Southside Johnny – HuffPost 5.31.13

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

Southside Johnny: Just love it. You’re lucky that you get a chance to play. It’s a tough grind, and it’s a ridiculously hard business. A lot of times there’s just no joy to be felt from people and there’s a lot of negativity. A real musician knows, when they sit down to write a song with someone, or when they play in front of people and they get lost in it, that’s what they should be doing. So even though the rewards can be scant at times, when you hit that golden moment, when you’ve sung a song or written a song that works, that’s the reward. Stardom, money, all of that is peripheral. Really, the best thing you can do, if you feel it when you perform or when you write, don’t listen to what anybody else says, just go ahead and do it. You can always go work at the Post Office.