Caroline Polachek Quotes

Growing up in Nashville, especially in a music business family, means growing up with knowledge that seems like common sense until later in life when you realize people spend thousands of dollars a semester trying to learn or pretending to learn while looking for some intern job on music row.

I definitely like making my friends in the music industry.

Brooklyn is where I primarily developed. I had an opportunity to make records and perform in clubs here and there, and I started networking with the right people in the right places.

I always wanted to be a part of a New York-based label, so I've worked really hard to try and network with people that I felt would put me in the right place.

I've been here 21 years, and I literally did walk up and down Music Row trying to break into the business. I felt very free to go into any publishing company.

I've never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I'd be left with the record company. And then - because they got fired - the record company wouldn't do anything for me.

A lot of young producers will stay at home and make beats all day but making beats is only about 20 percent of the job. The other 80 percent is networking; that's what I feel like a lot of people are lacking.

When I entered the music industry, the biggest struggle was reaching out to people.

In the music business, we're much better off staying in Bath - we don't get involved in the competitiveness, where you've got to be seen in the right places and music kind of takes second place.

Nobody is going to hand you a music career.

I'm really happy with Elektra, I don't have anything bad to say about them at all. I always knew a major label was the right place for me to be. I never really had an opportunity to go to an independent label anyway.

Now I get exposure first with people directly in the clubs. This is a unique situation for me.

I walk by studio heads and they actually look and put their hand out now, like maybe I should be on their radar.

I feel quite sad for the young musicians coming up because they may never get to pay their rent properly. It doesn't matter what the genre; nowadays, it's so much harder than it ever was.

Friends of friends had bands in college or in their early 20s and had a moment where they had some kind of interest from a record label or manager. It's always interesting how people handle those decisions and those moments.

I am going into the adult market because they don't care what label you are signed to or who you know.

You know, Simon he's an artist representative, but Randy and Paula actually were in the industry as artists so they had, you know, the information that they offered to us from their aspect.

The most effective tool I have to work with artists I admire is to point to other artists that I admire and show that I've worked with them many, many times. It's not because I have option deals; it's because they want to keep working with us.

I was a rapper. The reason I stopped rapping was because I realized that people wanted guys like Puff Daddy. That's not what I do. I quit. That was it. I had to sacrifice for my choice. I said, 'Forget it. I'll be a producer.' Nobody was going to make me do anything.

I think people got this idea that I wanted to be a star. Managers of the past don't have any kind of public persona - it's all about the fame of the artist. I really don't want to be a star. I just want to have a platform.

When someone is a musician - trying to make a living off being a public figure - it's really easy for people to see me as a face on a screen that doesn't have a personal life.

I don't think many people get second chances when it comes to the music scene.

My tour manager, I met him at Boot Barn. He was selling me a pair of boots... and he said, 'I moved to Nashville to be a tour manager, and I need work right now,' and I said, 'Man, I don't even have a tour manager. So you can tour-manage me.'

I signed at Sony and suddenly they've started to take an interest in Israeli musicians and to listen more, and I send them stuff. It's very important for me to open that window for Israelis.

I was scouted by this talent scout back home. She found me because I used to make my dad these CDs of my music, and I think that some guy that he worked with had a niece who worked with the talent scout, or something really drawn out, kind of word-of-mouth.