Pete Doherty Quotes

When you make a lot of money for a record company, they don't want you to evolve. Growing older, you naturally do.

It's typical of record companies. They sign you because you're unique, and then they want to put you in a mold so they can sell records.

We were kind of caught up in the genre trap. We didn't really have a lot of artistic freedom. They wanted us to go into a certain direction, so they could promote us easier.

It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

A band that makes records and tours is also a business. That's usually where a lot of disagreements come. It's four guys who are musicians and don't really know much about business, but are very passionate and have very specific ideas.

I got out of the business because I went from being the biggest artist on my record label to someone they didn't even want to have around.

It's kind of like I'm Phil Spector, and I'm forcing a young girl to make pop music and perform exhaustively. Except, instead of it being someone else, that girl is also me.

I've pretty much run the circle of labels and dealing with that whole kind of battle, because you're the one creating the music, but you're not the final say. That's always been hard.

This guy kept telling us that rock was the big thing, everyone's talking about the big thing, our band was the big thing. So he made us change our name to The Big Thing. Can you believe that?!

Songs are not on a conveyor belt. I'm not chopping them up and putting them out.

In the middle of 'Bleed Red' coming out, a huge disproportionate majority of people in radio came to us and asked if they could have 'Cost of Livin' as a single. There was even talk behind closed doors about pulling 'Bleed Red' because they had caught wind and heard 'Cost of Livin'.' We went with that.

Because when the film was first mooted, the Beatles didn't like the idea at all. In fact they wouldn't have any part in it. And when Brian had committed them, it was part of a deal he did with United Artists, I think.

People try to make a big deal, like I don't want to play my old songs. That's not it. I don't want to play my old songs if that's my only option. That's a different thing.

I'm not interested in forcing my music on people, and that's what the whole music industry nowadays is based on is forcing stations to play it, forcing people to listen to it.

I see myself as the buffer between the band and the record company.

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.

They consistently hobble artists' in the name of selling more units then are surprised when the fans don't buy the lukewarm music this produces. So they then drop the artist.

This constant pressure from record companies to come up with a hit single or something like that, I find completely tiresome.

With Lady Antebellum, there's always pressure. It's hard for commerce not to rear its ugly head when you're making decisions.

If you talk about the 'Tango in the Night' album, the reason I didn't do that tour was because the album took about 10 months, and it was such an uncreative atmosphere.

A band is not a democracy: It's show business.

I think we make too many records. One record a year is crazy to me. But some people have to sell tickets. The label has to meet their quarterly number: 'We need a record a year.' All of a sudden, the tail's wagging the dog. It's not the music; it's everything else making the music. That's just backwards. It's wrong.

I get hit up all the time from every verified rapper with 1,000,000 followers like, 'Yo bro! You got the sauce right now. Send me beats!' Naw, that takes everything away from what I do.

I had to beg to get out of my contract with Capitol. They wanted me to work with big producers. I wanted to produce my music, and they weren't having that. I'm sure they were happy to let me go. I just didn't want to do what they wanted me to do.

When we got quite big and were generating a lot of money through the arenas, we became quite a big thing, and a lot of managers appeared, and it became a big machine, like we were in Pink Floyd or something, and I don't think we were into that. We didn't really compromise.