David Byrne Quotes

This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don't sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder.

We've managed to have a long career that is still quite vibrant, yet we've never had to kow-tow to record companies who said we weren't commercial enough.

If it wasn't for the TLC story, many artists would not have smartened up, and you wouldn't have the Lil Waynes and people with their own labels.

I want to be in control of how my music is released and how I create it. What people don't talk about when they talk about major labels is how many artists get dropped or funding gets dropped when they don't recoup quick enough.

Artist development is something that I've been passionate about from my days at Uptown and Motown Records.

Doing things in my day was simple: you either signed to a big label or you signed to a very small label, and you worked with that one, and then they eventually signed you on to a big one.

As far as being on a major label, some labels get it and get what they have to do, and some labels don't. I don't think the label I'm on necessarily gets it, but I think over time they're gonna have to.

You have major labels that are willing to take unconventional approaches because the old model is crumbling in front of us.

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.

I'm recording another demo for another batch of record labels that we'll shop it around to.

I'm developing artists for my new record label, my son's band, Intangible, being one of them.

If anything, I'm the most hesitant to bring on a label. That terrifies me. I think people believe major labels are linked to success. They're absolutely not that.

I walked away from the Jive Records situation, but I still have a great relationship with a lot of the workers and a lot of people who were in that system that have moved on to other places. I felt like being there; it totally wasn't understood what the Raheem DeVaughn movement was about.

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.

A lot of big labels will just sign bands like a write off.

In a sense, the music business and I haven't always been the best of bedfellows. Artists often have to fight their corner. Your music goes through these filters of record labels and media, and you're hoping you'll find someone who'll help you get your work into the world.

I was signed to A&M, I was signed to Lou Adler, who had a company within a company, which was A&M Records, and everything - James Taylor, Rita Coolidge, Carole King - I worked on all of that stuff.

I don't believe in the philosophy of stumbling across hit records.

We turned what is virtually a glorified independent label into one of the powerhouse labels in the town.

When I finished Westlife, we had - Louie Walsh is still managing me - I was lucky to have options from different labels such as Sony and Universal. When we met Capitol and Nick Raphael, I just believed in them the most, and it looked like they believed in me the most.

I certainly don't want to be a record label guy.

I had business experience. I had made my living designing and building electronic equipment. Basic business was not new to me, but the music business was completely new to me. I knew nothing about distribution, or any of those things.

There are people who are genetically made to start record labels, and I'm not one of those people. People just have it in their blood and are good at it. Corey Rusk from Touch and Go and Ian MacKaye. These are people who have made their own labels.

If you have good songs and a real desire to make music, the next thing to do, instead of approach record companies, is to get yourself a really good manager because then it allows you to focus on your profession of being a musician. Then they can focus on the darker art of the record label and the music industry.

I was signed by L.A. Reid on Arista Records when I was 16. He understood me and believed in me. Arista folded and I got put on RCA or whatever, then there were new people there, and every six months it changes and more new people come in.