Rivers Cuomo Quotes

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.

Before I'd even started doing music or having opportunities with my own music, I was studying production and business and stuff anyway. I knew there were so many jobs within the music industry - songwriting or session playing or working at a label - and I was really interested in how it all works.

I love what I do. I made my first record in '57. I don't think I'll ever get tired of making records and writing songs and singing and being in the music business.

I attended a post-college program in L.A. for Music Business and Production. Took several courses involving Music Production, Arrangement, and Songwriting.

Yeah, man I am going to be writing a book soon. The reality of being in a rock band in the music business'.

The kids of today have taken over the music business - most of them very young. Simply because they write and jot down a few notes, they have the idea that they can write songs.

I dabbled a little bit in the whole music thing but I've always thought about Bernie Taupin, who is Elton John's lyricist; Elton John is the great melody and song writer but Bernie Taupin is the one who writes all the lyrics. I don't write lyrics, and I never wanted to be in the music business if I was just going to be a puppet in it.

As a producer, as a songwriter, I've spent a lot of time either in my bedroom or in studios, alone.

We worked with Max Martin's team, MXM, who are the best in the business as well. We worked with Stargate, which was phenomenal, and Victoria Monet.

It wasn't so much that I had to leave to make it in the music business as I was curious to be out on my own and sort of explore. I never felt that where I was ever influenced my songwriting.

I have very much enjoyed being in the music business in different roles through five different decades.

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.

The music business can be very cold. And it doesn't honor its elders.

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.

The more people who come from musical backgrounds and go into promotion, production, songwriting, A&R, plus get their business head together, the better. They'll not only understand the business aspect, they'll also have a true passion and ear for how quality is represented musically.

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.

There was never really a Plan B for me - I always wanted to be a music artist.

You still have that competitive thing where you want to try to make hits. That won't go away, unless the mayor of show business says my time's up.

I definitely have plans to do more collaboration albums in the future. I'm a big fan of Common. I'm a big fan of Scarface; I'm a big fan of so many people, from Jeezy to... well, there are a lot of people's music that I respect. I don't know who I will collaborate with, but there's a great chance of something happening.

I never thought of having platinum albums and winning awards. I just wanted to write songs and sing when I started out in the music business.

I feel like once the song is done, you put it out there and if people want to do bizarre remixes, if people want to make strange videos, great. You know, like chaos theory applied to the music business.

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've always been around musicians and always been the songwriter who doesn't end up playing the music.

I enjoy touring. I enjoy recording the music, I enjoy dreaming it and I enjoy performing it. I also definitely enjoy selling it, because I like to eat.

The whole point of 'Acid Rap' was just to ask people a question: does the music business side of this dictate what type of project this is? If it's all original music and it's got this much emotion around it and it connects this way with this many people, is it a mixtape? What's an 'album' these days, anyways?