Tommy Lee Quotes

You can never rely on musicians. I quit high school at one point to make a go of it with this band and we kept breaking up. So I went back to school.

My entry level has always been pretty high in the music business.

The Roots - we signed our first record deal when I was about 19 years old.

When I was 17-years-old, I was in the music business.

I have very much enjoyed being in the music business in different roles through five different decades.

All of them had so much to offer us as far as, you know, knowledge in the music industry, and especially Randy and Paula because, you know, they've been artists.

You can always boil down the life of a musician to touring, playing, and writing.

All I've ever wanted to do was play music and go on the road and make records.

I always considered trying to make a living playing music. But it was always really clear to me, at the various stages in my life, that it really wasn't a possibility unless some phenomenal thing happened.

I was working so hard at music and trying to do this whole 'industry' thing and realised that it wasn't for me.

I actually got signed when I was 14 with Sony Sweden. Things didn't really work out with that, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to be exposed to the industry at a young age.

I went to college to find myself. That's where I really realized I wanted to be a recording artist and started on the process of figuring out how to do that.

To be honest, when you grow up in the music business, people heard me sing from a young age, and you get offered development deals and things like that.

Even in high school, music was just a really fun thing on the side. I don't think I grasped the fact that it could be a profession.

The goal as a musician, I think, is to be able to make music as a living for the rest of your life.

I always knew, that in some way, I'd be connected to, and involved in, the music business.

I came to L.A. in 1970, and my desire and my training was to be a studio musician, which I had read about in my senior year in high school.

There was never really a Plan B for me - I always wanted to be a music artist.

I want to figure out what kind of artist I want to be, because with the 'American Idol' process, it just works really fast. The night of the finale, they said, 'OK, here are all the label people that you're gonna work with, this is the album you're gonna make and blah, blah, blah.' So it was a pretty fast process, but it's been cool.

I knew what I wanted to be, but I didn't know exactly how to get there. I thought you move to Nashville, you sing downtown, and someone discovers you, and you become a country music star. I had no idea.

I enjoy touring. I enjoy recording the music, I enjoy dreaming it and I enjoy performing it. I also definitely enjoy selling it, because I like to eat.

I've always had a passion for music, but I never saw me as a musician for a living. I never thought that I could make a living. It never dawned on me.

It is never easy for anyone to have success in music.

I got out of high school, bought a recording studio and started operating it as an engineer and a producer.

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.