Clive Davis Quotes

It's a simple formula for me now, I don't play any song I don't want to play.

I can't tell you how freeing it is to have my own label. For the first time in my career, I have total control.

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.

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.

I am not going to be dictated to by fans, certainly. I am dictated enough to by my record company to last me a million years.

It was a lot easier to write songs before I had a record deal, because the record labels and the industry doesn't mean to put pressure on you, but they do. They don't realize that they are, but you end up having a pressure there that you feel. At times I feel myself wanting to say, 'Just let me do what I do.'

I do love being solo because I can have more of my own creative input to every aspect of my career.

I feel fortunate about being able to make the music I want to make and getting away with it.

We've been able to have our cake and eat it, too. Every song, every T-shirt, is absolutely a pure expression of what we want to do. And it connects.

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.

In general, I don't feel artists should need producers.

You can be more creative when you're not feeling like a slave. When you're on a record label, they have you like that.

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.

When I can make music and don't have to think about anyone else's ideas or voice - when I'm making something that only I can make - it feels good. It's nice when you can find a sound that only you can make. No one else can make 'Cosmogramma.' No one else can make 'Until the Quiet Comes.'

I'm happy that I don't have to do covers anymore, because that's not what I do.

I've never conformed to what my record label has said and, yes, that has meant that it's been a long journey for me.

If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything - why can't I?

If we'd had a Svengali manager and done what we would have been told, maybe we would have had a bigger, more hugely successful career.

You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.

My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company.

We have access to more resources in general, and they are not going to force a situation on us, whether its the producer, or the cover, or what songs we have to play. And it's a small enough company that it seems like the people there care about music and not just about business.

I really love that I'm giving myself the opportunity finally to not have the pressure of every single song you do having to be "political" or whatever. I'm just making what I wanna make.

We are so grateful we are given the chance and the freedom to do what we want, what we want to create, what's on our mind, and that's honestly what we asked for in the beginning of our career.

I just make music based on what I believe.

I like artists to have some freedom.