David Knopfler Quotes

I always thought that if record companies didn't understand me, fine - I'd go and do it by myself.

You don't need a record company to turn you into anything.

If I could have stayed independent from the jump, then, maybe, things would have been different. 'Return of 4Eva' would have been an album instead of a mixtape.

I made this record without a record label.

At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.

I didn't want to wait around for some business entity to come around and give me money and tell me what to do. We just started releasing records as best we could.

I started my own record label.

They told me I should be making my own records. So I figured, 'why not?

I have my own label and I'm my first artist.

If you don't have a record deal, you've got to be a record company.

People are like, 'Wow you started your own record label,' and treat me like I'm some sort of innovative genius, when I'm not at all. You've got the Internet and music - you put them together, and people hear your 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 just know that it's smart for my career to carve my own path and do my own thing.

What I learned from the Beastie Boys was to be independent. They set up their own world separate from the label. They built their own studio.

When you do what I've done - the normal Hollywood way, where you let people do things for you - and then you make certain choices where you have to learn to do it for yourself, which is how you should do it, it caused me to get way behind in stuff. I wouldn't change a thing because it's been a very important learning thing.

I DJ'd for years. I DJ'd in high school, and I think my parents thought it was a passing thing. And then when I was in my second year of college, I was like, 'Yeah, you guys don't need to send me money anymore. My DJ gigs are good enough. I'm selling music; I think I'm gonna have a record deal. I can pay my tuition.'

A lot of things encouraged me to start my label. I think it's very important for an artist to know how many records they've sold and where they've sold. I know that I have never been treated the way I'm supposed to be treated - like an artist. That's why I do things for myself. I feel like I'm a free man.

I'm pushing ahead on my own - you no longer need a large record company to make you a star.

Basically we just created our own label, but again we just did it to document our own music and create our own thing, so the major labels were just always out of our picture, we're not interested.

It was almost two years after I left Capital that I put out the first one on Chrysalis and that was really instructive because it was no better in particular than any other record I'd done.

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.

When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forced to... because I was looking for a deal. I didn't have this grand scheme of starting a record company and then morphing into a clothing empire.

I was an artist, I was executive producer on my first album, so I've always had to manage both. I couldn't get a record deal. It wasn't by choice - I couldn't get a record deal, so I had to figure it out.

I never had to ask Def Jam for anything.

The cool thing about G.O.O.D. Music is it's a bunch of great ideas, and I'm one of those ideas.