It is human nature to want to emulate, to copy, to recreate, to be like, and to try and be the same; some of us even try to be better. Our teachers, our mentors, and even our heroes are not safe from the aggressive and focused assault of a student on the warpath.
We grow up in the shadow of the greats, and we learn to walk through watching them run, we learn how to create through watching them create themselves, and somehow, somewhere along the way, some of us decided that it was time to step outside of the shadow we thought we were in; and we knew that we were going to try and steal some of that sunshine for ourselves, even if it means that our heroes might fall in the process.
The ego is both a credible friend and the murderer of our potential, and through musical history we have watched many musicians try and become the very people they grew up to love; and these very musicians fail to even come close to orbiting that precious greatness, and instead they burn up trying to fly too close to the sun.
Heed my warning, if you are trying to be the next Dr.Dre. the next Trent Reznor, or the next Incubus, you need to stop right now; because you are going to burn those hopeful wings of yours.
The world is impressively quick to find the fraud in the artist, and even quicker to shine a light on them for all to see; and when they are looking your way for the wrong reasons, it never ends up the way you had hoped it would.
I could write for days on the many greats that walked their own path, the ones that wrote their own songs, with their own words, the ones that became the very sun themselves; but what’s the point? this isn’t about them, this is about you.
You are the new great, but only if you are brave enough to walk away from your teacher for a while, or rather, for a lifetime.
You must forget about buying the same guitar as Adam Jones (TOOL), with the same amp and the same custom effects. You must ditch the white face paint, the mismatched eyes, and the hard on to take down the church like Marilyn Manson, you must BE YOU!
You must find your way to say the things that you want to say, without hanging out in the safety of the shadow of the ones who came before. If you want to shake it up, then you must be willing to attempt true honesty; and that means that you run the risk of a true personal attack on your artistic soul. There is no shortage of musicians that hide under the guise of another, and believe that when they are attacked for their sound, that this is a compliment by proxy, because it must mean that they are on to the same wavelength as their musical god; this of course could not be further from the truth.
What has been done has been done, what is being done is being done, and what you choose to do is the only decision that matters right now.
You know if you are trying to sing like someone, if you are buying the exact same gear as someone else, and if you are secretly trying to win the approval of your rock god and their legion of fans; and if you know that you are, then you now know to stop.
There is an argument for being influenced and inspired by an artist, I get that.
There is an argument for someone wanting to show their absolute love and respect for a particular sound, I get that too.
But if you want to rise above the many, then you must be willing to walk with the few.
This means that you must learn to work with your own voice, to understand the way it wants to, and needs to be. This means that you must force your creative minds eye wide open, to see past the distortion you love so much in your favorite band. This means that in order to step outside that great and expansive shadow, you will need to walk a new path, one that might be parallel to another, but is not the same one at all.
You are not Jim Morrison.
You are not Kurt Cobain.
You are not Tori Amos.
What you are is you, and for the love of all things creative and holy, connect with that awesome idea!
We don’t need another anyone at all. What we do need is someone that can add more color to the incredible palette and painting that we all have the privilege, and pleasure, of helping to create.
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