Dizzy Reed – HuffPost 8.22.14
Mike Ragogna: Dizzy, what advice do you have for new artists?
Dizzy Reed: I’ll say this until the day I die, you’ve got to go out and play in front of people. Especially these days, it’s so easy to just get locked into a “project.” It’s always going to be hard to find the right people to play with, but when you do you need to go play in front of people. You need to have that feedback, you need to have that interaction. You’ll know if what you’re doing is good enough, or if what you’re doing sucks. That’s a mean way of saying it, but you need to be able to accept that. That’s a lot easier to take than someone coming in and going, “Oh, I don’t like that,” because he wants to play a different guitar part. Go out and play in front of people, keep doing that and build up your representation and your fan base that way, then you can use social media to get people to come out and see you. The proof is in the pudding at the end of the day, as they say. That’s my main advice. Practice, and when you’re done practicing, practice a little more. If you’re watching your favorite vampire TV show, practice while you’re watching that. Think about practicing while you’re eating. If you’re going to school and it’s not music school, practice when you get home and your homework’s done. Just keep practicing and playing in front of people. That’s the best advice I can give.
MR: Is that how you did it?
DR: More or less. I couldn’t make records in my living room when I was a kid, I had to work and save up money to go in and record one song in the studio and hope that it turned out okay, but it usually never did. But I practiced, I still practice, and I feel the need and importance of playing in front of other people. And by the way, most of the time that’s going to be a rewarding experience, but you also can’t let that dictate what you do. Don’t think that because your friends came to a show and were into it that the song’s perfect. You’ve got to keep growing. Ask yourself, be objective and keep growing and keep getting better. Don’t overanalyze, because you can go too far with that, too. Sometimes you have to stop and get a valued opinion of whether a song is ready to be performed or recorded and that can be from anybody. That can be your dad, that can be the dude down the street who plays basketball, or it could be your producer. Or talk to someone who knows, talk to another band who’ve had success. But yeah, that’s pretty much how I did it, and I still practice a lot. I’d be practicing right now if I had a keyboard and we weren’t talking.