on Twitter@ or Instagram @

His website is www.jamesjammcmahon.com

His Substack is Spoook - the Substack of James McMahon | Substack

The James McMahon Music Podcast and Brain Worms are available everywhere.

You can support Proper Mental by signing up to the Patreon community! It’s £5 a month for early access to episodes as soon as the recording is finished, a monthly Zoom hangout and loads of other behind the scenes updates.

Sign up here: Proper Mental Podcast | Normalising open and honest conversations about mental health! | Patreon

You can connect with me on social media @propermentalpodcast or via www.propermentalpodcast.com.

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Thanks for listening!