Jac Holzman – HuffPost 1.6.14

Mike Ragogna: Jac, what is your advice for new artists?

Jac Holzman: Don’t try to take it public until you’ve got it right privately. Go out there and woodshed and woodshed and woodshed. Don’t worry about the record contracts or how it looks being a star, just get the music right. And that takes time. You and the music have to have a singularity, a unity. Otherwise, your credibility is nil.

The artists who sell millions of records are generally the artists who are able to communicate emotionally to audiences in such a way that they become your allies in the exploration of the songs. Leonard Cohen connects in an incredible way because of who he is and because of the quality of the songs. Dylan aside Leonard may be, pound-for-pound, the best songwriter I have ever run into.

So many people worry about what it looks like–”How am I going to dress,” “How am I going to do that?” “What’s my record contract going to be like?” Everybody who thinks that the record contract is the crux of their career is making a huge mistake. Getting it right in live performance is critical.

Recording an album that works is an important part of your career, but it’s not all of your career.

Do take a close look at independent record companies who have proven track records and who are financially in good shape because they will probably do more for you–or do less for you!

Sometimes you shouldn’t do anything. Let your art find its own equilibrium. But it takes years of experience to be able to see that. Carly Simon did not get tons and tons of promotion and marketing. We picked a long single with a tongue twister of a title — “That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be.” That’s most of what we did initially, find the song that best expressed the essence of her art and just release it carefully. She found the audience, the audience found her and it happened organically. Those are the best kind of hits to have because they just grow and grow and grow and the artist has a level of stature which they have to live up to. Now the ante is up for the artist and it’s a constant thing. There’s a line from an e. e. cummings poem, “poetry is being, not doing.” The music and the “being” should be of a piece. I know it sounds like it’s a mantra from the sixties, but in my experience, it’s the truth.