Fourplay’s Chuck Loeb – HuffPost 10.26.12

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

Chuck Loeb: Give up now. No, I’m just kidding. Go back to what I said before about when I started playing. It’s just such a blessing to know what I like doing so I can say, “Okay, I’m going to focus on this.” That’s what I would say. Once you’ve decided that you love something and you want to dedicate your life to it as a profession, what you need to do is you need to take every ounce of energy that you have and pour it into that endeavor. So if you’re going to play the guitar or the bass or the piano or the drums, if you’re going to compose, produce, record, engineer, whatever you’re doing you have to just really make sure that is the number one priority aside from family of course and health. That old adage, “It’s ninety-nine percent perspiration, one percent inspiration,” there’s a lot of truth to that. I think that there’s a lot of tools out for young artists now and, in some ways, it’s more difficult because the record business is not as good and there’s more competition, etc. But in another way, the internet and all the different kinds of avenues that we can pursue to get our music heard and commented on and appreciated opened other doors. So I would say if you love it, do it to the nth degree and then try to use all the different avenues we have available now, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube universe.