Sam Phillips – HuffPost 10.25.13

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

Sam Phillips: Oh, I think have a sense of humor and don’t be afraid to put that in your art. I think one of the things that I see missing from every art form these days–except for comedy, of course–the humor is really absent. There are so many dramas on television that just don’t have an ounce of humor in them that I think would be just so much better if they did. A lot of artists take themselves too seriously. To me, it’s very charming, someone who’s trying to reach the greater truth. I would say learn to do a lot of different things as well. Be open to the next hybrid. Rock ‘n’ Roll was a hybrid of a couple of different kinds of music and I think not only are there other music combinations out there, but I also think we should look between the art forms. I think it gets really exciting when people start combining the other art forms–theater with music and technology. I think there are a lot of interesting things on the horizon and I’m very hopeful. But back to that previous question one more time, the only thing that I really do want to say is that I’ve spent maybe twenty-five years now as “Sam” doing my music and I feel that I’ve done so much more work as Sam and I’ve worked very hard to not become a pop star but to become a decent songwriter and performer and record maker. But those beginnings were the beginnings and that’s the way it is. I flinch a little when people ask about that because I feel that the majority of what I’ve done in my life is these other albums. Although they were wacky beginnings, I do appreciate you focusing more on the last twenty-five years rather than the first four of my career. I wanted to add that because I guess it’s just weird, although there are a lot of artists who got their beginnings in the church because that’s where they could sing and people listened to them. That’s where they found their audience and then moved on and moved out of that as they got older. I guess it’s not that odd but it is important to me that I have spent the majority of my time doing what I’m doing now.