Craig Chaquico – HuffPost 10.12.12

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Craig Chaquico: Oh boy. Honestly, the one thing I like to say is, “Don’t give up.” Some of my favorite authors are guys who had their books passed on like a hundred times before a college put out their first book, and now, they’re like million-selling authors and I enjoy their work. Had they given up, it would have deprived all of us of some great work. So I always tell artists, “Don’t give up.” On one hand, I want to say that; on the other hand I really want to say, “Get another line of work,” because it’s hard, man! My son loves music but he really isn’t pursuing a music career, and in a way, I’m kind of grateful because it’s a hard road with the self-inflicted wounds along the way that people can get into with the lifestyle and some of the danger zones with drugs and alcohol and all that. It’s also a dangerous occupation because I think creative people are more susceptible to getting ripped off since they’re not really paying attention to some of the business and some of the shady characters. They’re more interested in their music and they’re vibrating on a different plane, really. As hocus pocus as that sounds, I just feel bad for people that are really resonating from a totally beautiful, artistic place and then, because they’re not aware of some of the sharks out there, can really fall prey to the downside of the music business, which can be pretty overwhelming, especially when you’re not used to that. You run into people that do things that you would say to yourself, “God, I would never think to do that!” because as a creative person, your mind just doesn’t go that way. Anyway, it’s a long story and I’ve been lucky pretty much, but you hear stories like that all the time about these great artists that end up getting ripped off or end up dying penniless, especially the jazz guys back in the day. I don’t know when people ask what would I recommend it’s kind of schizophrenic, because I would recommend “Don’t give up, believe in yourself,” but I would also recommend, “Don’t even get started. [laughs] Get another job.” My mom and dad always thought that I would have something a little more stable to fall back on, and they thought music was just a phase I was going through, and here I am doing it still.