Ben Arthur – 5.8.14

Mike Ragogna: What’s your advice for new artists?

Ben Arthur: I would say do the work. You don’t get to just step into the world as a finished artist, as someone who knows their sound and knows how to express that truth within them. You have to figure out what works and what doesn’t work, and what works at one point might change and not work at a different point. And be willing to make an ass out of yourself. So, do the work with the postscript of “Be willing to sound terrible,” and to write bad songs, and to try a project. My last album was an album and a novel; it was a concept project where they were interrelated and the two pieces worked with each other (hopefully), and in talking about it, I said a couple of times to different people that I knew it was something I should do because it scared the hell out of me and I wasn’t sure I could do it. So I would say to a young artist, be willing to fail and to do work that doesn’t feel easy, safe or okay, and take those risks.