Nils Lofgren – HuffPost 4.18.14

Mike Ragogna: What do you think about advice for new artists? Or, you know, something that they can take away as advice?

Nils Lofgren: I was very blessed early on, I hit the road when I was seventeen and shortly after that I met Neil Young and by eighteen I was living in David Briggs’ house, Grin was finding their way with David as a producer but I started working Neil on After The Gold Rush, Tonight’s The Night, the first Crazy Horse album without Neil, Danny Whitten and Jack Nitzsche joined the band to produce Danny Whitten who was the heart and soul of crazy horse. Basically, the message from Briggs and Neil was be authentic, always be honest and stay down in it and the business and what comes from it financially or otherwise has to be secondary. If you hang onto that honesty and you’re authentic about what you’re creating and stay engaged by it, the rest will work out. You’ll have highs, you’ll have lows, there might be some rough stuff but if you’re true to yourself and you weather the other stuff and you don’t get desperate and try to just change who you are or what you are to get a record deal or to please and executive then you might have a shot at the kind of career I wound up having, which is music I’m proud of, a lot of it, and to put it together and share it has really been exciting.