[Dave Stewart, Today’s Challenges, Art vs. Commerce]

Dave Stewart: Yeah, it could easily happen today in a different way maybe as you go down some different roads and some different routes. Things are very – I was open as they were to people with talent or people with vision to being able to get from A to Z, but the roots are different. For instance, a kid might want to be in an iPod commercial and gets a job in an iPod commercial. It’s on for a week. Martin Scorsese sees him and casts him The Aviator, which is true. That would be one route. And he’s fifteen years old and now he’s in The Aviator.

And there’s other ways, like Beck, making these tapes in his mom’s kitchen or whatever and getting it on a tiny little indie label, “I’ma loser baby so why don’t you kill me” And suddenly radio stations start playing it and the next think you know, record companies want to sign him. And there’s all sorts of ways and means of getting noticed and it’s how you want to deal with that. What do you want to – then be noticed as a kind of art statement or do you think that’s a way in which to make a career. They’re two different things.

I think you set about just doing something that you really think is – you’re gut instinct is it’s really great and you’re really proud of it and it’s whatever art form it is, whether it’s a sculpture or writing a song and everything. And you continue doing that and you love it. I think at one point other people are gonna love it too. But that has a limitation as to how many people could love it, depending on how many people it can get exposed to. So then it comes a point in a creator’s life whether you go, “Hmm, its okay sort of being in this one gallery or performing in this one bar. How do I then get other people to hear it?” And then have to enter into the marketplace.

Now art and commerce have got this very peculiar marriage, and Damien Hirst once did a very good sort of piece of what he thinks about that, which you can see in a book in his, The Works of Damien Hirst. And what it is is the compromise is – it’s such a bizarre thing to do with art. Art is all about not comprising and saying how you feel and what you feel. And commerce, 99% of the time, is about compromising. So that marriage has always been an awkward one. And to tell you the truth, most of the bands that refuse to compromise, have been the most successful. Yet the record industry still haven’t understood that thing and they still want to get bands to compromise and tone down and dress this way and walk this way and kind of follow this sort of pattern that they’ve done – a demographic study of what they think people want.

But of course, people only want that ‘cause that’s what they’ve been fed and they haven’t seen the new thing. And as soon as the new thing appears that is brilliant, they all want that too. So if you do listen, if you were to listen to what people in the position to try and make it compromise would tell you to do, you might end up being a very generic, another thing on the shelf that people could choose from, but you’re not standing up or sticking out looking very unusual and – I think it’s best to stick to your own vision really.

So if anyone thinks that their original vision probably is commercial and they have they say, “I have to do something commercial first, but what is that?” So anybody can come along to me and tell me what is a commercial thing to do and think they guarantee you that it’s gonna be a hit. They’re dreaming. Otherwise, why isn’t one company in the world just making every record and every record and every record’s a hit.

You know the “IT” factor? That comes in if you have all these boy bands and girl bands and they can manufacture to a certain point, something that, “Okay. This will be a hit.” There’s bound to be one of them in there that does have a certain “IT” factor. And they usually – they rise to both of them, whether it’s Justin Timberlake or Robbie Williams or whoever, that “IT” factor can’t help itself but become the real thing.

But I think you’ve got to really go when you got instinct about everything and about painting, sculpture, art, acting, in every way. But the great thing is if you have a lot of knowledge about how to then deliver how you’re feeling, whether that’s through guitar playing or singing. You’ve learned how to use an instrument so you can explode in emotion. It’s no good to go, “Right. I’ve got it now, but I don’t know how to play anything and I don’t know how sing,” then that’s gonna be difficult, still possible. This character is like Ian Dury from Ian Dury and Blockheads. He couldn’t sing and he was a crippled guy and he had all this stuff, but he invented a way of making himself get across. He wrote that song “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll.”

And there’s lots of characters like Johnny Rotten or John Lydon. He can sing, but he’s not a singer’s singer so to speak. But he had a something he wanted to say and boy, he got it across. But he wasn’t holding back and going, “Hmm, I wonder if I should the safety pin out. That one’s a bit too much.” He came on like somebody possessed.