Steve Barton – HuffPost 6.11.12
Mike Ragogna: Steve, what is your advice for new artists?
Steve Barton: If I had any advice for a new artist — this is going to sound clichéd — it would be that you’ve got to be true to the vision that you have for your music because there are going to be plenty of people telling you, “No, it should be like this.” I remember when Translator was on our first tour, this would have been in ’81 or ’82, and we were in New York doing an interview with some New York kind of fanzine paper or magazine and for those of you listening, a magazine is a piece of paper that had words on it that you’d pick up and thumb through… not just the internet. There was a song on our first Translator album called “Dark Reach,” which is a very dissonant song. The guy who was interviewing us said, “You know, if Lou Reed had done that song, he would have done this and this. How come you didn’t do this? You did it like this, and Lou Reed would have done this.” And we finally said, “You know what? Lou Reed didn’t do this song. We did.” For a young artist, I would say you’ve got to just be true to what you want to do because there can be enough people telling you how someone else would have done it or, “Gee, why didn’t you do this?” or “I think you should have done this!” You just have to really be true to what your vision of it is. Sometimes it’s easier said than done, but that’s the goal, I think.
MR: Yeah, easier said than done because you also have to sort of compensate for a little of this and a little of that all the time.
SB: And there’s temptation to go, “Oh the snare drum has to sound like this.” I remember, I think on one of Elvis Costello’s Spectacle shows, he was talking and he said, “I came to a time when the snare drum had to sound a certain way that I hated, but that’s how Duran Duran wanted it. Nothing wrong with their records, but that’s not how I wanted to sound.” It’s true. Sometimes that trap can be there like, “No, no. That has to sound like this.” You just have to make the records you want to make. That’s the ultimate, I think.