Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Another Voice on Celebrity Vs. Fame

  I had to drop by and share this. It overlaps with what I've been saying about people who try to become webcomics celebrities versus people who become famous for the quality of their work.

  It's from a CNN interview with Rob Thomas out of Matchbox 20:


CNN: Who has given you the best piece of advice?
Rob Thomas: Carlos [Santana]... I think Carlos' most important piece of advice ever was that he taught me the difference between being a celebrity and being a famous musician.
CNN: But some artists don't have that kind of success, and they try for celebrity instead.
Thomas: Sure, and sometimes that works -- but none of my favorites have done that.
I remember when Matchbox Twenty started years ago, and we had a lot of success, but nobody knew who we were. The first time we did an interview with MTV, it was about how no one knew who we were. We had sold 8 million records. I don't know if we were being naive at the time, but we thought we'd won because our songs were more famous than we were.
I'm much more known for the music that I make than what I do with my life. It's never, "Oh yeah, I've been seeing you in [the New York Post gossip column] Page Six at these clubs that you go to" or "I know who you're sleeping with."