O.A.R.’s Marc Roberge – HuffPost 6.23.14

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Marc Roberge: Oh man, I say the same thing every time, it’s literally the one thing that turns me on or turns me off about a new artist. If they are willing to play anywhere at any time, drop of the hat, create some music and do it with all their heart, boom. That’s what you need to do. A lot of these younger bands come up and, basically, they want to be famous. They don’t want to be in a band, they don’t want to be an artist. My nephews and cousins are young and I say to them, “listen, you can’t go in thinking you want to be famous, you’ve got to think that you want to play music every day for twenty five years.” If that’s in your heart and you’re willing to do that, and do it when there are five people in the audience and still sweat it out, that’s what separates it. People say, “Well, everyone’s on YouTube.” Great, that’s awesome, more music for the world. But it’s still going to separate at some point the people who want to get out there and play live music and the people who don’t, and I think that’s what separates, in my opinion, what a young artist can do.

Ragogna: It seems like you guys took your advice.

Roberge: Well, yeah. We only learned it from the bands that came before us. We watched The Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, incredible live acts who loved playing shows. Pearl Jam, in my opinion, is one of the greatest jam bands of all time. You never consider them a jam band, but if you go to a concert, they’re jamming harder than any band I’ve ever seen. We learned that coming up. My brother’s band would stay in our basement, a seven-piece band coming through town stinking up the basement, eating all our food, sleeping on the floor and that’s what they wanted. That’s what I wanted to do. Later on, I have kids and stuff and I’m still in that mindset. My kids are always psyched. They look at rock ‘n’ roll like I did; it’s a cool thing to pass down.