Enjoy The Ride - Part 3 of Our Interview With Ryan Roxie

Enjoy The Ride- Part 3 Of Our Interview With Ryan Roxie of Roxie 77, Alice Cooper and Casablanca

“Just remember , the bass player’s going to get all the money and all the chicks,but you’re going to get all the glory as a guitar player.”

Ryan Roxie has, like many musicians before and after him, has spent his life chasing his dreams and making them come true. He understands what it’s like to pay your dues, to fight tooth and nail to make it to the top and how much blood, sweat and tears a musician puts into getting there. He knows how much of ourselves we pour into our playing and how much you grow as a person throughout the journey and how enjoyable the ride can be.

I got some of the best advice I have ever gotten from anyone during this interview. He has given me the courage to keep at it , no matter how hard it can get and to continue to follow my dreams and to put in the practice,persistence,promotion and patience to make it happen. If you are an aspiring musician, I encourage you to take what Ryan says in the interview to heart and remember that you’ll get your shot , you just need to be prepared for it.

Roxie, who started playing guitar when he was five years old, began taking it seriously when he was twelve. Ryan knew that playing guitar is what he wanted to fully immerse himself in for the rest of his life after hearing Cheap Trick for the first time at a party in Los Angeles in the 70’s. Fueled off of his inspirations, he put in the hard work and passion that made his dreams come true.

Ryan’s other passion in life is helping others in any way he can, whether it is through his music or his work with several charities. One of his latest ventures has been working with the Pay It Forward Experience, a movement that encourages everyone to incorporate random acts of kindness into their lives every day. Remember that just making someone smile can make their world a better place, even if just for a little while.

If you are interested in being involved with the Pay It Forward Experience, or would just like to know more about Charley and his movement, you can check it out here:

http://payitforwardexperience.com/

While on a break from Alice Cooper’s Raise The Dead tour, Ryan Roxie talks his work with the Pay It Forward Foundation , the inspiration for Roxie 77’s “Wake Up and Smell The Coffee ” ,what he would be doing for a living if he wasn’t playing guitar,the moment he knew he wanted to play and his advice for aspiring musicians.

Jessica: I play guitar , so I have to ask what is your advice for aspiring musicians?

Ryan: *Laughs* Well, definitely you picked the right instrument. Guitar is… you know. You picked the right one to play and you’re going to get all the glory. Just remember, the bass players are going to get all the money and all the chicks, but you’re going to get all the glory as a guitar player. So enjoy it. Remember these three things , actually four things because I did add another one. It’s called the four P’s. It used to be called the three P’s , but now its the four P’s. Practice. Because you have to practice. Everybody’s gotta get to a certain level if you want to make this more than just a hobby, if you want to make it part of your life. Practice your ass off. You’ve got to be persistent because when the door slams in your face, you’ve got to be persistent enough to kick it down again, because the door will get slammed in your face. Don’t worry. You have to have patience. That’s the third one. Patience, because don’t think that it’s going to come over night. It’s gonna take some time, but when you get your – You will get your shot, and when you do get your shot, make sure that you’ve prepared yourself and that you’re ready for it and make the most of it.The fourth one is promote. Always promote. Promote yourself. Don’t talk bad about yourself. Don’t think that you’re not good enough of a guitar player. You’re good enough. You’re as good as you think you are and as long as you keep promoting , there’s going to be other people that will and you believe in yourself, there will be other people that will start to believe in you as well and you build that up and you keep promoting and again, being persistent you’ll be able to make this more than just something that you dreamed of when you were, you know , when you were a kid. You can actually make it your reality, which I’ve been lucky enough so far to do. Knock on wood.

Jessica: Do you like coffee and if so, what is your favorite kind?

Ryan: Do I like coffee? I actually have a song with my band Roxie 77 , which I front and oddly enough its the second song off the last album that we put out. It’s called “Wake Up and Smell The Coffee” , so coffee culture comes from so many years living in Los Angeles that’s obviously a coffee culture, but I think I moved to a even bigger coffee culture, not Seattle obviously, but I moved to Sweden where they take their coffee very,very seriously. Every single morning I wake up with my own cup, my own brand and I think everybody in Sweden has their own personal espresso machine.

Jessica: You’re working with the Pay It Forward Foundation. Can You tell us a little bit more about that?

Ryan: Yes. I came across the Pay It Forward Foundation and the PIF experience , if you will from a really cool girl named Malin in Sweden who was doing these Pay It Forward events where she would get donations from everybody, whatever it was, whether it was musical items, whether it was clothing . Whatever it was, she would gather it all together, put together packages and give them out to people that really needed it, and that was her way of paying it forward, so from that , I was inspired and went on the internet and found out where she got all this information and inspiration from. I went to http://pifexperience.com/ and found a guy named Charley Johnson , who is very , very inspiring. If you go to Pay It Forward, you just Google Pay It Forward Experience, you’ll run across his site and all you have to do is basically check out what he has to say for five minutes and you’re sold. You realize that this guy is so dedicated to make the world just a little bit better of a place. He’s not asking for much. He’s not asking for anything that anybody can’t bring to the table and I like that. I like being able to change the world ever so slightly. It doesn’t have to be huge, but it is something every single day and the more you do it, the more you pay it forward with random acts of kindness, the more you see the results , the more you see the results coming back to yourself in a bigger way. So I actually encourage anyone , if they’re interested in paying it forward just to go Google the words pay it forward experience and you’ll find Charley and all of his inspiration and all of his inspirational quotes.

You can listen to the rest of Part 3 here:

*Ryan’s band Casablanca has an album coming out this week called “Riding A Black Swan” .You can pre-order it here: