Alex Miller – HuffPost 6.8.11

Mike Ragogna: Do you have any advice that you would give to new artists?

Alex Miller: The first advice that I would give is to be true to yourself, true to your art, dedicated to learning and mastering your craft. They also need to realize that the old paradigms aren’t true any longer, the digital world is putting more power in the hands of the artists more than the large multi-national corporations. For instance, if Luka and Stjepan from 2Cellos hadn’t created that song and video on their own, we wouldn’t be talking about them today. It didn’t take a committee to assemble that group or come up with the idea. The power today to “create your own tribe,” as Seth Godin would say, is stronger than ever, and you need to do what Bob Leftsetz says in his newsletter and realize that being an artist is difficult and that’s okay because nothing worth doing is easy.

You have to dedicate the 10,000 hours or more before you can claim any level of expertise, then the biggest things is creating your own tribe and you’ll see that there may be people looking to help take you to the next level either in live performance or signing you to a record contract. There’s just so much that people can do for themselves and they can even do it out of their homes. That’s the major concern of major music companies because there used to be an advantage to a corporation owning the studio and having the access to the producers and the equipment. That’s no longer the case. It’s a DIY world and I think that’s great. I think it puts the power in the hands of the artists who have, for a long time, felt powerless. It’s not as if the only thing they need to do is write a good song and everyone will come calling. These days, you have to write a good song and put it out there and develop your own fan base.

I wouldn’t have opened the door to 2Cellos if I weren’t assured that they had the chops to recreate what they had already done and go beyond that to something else, and we’re already seeing that. Simply the fact that Sir Elton John sees enough value in these guys to not only have them join him as an opening act, but he’s actually putting them in his band for the tour. They’ll be playing with him throughout his set, and then they’ll be highlighted on a couple of songs and have the opportunity to play their own music. So, it’s very important, from an artist’s perspective, that you feel that you’re in it for the long run.