All That Remains’ Philip LaBonte – HuffPost 11.6.12
Mike Ragogna: All right, that’s fair, although I’m merely a contributor, a blogger. However, you can’t escape my traditional question, sir. What advice do you have for new artists?
Philip LaBonte: Oh, God. Don’t even try it. [laughs] The thing is, just write stuff that you believe in and don’t expect to be a rock star. I think that’s the fairest…not just the fairest but the best way to be involved in music because at the end of the day, music is an art, and what’s important is that you’re writing music because you love music and because you want to create new music. People that get into music because they want to be rock stars, that’s the worst idea ever. It’s a terrible move. Rock stars are not what rock stars were in the eighties. Don’t believe what you see on TV. People don’t buy records anymore. Just don’t get into music because you want to be a rock star. Write music because you want to write music, and if you’re concerned about the party, then maybe you should buy a bar in your town and be the guy that owns the bar so that way, you can bang drunk chicks or whatever. Being the rock star doesn’t work anymore. If it was hard in the eighties, it is exceedingly hard nowadays. Don’t even bother if your intention is, “I want to be a rock star.” If you’re creative and you have stuff that you want to put out and songs that you want to write and you’re an artist, then get into it, man. It might not be easy, you might not be successful, but nowadays, if you’re an artist, then you can write those songs and record them and put them up on YouTube and see what happens. That’s pure and that’s honestly kind of beautiful. But if your intent is, “I want to write songs so I can be a rock star and be famous and be on stage,” if you want to do it so that way, you can get some kind of gratification from a crowd, don’t do it. You can find something else to do because it’s not worth it. If your desire is a shallow desire, then don’t even bother because you’re just going to sit there and hate yourself even more than you already do. If you’re an artist that has something to give, that’s good.