Jon Anderson – HuffPost 11.6.13

Mike Ragogna: Jon, what advice do you have for new artists?

Jon Anderson: It’s very, very simple: You practice, you practice, and then you practice more. The breaks will come if you keep working. There’s no point in sitting around waiting to be a star. It’s not going to happen. You’ve got to work on your craft and you’ve got to go out there and perform. I’m working with a young guitar player at the moment. We’ve been working together for the last three years on and off; he’s a beautiful guitar player and I’ve got him into playing classical guitar and we’ve written two concertos together. They’re mostly his ideas and he works on the arrangements with orchestras himself. It’s wonderful to work with young people. Next Spring, I’ll be working with Studio House up in Woodstock, New York. It’s working with Paul Green who started School Of Rock and we’re working with a bunch of young musicians again and doing a performance together. So these things are part of my life. I love working with young musicians.

MR: So you love this mentoring role?

JA: Yeah! There’s some great music out there, there’s a lot of young music out there. It’s got nothing to do with the pop charts, it’s just young people out there doing festivals and things like that and people love it.