Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Adkins – HuffPost 9.27.10

Mike Ragogna: What kind of advice do you have for up and coming artists?

Jim Adkins: It’s got to be rough out there. There’s never been an easier time to do exactly what you want with computer recording, and it’s never been harder at the same time because everyone has those tools at their disposal. I would just say there’s so much that you can’t control with it all that you have to be in it for the right reason; you have to be in it for yourself. You always have to make sure that you’re doing your best work, be completely doubt free that your work is the best you can do because that’s really all you have at the end of the day.

MR: That sounds like something you might apply to your own work.

JA: Sure. No one is going to like one hundred percent of what you do. There’s no guarantee that people will like five percent of what you do, but the only way you can get to a point where that’s acceptable is if you’re one hundred percent proud of it. After that, it doesn’t matter. Criticism or praise is just kind of the opinion of strangers.