Dennis Wilson Quotes

I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.

Selling records is fantastic. But if you're not loving what you do, and if everybody is throwing knives at you, it can get old very fast.

I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it's not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.

By the age of 17, for me, we had got an recording contract, and, boom, I was gone.

Jimmy Iovine signed me personally to a million-dollar contract, and I lost my identity for a long time. That system is so predicated on making a hit, or you're out of here.

It's a sense of pride, a sense of you set out to get a record deal, and we got that. We set out to get a No. 1 record, and then we got that. Then you say, 'Wow, that was impossible and now even more impossible is to stay No. 1 and stay current and put out new records that people care about,' and we really stuck to that.

Success happened for me when I dropped my first major label album for Def Jam, 'Live From The Underground.'

In 20 years I had sold more records for RCA than any artist except Elvis Presley.

People are always coming up to me, thinking I've got some magic wand that can make them a star and I want to tell them that no one can do that. Making hit records is not that easy. But it took me time to realize that myself.

So there was a way for you to get promoted and survive as an artist without worrying about AM radio hits.

I was kicked off a record label and didn't get picked up again. It was devastating at first because I thought, 'Oh my God. My career is over. What's gonna happen? What am I going to do?' Once I got that I could have a career, a very good career, without having a hit record, then I changed.

To come out in the music business, you only really get one shot. A lot of people get to play small gigs first, and build up that way, without anyone really seeing them.

When I was nominated for a Grammy, my label dropped me - I have a wariness about trying for a hit.

This is truly a blessing. Breyon Prescott, Peter Edge and Tom Corson believe in me and have introduced me to a home that also believes and knows exactly what to do with the type of music I'm doing.

I've been through the entire gamut of the music industry - I've been playing in clubs since I was 14, and I've been on Warner Bros, on Sony - I've had lots of successes and some serious times of struggle.

Most of my friends in Nashville - almost all of them - seem to have had hits in the '70s, either as artists or songwriters or producers.

Bad Religion took a long time to develop into gold-record-status artists. Along the way we learned and applied our knowledge, and Atlantic helped us every step of the way, since 1993.

After two years in the songwriting world, I wrote 'All About That Bass.' L.A. Reid heard it and signed me as an artist.

It was amazing to me that, all of a sudden, I was hearing my music on the radio and coming out of cars.

It was hard to work and work and work and not get your music played on the radio.

By the time my first solo record came out, I was making a handsome living as a record producer. I had worked with the Band, Janis Joplin and all of these other artists in the Albert Grossman organization. So as my so-called solo career evolved, I never felt pressure that I had to come back and top when I might've done before.

Fame came quickly. I was only 19 when I secured my initial recording contract and my first two hit records - 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and 'Cars' - were number ones.

I made a record album in 1960 and it exploded, and I got all these offers for TV.

It only took me six months to get a record deal, but it took me 20 years to have a hit.

To me, being in the big time is not that big of a deal. I've been there; I know what it is. It's exciting, but it's also a lot of work and pressure. I love sort of flying under the radar where we can play theaters and sell CD's on the Internet, and it's really kind of a cool time.