Musician by day, lifesaver by night

By Katie Martin

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Jacob Morris, a 19-year-old professional musician, is working to help spread awareness on suicide prevention and mental illness through his music.

“I don’t want to just be a musician for self-gratification, fame and glory. I would much rather use my platform for good and being able to promote a good role model and getting out an important message for people to hear,” said Morris.

In May 2015, Marcus Wheeler, an 18-year-old senior and Arizona cross-country champion from Corona del Sol High School, fell victim to a self-inflicted fatal shot to the head.

“I heard about Marcus and you’d think that someone like that wouldn’t be prone to that sort of thing,” said Morris. “I think it showed me that this can happen to anyone, and I didn’t want to hear about this ever again, so that day I wrote two lines down:

‘The world was resting in your hands; it’s been that way since your time began.’”

A day later, Morris uploaded a video of himself playing “Storm,” an original song, as a tribute to Marcus. In the video’s caption, Morris said, “I wrote this song in dedication to the unfortunate suicide of Marcus Wheeler. I pray for his family and friends and I hope they are able to hear this song. God bless.”

The video has gained more than 8,000 views on YouTube, and quickly went viral.

“I didn’t want to make the song just specific to Marcus Wheeler’s case because I knew we were going to use this story to help a lot of people,” said Morris.

After Morris released the video, he got connected through Facebook with the Commit Campaign, a suicide awareness initiative, first collaborating with the group at a fundraiser and working closely with the campaign since.

“The Commit Campaign is a mental-health and mental-illness awareness campaign working to break the stigma associated with (those issues),” said Christina Tetreault, the founder and co-director of the Commit Campaign.

According to Morris, suicide is the second leading cause of death between 10- and 24-year-olds, in which 90 percent of people that are taken by suicide have a diagnosable mental illness.

“They are not making a conscience choice to end their life, it’s just something they can’t control,” said Morris.

The Commit Campaign was officially launched last September and has had multiple fundraising events, many of which Morris has been involved in.

“Anyone we work with, we want to make sure they support this method and that they have a heart for it; Morris fit that so perfectly,” Tetreault said. “He has an amazing heart for service and to serve the Commit Campaign…it’s definitely remarkable to watch.”

One event in particular, a fashion show and concert in Nashville, stood out to Morris, kick-starting his idea to make a music video with the Commit Campaign.

The goal for Morris and his band, which was formed a few days before the Marcus Wheeler incident, was to make the music video go viral.

“We want as many people as possible to see this. Most people have either thought about suicide or they know someone who has been thinking about suicide, so the more people that hear this message and hear what we’re trying to spread, I think that a music video is a really good platform to do that,” Morris said.

The music video will feature the “Commit Pledge,” a photo-based campaign giving people the opportunity to pledge to break the stigma associated with mental illness.

“Morris is so passionate, and seeing a 19-year-old who has so much drive for what he’s doing, it’s not common to see and it’s inspiring,” said Carly Gilleland, the videographer in charge of the “Storm” music video.

“I hope that this video will help people who are feeling alone and don’t know where to go to get help.”

Morris is currently taking a year off from college at Chandler-Gilbert Community College to focus on his music and his business, Valor Entertainment, in order to market his band.

“For the future, we [Jacob Morris Band] are dedicated to give the best music possible; not everyone is connected to a cause like we are,” Morris said.

“We’ll work every single day to give whatever we can to have a message in our music.”

Information: CommitCampaign.com.

Katie Martin is a student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University.

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