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Writing about Ren performing with the Big Push again in summer 2025 made me want to try to summarise Ren Gill’s life.
These words feel inadequate written by a stranger to his pain. Ren tells his story far better in his candid, eight-part Ren Life Story Chapters series on RenMakesStuff, published in May 2024. It is his story to tell, but one I think is important to share.
The account of his health, treatment and relationships below comes from that series. Ren explains at the outset that he is recalling a difficult period from memory and that some dates may be approximate. His descriptions of diagnoses and treatment outcomes are presented here as his personal account.
The early life of Ren Gill
Ren was born in Bangor and moved to Dwyran on Anglesey when he was four. His song 1990s looks back on his childhood. In the opening chapter of his series, he remembers being full of energy as a teenager, deeply passionate about music and determined to change the world. He describes feeling a strong sense of purpose before illness interrupted those ambitions.
Key points in his story:
- He met his friend Joe Hughes when he was nine. Ren describes losing Joe around Christmas 2010, while he was home from university.
- Looking back after his Lyme disease diagnosis, Ren wondered whether he had encountered infected ticks while camping at a festival in Dorset during the summer he became ill. He also recalls other attendees developing similar symptoms. His account does not establish where or when he was infected.
- He formed The Big Push in 2017 with housemate Romain Axisa and friend Gorran Kendall. They were later joined by Irish drummer Glenn Chambers.
Ren remembers feeling indestructible at 17. Later, during his university years, he recalls waking after a night out in Cardiff with overwhelming dread, brain fog, disconnection and physical illness. What initially seemed temporary did not pass. He describes the years that followed as an eight-year nightmare.
Collapse into Illness
In Chapter 1, Ren describes feeling dismissed during medical appointments and receiving a bipolar disorder diagnosis that he says was mistaken. He recalls medication causing severe insomnia and feeling that his physical symptoms were being attributed to anxiety and depression. In Chapter 3, he says his therapist later reconsidered the diagnosis and referred him to an ME clinic.
His description of those years is of feeling locked outside himself, struggling to follow lectures or hold everyday conversations.
His suffering deepened after the death of his childhood friend Joe. In Chapter 2, Ren also recalls losing his friend Callum, who drowned after cliff jumping. He speaks about grief, numbness and the fear of remaining ill for the rest of his life.
Clinging to Music
Amidst despair, music remained his lifeline and a source of income as a talented singer-songwriter and performer. Busking gave him brief moments of freedom and vitality. During his student years in Bath, he played with Trick the Fox alongside bassist Charlie Fowler. Even as illness increasingly confined him to bed, he continued writing songs when he could.
While busking his own songs, he was approached by producer Eric Appapoulay, who had worked on Plan B’s The Defamation of Strickland Banks. Ren recalls travelling to London to record, trying to hide how unwell he felt. Eventually, he returned to live with his mum in Wales to recuperate. What he hoped would be a short break became months away, and he says he lost the record deal.
He later moved to Brighton, seeking distance from his grief. There he encountered a teenage busker named Sam Tompkins, lending him an amp and witnessing his extraordinary voice. Their connection would return later in life to change everything.
Ren describes searching widely for help, from supplements and detoxes to spiritual practices, chanting, shamans and energy healers. In his account, some experiences offered comfort while others left him feeling worse or betrayed. He documented his experiences in the video series Me vs. ME. His work caught the attention of filmmaker Jennifer Brea, and he wrote the song Patience for her documentary Unrest.
Rock Bottom & Breakthroughs
In Chapter 6, Ren recalls being largely bedbound in 2015, in pain, struggling to tolerate food and sensitive to light and sound. He describes undergoing a faecal transplant that June and experiencing mania, compulsions, paranoia and hallucinations afterwards. He says he still cannot fully explain what happened.
Ren says those psychotic symptoms subsided after a course of penicillin and his energy improved, although fatigue and pain later returned. He interpreted that response as a clue that bacteria might be involved in his illness. That was his interpretation of the improvement, rather than proof of its medical cause.
Ren says he subsequently received a Lyme disease diagnosis at a private clinic in Brussels, Belgium. In Chapter 7, he describes positive test results for Lyme disease and Bartonella, alongside markers suggesting immune dysfunction. He recalls feeling numb rather than immediately relieved.
He describes temporary improvements on antibiotics and frustration with the care available to him through the NHS, before seeking treatment in the United States. For general information about the condition, the NHS guide to Lyme disease explains symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.
The “Angels”
Throughout his journey, Ren describes meeting three “angels”:
- Joe’s cousin, met by chance while busking in Bath, who became his first serious girlfriend.
- A homeless man who comforted him during the period he describes as a psychotic breakdown. Ren says he remains unsure whether the encounter happened as he remembers it or was a hallucination.
- A British doctor who, Ren says, offered him experimental stem cell treatment in Los Angeles free of charge, asking him to document his experience.
Ren credits treatment in Los Angeles, followed by further treatment in Frankfurt, with helping him return to music and everyday life. In Chapter 8, he describes improvements in energy and pain, but also worsening food intolerances. He is clear that it did not cure him and expresses reservations about recommending stem cell treatment to others.
The Big Push
Back in Brighton, Ren moved in with fellow musician Romain Axisa. With fellow busker Gorran Kendall, they played Brighton’s Pride celebrations in August 2017. They formed The Big Push, a rowdy busking band that captured Brighton’s streets with raw energy. Ren describes simply being able to play as a victory after years of isolation, while still living with leg pain, buzzing feet and brain fog.
He also speaks candidly in Chapter 8 about difficulties with trust and commitment in relationships, reflecting on the effects of illness, isolation and loss.
Viral Spark & Second Chance
Ren recalls reconnecting with Sam Tompkins in 2018. Together they wrote Blind Eyed, What Went Wrong, and Same Old Situation. While busking to fund a music video, they improvised a new live version of Blind Eyed, which was pure magic as it wasn’t the version they had recorded. Captured on video, it spread like wildfire online. Soon, their busking performances went viral worldwide. Streets shut down from the size of the crowds; even Elton John gave them praise on radio.
For Ren as a performer, it was a rebirth, a second chance at a music career he thought illness had stolen forever. In true testament to his character he dedicates his voice to others still lost in the dark, urging them to hold on to hope, to trust that escape is possible.
In July 2024, he performed his two-part Asylum show at Secret Garden Party, a return documented in The Festivals’ review of the event.
Ren’s journey isn’t polished. It’s messy, painful, sometimes chaotic, but also inspiring. His gift is more than music; it’s honesty. He doesn’t just write songs; he shows people that even in darkness, there’s a way forward.
Correction: This profile has been revised to attribute the health history directly to Ren’s video series and clarify the illness timeline. It also corrects his birthplace to Bangor, the diagnosis location to Brussels, the account of Callum’s death, and the Secret Garden Party performance year to 2024.
Further Reading
