Phil Harris Quotes

I'd actually say that every musician is a human being, and that not everybody likes being social. But with music, there are all these ingredients to the business that have nothing to do with writing songs or playing an instrument.

I'm from a little island off of Massachusetts, Nantucket. It's hard getting into the music business from there, but my parents took me to songwriting festivals because I would write and produce my own music.

But I sent letters to people in the music business. And one day I got a phone call from somebody and he asked me when I was born and where I was born. And, you know, three or four days later I got a call. Someone said, you know, Yoko Ono wanted to meet me in New York. I got on a plane. And the next day I was having coffee with John Lennon.

To come out in the music business, you only really get one shot. A lot of people get to play small gigs first, and build up that way, without anyone really seeing them.

When you're in the music business, every day is the same. If you work 9 to 5, you can't wait for the weekend, but in the music business, you don't know one day from the next. It's always the weekend.

I just love singing, songwriting and touring.

You know, I get a lot of people pitching songs to me.

I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it's not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.

They would come down in Mississippi, they hired me as a talent scout. And I would go all over Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and find out different artists for them.

My producer, Michael Knox, he's kind of my eyes and ears on Music Row. While I'm out on the road, he's looking for songs, and then he and I will get together and go over songs.

I certainly have gotten caught up in the music business at various times in my life, mostly because you want to get along with whatever record company you're dealing with. I don't want to be flaky. I don't want to be some temperamental, hard-to-work-with musician.

I ended up performing one time at BET. I performed my record, like, four times, and the crowd was going super crazy. And Busta just happened to be there; he pulled me to the side and asked, 'Are you signed to anybody?' So we went to the studio a few days later, spoke, and then became business partners.

I knew Chester. I've known Chester since 2001. I was in a band called Dry Cell, and we were signed by the same guy that signed Linkin Park, so that's how I knew him. He would come to some of our writing sessions and rehearsals; I'd see him in the studios that we were at.

I'm a DJ, and I live in Williamsburg, and I run an independent record company.

I met Rick Rubin through Cat Collins, a DJ friend of mine that had worked for Rubin at American Recordings.

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

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

Having a solo career is a funny thing.

I got about 6037 songs I wrote myself and I'm trying to get them on the market and I just wish people could hear them and stuff but they'll do pretty good.

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.

There's artists that I'm working with on a new label of mine. Foxy Nova and Supa Nova.

That's one of the problems with making music your business, it becomes a business. You're no longer just this kid who is a fan and going to see every show. I've been in a bar every night for the last 15 years. Going to see bands for me is work.

An artist don't make you bigger than life - being that person that can break artists can make you bigger than life.

Nowadays, with the state of the music business, for any artist, whether you're up-and-coming or you've been in it for awhile, you have to explore different revenues and different ways of expressing yourself.