There should be an element of mystique between the fans and the artist. That bit between the stage and the audience. I think that's necessary.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Without audiences, artists would be doing something else, and their creative and technical skills would fall on absent eyes.
More often than not, the fans really gravitate towards who's on the cover as opposed to how it's drawn or how it's composed, and so, a lot of the time, what an artist likes will be very different from what a fan likes.
I've always seen it as the role of an artist to drag his inside out, give the audience all you've got. Writers, actors, singers, all good artists do the same. It isn't supposed to be easy.
If the audience knew what they wanted then they wouldn't be the audience, they would be the artist.
So many artists say they're not aware of audience. For me is unbelievable.
That's the thing about great artists: They find the thing that's most obvious to themselves, what's most conscious and natural, and they put it out there and the audience comes.
I don't mind putting my heart out there for the audience, and for the country music fans... to be vulnerable with them... that's my job as an artist.
I find a lot of up-and-coming musicians I enjoy, present them to my viewers - and hopefully inflate the growth of these artists by putting them in front an audience that wouldn't have been aware of them.
To me, it's important to try and make an emotional connection with the audience.
I like that because the fans want to see onstage what they know so well from the big screen.