‘Like losing a hand’: musicians on the crisis in hearing loss

Oscar-nominated film Sound of Metal depicts a drummer battling hearing loss. As rock stars like Myles Kennedy explain, it's a debilitating and worryingly widespread problem

The Bafta-winning film Sound of Metal dramatises every musician's worst nightmare. Ruben Stone, played by Riz Ahmed - who is up for a best actor Oscar this weekend - is a metal drummer who loses his hearing, and the film depicts Ruben's loss exactly as he hears it, where the world around him and the intense music he plays suddenly fade to a muted and distorted drone.

These scary and involving scenes have highlighted a crisis in hearing damage right across the music industry, be it through deafness or tinnitus (a constant ringing in the ears). In a report published last month by the British Tinnitus Association (BTA), over half of the 74 tinnitus-suffering musicians surveyed said they developed the condition due to noise exposure, but nearly a quarter said they never wore hearing protection.