Matthew Sweet – HuffPost 9.26.11

Mike Ragogna: Matthew, what have you got as far as advice for new artists?

Matthew Sweet: God, it’s so hard. I mean, I can’t imagine being a new artist now just because there are so many people that are artists. I think you should do your own thing that you’re comfortable with. If you just get really into it and you’re doing what you dig, then other people are more likely to dig it. If you’re trying to think like other people or be like something else, I think it’s a lot harder. So, I would say be yourself and try to really care about the music the most. All of the other stuff? First of all, it’s very hard to have success in music and second of all, when you do, it’s not going to be forever or at the same level. You might try and try and try and never get that far or you might do incredibly well and then it all goes away. So, in the end, you just have to really like doing music, and that separates, as they say, the men from the boys, or I guess the ladies from the girls as well, in terms of who hangs in there and becomes an artist. You have to have the urge to keep doing it, to really hang around long enough to have made a mark.