Joan Armatrading – HuffPost 3.26.10

Mike Ragogna: What is your advice to new artists?

Joan Armatrading: It’s kind of tough and easy, all at the same time. Easy in that if you have a love for music, then do it just for the love of it; some people have a love for it, but don’t have that creativity. They’ll sometimes pursue it as a career when really, it shouldn’t be a career. It should be a hobby or enjoyed in a pub band, like that, and don’t beat yourself up because you’re not playing on some great big stage. That’s that part of it.

But if you feel you have a real creativity and you’re honest with yourself–that’s very important, that it’s truthful and you know you’re really good–just beat down every door that you can to try and get to where you want to be! There will be people who will tell you it’s not possible–I’ve certainly had people tell me that. But I know it’s possible, never mind them, just get on with it. If you feel that you’ve got the talent, try whatever avenue you can to get your material out there, your songs out there, your voice out there…just do whatever you can to get yourself in front of the right people. Get yourself in a band, form your own band, get yourself onto myspace, tell the record companies to look at you there.

But the main thing is to be honest, what your quality is, how good you are, and what you want to do.