Allan Holdsworth Quotes

Doing stuff on my own terms and making a record without being signed to a label - I credit that all to my commercial work.

Although I didn't set out to run my own label, I found it made sense quite quickly. I can say what I want and dance to my own tune, even if sometimes it's like nobody is listening. The trade-off is you stay 'cult' and resign yourself to a very modest level of what most people would call success.

I love singing opera, but the world surrounding it is not me. I want to be barefoot. I want to be in control of my own career. I want to put on a show. In the opera world, you wait for people to call you until you get to a certain level. In the folk world, it's a lot easier to have control from the beginning.

I'd been doing my own thing, and making my own money; I wasn't built by a record label or the music industry, nor was I built by prominent artists that have given me co-signs.

I've always been independent with my music. I've always run my own music label.

I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission.

The reason I never wanted to sign with a big label was because I didn't want no one telling me how to make my music.

One of the advantages of not having a record contract is that you can make your own mistakes, you don't need somebody else to organize them for you.

I never solicited a major label and I certainly wouldn't now.

I didn't want to be on a major label. I wanted all the attention and the noise to go away because I wanted to be something a little bit more substantial.

Basically we just created our own label, but again we just did it to document our own music and create our own thing, so the major labels were just always out of our picture, we're not interested.

I'm one of the few that comes from this vantage point: I never tried to get a record deal.

Putting out my album on my own label has been a great experience for me. It's been very inspiring. It's like a new start for me and having all this creative freedom is so liberating and exciting.

I think I'll continue to work as a solo artist.

I've had a different kind of career on the periphery of show business. I've never been on any kind of corporate timetable whereby every six months I have to pop out a record like a pulping mill. I've called my own shots. When I get tired, I take time off.

Attention, it just comes and goes. Since we don't have a major label, it's like, what are we gonna do next? You have to make your own decisions.

I don't have a record deal, I'm not looking for one, I don't have a manager, I'm not promoting anything.

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

Wu-Tang Clan's first album, '36 Chambers,' there wasn't a lot of money given to make that album.

I don't have to worry about what the average record company person thinks because I am the record company person.

People talk about the pop part - they don't talk about me being an independent artist. I made it look easy, that's the problem!

Finally I'd found this way where I didn't need a record label; I didn't need to wait for some phone call to tell me, 'Go and do it'. It's like, I'm going to get up with a bag of CDs and an amp and my guitar and make it happen for myself. That was such a liberating feeling, and I think it was the start of everything.

When I made 'Lil Boat,' my first mixtape, I didn't have a drop date, a due date. I didn't have critics rating on it; I was just making it. And then when I finished it, I dropped it at my own smoothness, at my own pace.

It wasn't slung together by a producer and a publisher. We decided we were going to take hold of our music and let it evolve organically.

I don't wait on the music industry to qualify me or give me my paycheck. I go about my business as an artist and I believe that my value is in my product and in my art form, and that's why I can't be stopped, because I began producing my record by myself, without a record company.