Matt Skiba Quotes

It's very easy for people to put out music.

I just wanted to have my own dynasty. I wanted my own Cash Money or Roc-A-Fella. Outside of that, I also wanted my own media company.

I think, actually, I was the first person to ever sign a simultaneous video and recording deal with a record company.

I was talking to different labels: Columbia, RCA, Epic. I decided not to sign with Epic even after L.A. Reid offered me a crazy deal.

Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.

I have had the good fortune to experience both the limelight and the traffic light as a musician. I did my first recording on my own and it was available at concerts. The second to seventh were released on small and then large labels. My eighth to 14th were done under my own steam once again, but with the benefit of the Internet.

It's not like it used to be where everybody has a record company to belong to.

I saw an Elvis Presley movie Jailhouse Rock, where he gets out of jail and makes his own records and takes them to the radio stations himself. And then, he puts records in the store. After seeing that, I made records an put them in stores.

That's my favorite subject because it really levels the playing field for artists these days. You don't have to sell out to the record company. You don't have to get a five hundred thousand dollars, or whatever, and pay them back for the rest of your life to record a record.

One of the first groups we signed was the Fifth Dimension.

I remember telling the head of Warner Brothers that if they'd just make a video for 'Ol' Red'... and if it didn't work, they could drop me from the label.

I think that there will always be artists out there who think they need to sign a major label deal in order to be successful. And that machine is what is going to work for them - there's tons of examples of pop stars who need that machine.

I know being on a major label is meant to be antiquated, but we're fine with it.

I can't believe I got a major-label record deal. My music was quirky, and my voice was so odd and high and girlish, it was like a weird novelty act.

After we wrote The Wreckoning, our record label did listen.

When people see you have a song on MTV, they think you are doing well - but you know, the way the traditional label deal was set up, it is really hard for an artist, unless they sold a lot, to see anything.

My first record deal was an independent record deal back in 1995 or early 1996.

I once worked at a record label called London Records. The company was owned by Roger Ames, one of the most successful figures in the British music industry. Roger always placed a value on loafing, on holidays, on not being in the office all the time.

I was initially signed to a German label a few years ago.

If you had ever heard my album you would know that I could never consider the music business!

You sign your life away, basically, when you sign a record deal, and if you have a platinum album, then you go back in and renegotiate.

My passion is music, you know, and music influences culture, influences lifestyle, which leads me to 'Roc-A-Wear'. I was forced to be an entrepreneur, so that led me to be CEO of 'Roc-A-Fella' records, which lead to Def Jam.

I don't want to be a small-time, independent, successful rapper.

When it comes to independent music albums, you cannot put in 50 lakhs or a crore in each and every song to first make a video and then even promote it. It's not possible for a musician or a singer to promote each song. It's not possible for musicians to do that independently.

Roc was only supposed to be our distributor, but then they ended up recruiting me as the label's artist. They said they really liked my album 'Everything You Wanted.'