Tracii Guns – HuffPost 10.21.11

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

Tracii Guns: Well when you’re a young new guy with a drum kit or a guitar or a singer, it’s really important to focus in on who your hero is of that year. That’s what really gets a developing musician a sense of center. A lot of times, these rock bands, like lets say during the Korn era–you’ve got a lot of bands doing the Korn thing. But then a year later or two years later, they’ve really spurred off and are doing this differently focused thing. It’s really important to believe in your influences, not necessarily copy them, but there have been a lot of blueprints laid in the last 40 or 50 years for rock music, whether it’s Morbid Angel or Chuck Berry, whoever your influences, keep them with you. Even though you’re going to change as an artist and you’re going to change as a musician, you’ll always have that music in your brain dictionary and encyclopedia that you listen to between the ages of seven and 22 years old. Those are going to be the values that stick with you for the rest of your music career. The great thing that happens, and of course, we’re talking about artistically, but as you grow in age, you start finding you’re interested in other types of music and then those styles become a part of your style. Number one thing is to be really happy with what you’re playing because ultimately, you have to make yourself happy. On the business side of things, the more you plan, the less likely what you hope to happen will happen. The best thing you can do is believe in yourself, believe in your music and get it out there. We’re in a day and age where you can really drive your own career as a musician, you have to use the social networking sites and YouTube and if you stick out above the crowd and people are going to notice you. That’s going to lead to you having a career and paying your bills as a musician. The days of thinking, “Hey, I’m going to go headline at a local bar and the next step is a major record deal and groupies and tour buses,” it’s not a very realistic goal. It was never a realistic goal. Some people were lucky–I was lucky–but nowadays, it’s nearly impossible. Katy Perry is one in 40 billion that’s going to be able to do that these days, and it’s very unfortunate. You still can have a career playing original music and having a very strong fan base and a following.