Art & Creativity Quote by Mick Taylor

Mick Taylor’s advice dodges the usual rock-myth bravado and lands somewhere more practical: trust your ear, then build a small ecosystem around it. “Follow your instinct” is less mystical than it sounds. In music, instinct is the muscle memory of listening - the ability to feel when a phrase is honest, when a groove sits right, when you’re copying rather than channeling. Taylor’s career, forged inside famously high-pressure bands, gives that line extra bite: when the room is loud with egos, charts, managers, and expectations, instinct becomes a kind of internal metronome.

The second clause is the real thesis. He doesn’t romanticize the lone genius; he points you toward a tribe. “Get involved with some friends” frames artistry as social infrastructure: rehearsal spaces, shared records, arguments about tone, the boring logistics that actually produce a scene. “Similar tastes and aspirations” is a quiet warning against mismatched ambition - the band that implodes because one person wants bars, another wants stadiums, another wants art-school abstraction. Taylor is saying chemistry isn’t just personality; it’s aligned purpose.

There’s also a subtle democratizing impulse here. You don’t need gatekeepers to begin. You need people who “like music as much as you do” - not “people with connections,” not “people who understand branding.” It’s a musician’s blueprint for longevity: protect the inner compass, then surround it with collaborators who keep you playing, learning, and showing up long after the glamour wears off.