Jennifer Knapp – HuffPost 5.19.10

[Note: This part of my interview with Jennifer Knapp might be nice for new artists to check out.]

Mike Ragogna: Was there a significant moment when you knew you wanted to start creating music again?

Jennifer Knapp: A little bit. I’ve been traveling a lot over the last few years, keeping myself quite occupied with going places and building relationships with just normal people and seeing the world. I don’t know. That started to die down, and I was sitting at home, starting to get a little bit depressed, thinking, ‘What am I going to do next? Do I go get a job? Do I go to school? What is it that I do?”…knowing in the back of my mind–being afraid actually–that if I sat down and wrote music, maybe it would be a complete and utter failure, so why would I want to do that? I think for me, it was a little bit picking up my guitar. It was a matter of going through that process, and realizing how much music has been an integral part of my life, and in how I participate in my community and in my own self and self-discovery. I think it was about 2008 when I said to myself, “Man, what are you waiting for? Just write. Don’t worry about everybody else. Don’t worry about thinking that this music is ever going to be heard by anyone else. Just remember that music used to be a really important thing to you and maybe it still is. Why don’t you sit down and start trying to write something? Don’t worry about what it sounds like. Don’t worry about whether the lyrics are going to offend anyone. Just write for yourself.”

I think getting past that hurdle, for me, was pretty significant, and then, as soon as I started to relax a little bit, I started really gravitating back to the community that music creates. These songs were really fun for me to play at home, and I started to get a little fire in my belly, just going, “Man, this is silly to sit here and play this song in your room by yourself. You’re chicken. Go out and see if people are going to respond to this.”

I don’t know. I think music is meant to share. I played it for my friends, and it’s that same original, organic process which led me to recording for the public in the first place. There’s something we can all find in ourselves that we can share with others. I suppose the question is whether or not we’re going to allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough for other people to be able share in it. That process for me was a huge watershed moment in coming back.