Vic Fuentes Quotes

As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

There are certainly things labels can still provide that indie artists can't. They can pave the way to radio and pay big bucks for promotion.

There are people who are genetically made to start record labels, and I'm not one of those people. People just have it in their blood and are good at it. Corey Rusk from Touch and Go and Ian MacKaye. These are people who have made their own labels.

It seemed record companies wanted bands to be creative because they didn't know how to manufacture underground music. We could do our own thing and go at our own pace. But that changed when major labels started wanting bands that would sell 7 million records.

It's a long process transitioning from indie to mainstream, and it's not that easy because it's a different environment when you are in the indie industry.

This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don't sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder.

It's always the music first for me. But if the music isn't selling, there isn't gonna be no business. So you gotta make sure music is always the first priority.

I don't spend much time listening to the records when they're done. Usually I let go of it. Especially in the Eighties and Nineties - they were like product, almost.

I don't believe in the philosophy of stumbling across hit records.

Artist development is something that I've been passionate about from my days at Uptown and Motown Records.

Recorded music is more a marketing tool than a revenue source.

The bricks and mortar of the music business, they don't exist any longer.

I've never worried about how a new release will be received. I simply try to do the best I can and leave the rest to the gods. The music industry in those terms is something I loathe and detest. It conjures up images of a gigantic factory spewing out parts of the machine.

I think basically lables were more interested in a Richard Page record than a Mr. Mister record.

I know there are some labels that put out music for art's sake, but I don't know which ones.

I think that's the problem in a lot of music. We've got these record labels.

It's frustrating to do albums that you think are worth listening to, but it's just so difficult to cut through.

I love music and musicians. And seeing great artists dropped from labels was really frustrating and sad to me.

Island Records was the first record label to... acknowledge me. After that, quickly, Republic Records, and then Atlantic Records, Sony Records and Warner Bros. It was all the labels at once. It was absolutely insane, like, knowing that this many record labels were interested in me.

I don't think that old-fashioned idea of record companies exists any more.

I think the record industry has gotten to be more about labels wondering what the new single is rather than labels nurturing artists. It's gotten away from making a full album of music that someone would want to listen to all the way through.

If it wasn't for the TLC story, many artists would not have smartened up, and you wouldn't have the Lil Waynes and people with their own labels.

I don't think they like the idea that the people who are buying the record get to choose what goes out, because it's their job. The fans even pre-ordered stock to make sure that I had some sort of presence.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don't think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

Since I was 17, I had been just making records and promoting them.