Nate Ruess Quotes

I was at a slight disadvantage in that I had never played in bands or done any performances before, and that's just as important as writing, recording, and putting records out. It's been a lot of hard work, balanced with a lot of pinch-myself moments of touring in crazy parts of the world.

I've always known, before I had a record deal, that the thing is to go out and put on the show. I've been doing that from day one.

Apart from working on music, I'd rather play big festivals than almost anything else.

If you had a successful TV show, people wanted to see you live. Promoters had had practice with pop groups, and 'Python' achieved a similar status. We also had lots of rock star fans - George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Robert Plant. Promoters saw that and liked it.

A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared.

It's really hard to make a living as a musician. It's almost impossible.

If you can go out with your live show and turn people on to that, where you have that fan base that's religious and they're going to come see you when you're in that town, once your radio success is gone and you're not a mainstream guy anymore you can still go out and play your shows.

Nowadays, it's like two different arenas, recording and touring. When I started way back in the day, doing both was nothing, you didn't have to think about it, the road and recording.

That would be awesome, to be totally making records whenever I want and to play a show and have a few hundred thousand people there at any city you go to because people know you and your music.

That would really be my fantasy - maybe just do three shows a year and each year in a different city, just singing for the people who really want to see it, and then just write for other people. I do love to sing, but I'm just as happy singing in the bathtub, you know?

Scandal rarely toured after those first few hits. I want to go out and sing and connect with fans who may have never seen us live.

I think the reason I got into the music business was basically for the live aspect of it.

I want a long-lasting career. I want to build up a fan base that will come to my shows and love me no matter if I have a song on the radio or not.

I'm lucky that I have people listening to my music, waiting to see me in North America.

When you are a commercial music artist, your music depends on your popularity.

I don't make as many records as other people do because I prefer the live side of it - and my records are so big that they keep me touring for years upon years and years.

At the end of the day, a playback singer has to depend on live shows as their source of income.

Instead, of worrying if something will be a hit, bands need to go out and make good music, get a following, play live. That's how you make a career these days.

Obviously, Iron Maiden is on a way bigger scale to British Lion, but as a musician playing live, it's just the adrenaline rush of playing in front of an audience that gives you that rush.

We live for our concerts. We like a live appearance more than anything else about this business and it bothers us when we put so much into it and the critics bomb us.

The period of time between when you're done with a record and when you start touring is the worst period of a time in a musician's life.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

We want people to see us live before we continue on and call ourselves recording artists.

While I used to make my living principally as a record producer, as time went on, I had to depend more and more on my live performances because of the evolution of the record industry, which has de-emphasized what made it possible to make a living.

Music reality shows are a good thing, especially for those seeking a career in music.