Tom Moon – HuffPost 2.23.11

Mike Ragogna: Do you have any advice for new artists?

Tom Moon: I’ve learned all kinds of specific things doing this–about how you have to be careful about this “industry” that’s grown up around indie artists, about how you have to be persistent, etc.–but really the biggest lesson has to do with overcoming fear. if you are lucky enough to stumble into a creative situation, and come out with something that’s exciting and seems worth sharing, then share it. there are always a zillion perfectly good reasons not to. there are plenty of people who will tell you it’s a bad idea–in my case, the message I got was “why put yourself out there like that?” and “why risk your journalism reputation?” at a certain point I was like “why not?” I’ve absorbed a ton of music in my life, one of the ways it manifests is in my own composition and performance. it seems sorta silly to close myself off to that avenue of expression, or to stop exploring in that direction for external reasons. life’s too short to worry about stuff like that.