Donald Fagen & Michael Leonhart – HuffPost 10.15.12

Mike Ragogna: What is your advice for new artists?

Michael Leonhart: Jeez. How long do you have?

MR: I understand, it’s a hard one.

ML: It is a hard one. We’re living in a strange time to play music with integrity. So maybe be patient.

Donald Fagen: And it depends on what you want to do. Do you want to have a career and make money or do you want to be an artist? You have to choose. You might end up making money if you decide to be an artist, but you might not. If you want to have a career in music it’s a whole different set of rules than if you want to be Lady Gaga. That’s a different set of rules.

MR: Right. Do you feel like with all the social networking, American Idol and all of that, something happened in the culture where we’re looking at music differently? Maybe the kids that are coming into it are looking at it not so much from an artist’s perspective?

DF: I’ll say. There are always exceptions, there are always people who are serious about what they’re doing and really want to express themselves in some sort of artistic way. When Walter (Becker) and I got into it, it was a different time. We just really wanted to make a living playing music, I think that’s about as far as it went. But at the same time, if an opportunity came along where we could make an album or improve our lives or something like that, we went along with it, but we never changed the music. If there’s anything I’m proud of it’s not the music itself but the fact that we didn’t compromise on it.