Alvin Lee – HuffPost 9.13.12

Mike Ragogna: Alvin, what information or advice might you have for new artists?

Alvin Lee: New artists? Actually, these days, my advice is to throw away your PlayStation and pick up an instrument. I’m a bit of a PlayStation junkie myself, but had I had a PlayStation or a computer as a teenager, I probably would have never played guitar. If you put the time into playing an instrument that you put into playing on your PlayStation, you could be playing in a band within a year, and that, it seems to me, is a much better way to go.

MR: That’s wonderful advice. The same might be applied to spending time on Facebook?

AL: Yes, absolutely. And surfing the old net and all that. There are many things like that these days. I was lucky when I was younger. There were only records, that was it. Records and films were the only thing. Records were so big. You’d buy a record, you’d go home, you’d treasure it and play it again and again. It’s kind of a bit sad these days that it’s almost like a disposable thing. My advice is lock up your PlayStation and pick up your guitar.

MR: People seem to be moving from thing to thing so quickly, maybe searching for that instant gratification.

AL: Yeah, it’s getting faster and faster, isn’t it?