Waylon Jennings Quotes

My original idea was to produce and not make records myself.

I wanted out of my record deal with EMI. They wanted me to record one type of album; I wanted to record the type of music I wanted to make.

I guess I've learned that there's really no such thing as a bad label, there is only a bad contract.

There isn't a single artist out there, I'm sure, who wouldn't take the most perfect record deal. If the right record deal came along, like, the perfect deal, we'd definitely take it.

I love producing. I have been producing some acts and starting a label.

By the time my first solo record came out, I was making a handsome living as a record producer. I had worked with the Band, Janis Joplin and all of these other artists in the Albert Grossman organization. So as my so-called solo career evolved, I never felt pressure that I had to come back and top when I might've done before.

A producer gets the whole vision done from top to bottom, to making the record to having the record delivered to the world. That's a producer.

I think what I've learned to focus on is my music, and that's why I made my record independently.

We make sure we have total artistic control with our albums. We were working with Interscope Records, and they had a hard time with us having all the control. So when we signed with Warner Bros., we told them we would be working hands-on with our producer, and they were cool with it.

I'm not just going to get a deal; I'm going to get the deal. And in my deal I got by signing with No I.D. to Def Jam, I got full creative control, the money was great, the contract was good, and I got to create the album that I wanted.

I've been with Def Jam Records for five years and they gave me my first recording contract so for that I'm forever grateful.

I have friends who have a CD mastering plant in Hollywood and they are very sceptical about European record labels' understanding of digital technology.

There's this idea of a star, and this person is very aloof and writes all the music, and they don't talk to anyone unless they go through the record label. And I always felt very uncomfortable about that.

Most of the people I know in bands, all they are concerned about is getting to do the next record.

I did a record with a producer, and the good producers eat up the budget, so I didn't have any budget left to produce this record. I had to produce it myself.

I never, ever had it in my mind that I wanted to be in the record industry, because I still contend that the record industry is an insidious affair. It's this terrible collision between art and commerce, and it will always be that way.

I tested the waters on producing a record, but I'm more of a creative guy. I can't get into minute details.

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

The record company stay out of my way. Whenever the record is finished, they take it.

I certainly don't want to be a record label guy.

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

I'd done recordings, little demos, since I was in college, which I used to get gigs. But I never thought I'd have a record label.

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.

We try and stay out of the corporate side of it. The band has never compromised. At some point in our career we could have made a certain type of record and sold millions of units, as they are called.

I have just enough people paying attention that I have the freedom to be in charge. And I have a great record company - Nonesuch understands what I'm about.