Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood Offer Advice to Young Artists

Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood earned spots on the Music City Walk of Fame in early September, a new accolade to add to each of their long lists of achievements, including multiple CMA Awards, ACM Awards and Grammys, as well as platinum-selling albums and chart-topping singles. But for all of their success, the country music superstars still remember their humble beginnings, which inspires them to help other young artists as much as they can.

"My advice to anybody coming here is, there’s a fine line between compromise and not compromising [on] those decisions of where you’ll bend ..." Brooks told The Boot and other reporters at a media event following his and Yearwood's Walk of Fame induction ceremony. "And the people that help you with those decisions is what it’s all about.

"So 'relationships' would be the word I would use for anybody coming here," he continues. "Find that guy that says, ‘Hey, before you go in there and burn that office like you’re getting ready to do, I want you to think about this, that and that,’ because you can’t go back. It’s the hardest job they have, because all they can do is give you advice, but they know that they have to turn you loose, and you have to make those decisions. And fortunately, when it’s good, they get to enjoy that success, and when it’s bad, they get to burn with you, and it’s all out of their control."

Yearwood adds that, while she empathizes with the struggles that many new artists face, it's important to continue to make music, regardless of mainstream success.

"Every artist who is making records today and is successful at it can relate to that feeling that it’s in you, that you have to create. You have to do it," she says. "I’ve often said that if I wasn’t getting to it on this level, I’d probably be singing down at the Holiday Inn five nights a week and be happy about it.

"You have to remember that drive," Yearwood adds. "I think it’s probably harder now than ever to get a record deal and to keep it and be unique and different ... My best advice is to be true to yourself. Most artists, even at a young age, have a real sense of what kind of music they want to do. Stick with that, even when it seems really tough."

The two country artists, who are the first husband-and-wife inductees onto the Music City Walk of Fame, admit that being married to a fellow musician poses its own unique set of challenges.

"When you’re married to someone that you respect in the business, and she gives you advice, you take it and then go to her and say, ‘Look, thank you for the advice, but this is what I’m going to do,’" Brooks explains, "and she pays for everything you do, and vice versa.’"

Brooks and Yearwood are currently crossing the country together on his World Tour.

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