How music saved my life

“Last night a DJ saved my life
'Cause I was sittin' there bored to death
And in just one breath he said
You gotta get up”

Chris Mears wasn’t even alive for Indeep’s iconic 1980s track about the power of a DJ.

But the lyrics of their one-hit wonder resonate with an incredible journey that has taken Mears from his deathbed to the Olympic podium and could yet propel the DJ/producer to the top of the charts.

Mears, with partner Jack Laugher, made history in Rio last summer by winning Britain’s first ever Olympic diving gold medal. If he hadn’t started making music he might not have got there.

“I had a near-death experience a few years ago because of illness and it was life-changing in so many ways, mostly all of them positive,” Mears says.

“One of them being I did find music and that side to me and that really did help me get through it.

“I had to take time out from diving to recover and music kept my fire lit pretty much throughout my whole recovery because every day I was learning something new, playing guitar in my hospital bed.

"Music fuelled my fire and kept me going really.”

Talk of a brush with death is not a flippant throwaway line. In 2009, while competing in Australia, complications from glandular fever saw Mears suffer a ruptured spleen and lose nearly five pints of blood. Heading into the operating theatre his chance of survival was rated at 5%.

A month later, when his recovery was thought to be going smoothly, he fell into a medically-unexplained coma for five days.

When he eventually was allowed to return to a hospital in England, dad Paul was sent out guitar shopping and Mears – despite being permanently doubled-over because of his injuries – started to make music.

“When I picked it up it was like I found myself, I was just able to put so much passion, energy and time into it without losing any interest,” he says. “It just carried on. It was like a wave.

“I was cut off from society but I was able to keep myself level-headed in a way by just pouring energy, time and passion into the guitar.

“I was very hunched. The scar tissue was really tight so you can kind of imagine me curled up on a bed with a guitar laid on me.

“At that stage I could walk but only like the Hunchback of Notre Dame – looking constantly at the floor. I wasn’t able to stand up properly because it felt like my whole chest would rip open.

“I had that for several months. But you find a way don’t you?”

Having found a way to play Mears also then set about adopting a new way to live. “Suddenly I knew what I wanted,” he says. “I wasn’t going to half-arse stuff anymore because I was kind of lazy, drifty kind of guy.

“It really helped me say right, “diving I am really good at and I am going to pursue that”.

“In terms of the music it also helped me think, “right, what do I want to get out of this” and instead of doing it with no vision I always had a vision that I wanted to play my own music on a stage in front of thousands of people.”

The vision for his diving future was realised in Rio this summer with an Olympic gold medal aged just 23. Musically the journey shows signs of following a similar path. The guitar has been superseded by the decks with DJ/producer Mears planning a single release next year following a month in LA in August working on new material and playing shows.

The sceptics will inevitably ask the question whether his Olympic exposure is the key to his burgeoning musical reputation. Mears insists it is quite the opposite.

“It is really difficult in the music industry because I am doing things back to front. I am here and I have music but I am known as an athlete,” says Mears – who has already had a taste of musical success, releasing a single called Mexico in Latin America through Universal Music in 2015.

“It is about making that transition over to music and how that looks from a label perspective. There are a lot of battles for me that things don’t normally have to go through.

“It’s only positive that I have been successful in sport and I have this other passion and I am good at it but it does kind of put a spin on the whole process.

“By next year I’d definitely like to say that I will have a single produced by me, co-written by me with either an up-and-coming artist or a big artist on it – I am ready to blow.”

Mears shares an agent with X Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger – could the big-name artist he is working with be the former Pussycat Doll?

“Who knows? I know she is working hard in the studio and I did actually hear something from her the other day that my manager sent me,” he says.

“I really, really look up to her – her voice is insane and I would obviously, obviously love to do a record with Nicole.”

Any such big-name collaborations would demand a lot of time on an athlete who already trains six days a week as he prepares for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Is there going to come a time when he has to make a choice between music and sport?

“It’s kind of funny you say that because I pretty much am in that position and the answer is that as long as I can bear it and handle it then I’ll carry on doing both,” he said.

“When I become unsuccessful in my diving career I will happily step aside and take on music full time.

“But as of right now I am still churning out good results for Team GB and my music is better than it ever was anyway. I am not big for planning years and years ahead – I live in the moment.”

Did you know?

In the Olympic final in Rio last summer Mears had six tracks to listen to between his dives – all six were from Canadian DJ/producer deadmau5.