John Medeski – HuffPost 12.12.11
Mike Ragogna: Do you have any advice to new artists?
John Medeski: Oh god, that’s a hard one. I don’t have any career advice because the music business is moving and shifting and I have no idea what it is. My advice is to be true to yourself and really find practices in your life, whether the music itself or other things, to bring yourself up, to open up your heart and make that connection between your voice and your soul. It’s about making that connection, that deep connection where you’re expressing yourself and being true to yourself. That’s really the only thing you can do, and that’s really the only way you can be happy. Everything else…we’ve seen it over and over, you just watch VH1 or any of those shows about famous bands or famous artists. Look at how miserable they are because of what they’ve focused on in their lives, even great artists, great musicians who have done great things.
MR: And we have American Idol and all of these other shows that take it from a whole other angle.
JM: Yeah, that’s a whole other thing. There’s music for entertaining, there’s music for healing, there’s music for everything in life. Every use of music is great. It’s great to have music just for entertainment, it’s also great to have a transformative journey through music. It’s great to go dance your butt off to music, and it’s great to sit there and not move and take it in silently. Music is all part of it and it’s all important and I see the American Idol thing is the entertainment side of the music. What I find interesting is that for a long time, that was the record companies. The record companies were doing that. They were cherry-picking these people and turning them into superstars and everybody’s making a lot of money. They aren’t doing it anymore because of how the media has changed; CD sales have gone down and everything, but now it’s the TV that’s it. The thing that I like about it is bringing it back to the people. It’s not some big corporation making the decisions. It’s the illusion of everybody having a fair chance making a billion dollars making entertainment.
MR: Sure, but my big problem with American Idol is its message. There’s a whole generation brought up on American Idol who are learning how to be an “artist” from the show.
JM: It started in the eighties with the record companies, people being brought up on terrible artists and bands that were the bubble gum thing at the moment, created by the record company like a commodity. It’s not different, it’s the same stuff that’s been going on, it’s just a different outlet for it. Anybody who’s looking for that and that’s what they want, that’s what they deserve. I think what you also see because of that is the backlash–live music is as big as it’s ever been, even with this economy. People can’t pay as much and people can’t go to as many shows, but people are going out to see shows. There are always going to be people sitting in front of the TV eating potato chips, sitting in front of whatever the device is. There are going to be people sitting in front of it getting superficial and sometimes maybe deep experiences from it. I don’t even have a television and I haven’t had one for a long time, but I remember getting some stuff out of watching things back in the day. I do hear what you’re saying and I think it’s scary, but I also think it’s everywhere in the culture. People don’t know where food comes from, let alone music. They go to the grocery store, and some people don’t even know that vegetables are grown in the ground or that a slab of meat comes off the side of a cow. It really is just the way it is.
MR: What, no steak trees?
JM: (laughs) It makes some people want it more than the real thing, and it makes people go for it. It makes the real thing that much more special when it happens. I have fantasies of a different world where all music is one hundred percent spiritual, and even the dance and entertainment music is a part of some ritualistic, primitive, cultural experience. It’s not the world we live in, so we just have to do what we can. All of those things are just forms, it’s really just about the energy that’s created and we just try to create that energy. That’s what we’ve always tried to do since we first went out, to create this certain energy that’s real and about trying to go deeper and explore.