Steve Albini Quotes

Make sure you know what you are signing when you sign a recording contract.

So why sign your name in blood for more? It seemed like a sensible arrangement for me. I didn't sell large numbers of records and the record company paid advances they rarely recouped.

So you have to just be really careful and make sure that when a deal comes along, that it's like the right deal for you... not necessarily the most money, because you have to pay the record label that back in like record sales and stuff.

Make no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will either eventually sign a contract that suits the label or they will be destroyed.

Most artists have contracts directly with the record company, and when they do music, all of their music is owned by the record company. But I did mine through a production company.

You sign your life away, basically, when you sign a record deal, and if you have a platinum album, then you go back in and renegotiate.

My strongest message is: 'Never give your songs away. Never sign a contract you can't get out of.'

I had to get out of my record deal that I signed with my previous band and get a full solo record deal going so, with all of the paperwork that, that entails it did take a while.

Labels fund things and have resources for you to use. But just because you sign doesn't mean you sign yourself away so they can then tell you what to do. You need to have a plan yourself before they do.

Well I know I was contracted to Polydor so they couldn't use my name.

I guess I've learned that there's really no such thing as a bad label, there is only a bad contract.

There isn't a single artist out there, I'm sure, who wouldn't take the most perfect record deal. If the right record deal came along, like, the perfect deal, we'd definitely take it.

We were not given any statistics as to how many records were pressed on the blue label. I used to ask Bob Shad how we were going to get paid from record sales and what I got for an answer was not to worry about the business end of the deal.

You don't want the biggest record deal as far as money goes, you just want to make sure that the people at the label really support your band and the music and stuff.

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.

We'll look at a bunch of deals that are being offered to us, and we decide where to go and continue on I guess. It's not too early to start considering our options with other 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.

There was a bidding war between Epic Records and Jive - now RCA - which was bittersweet. Just having labels bid over me was really cool, but I ended up going with Jive because it felt better over there, and they have my favorite artists like Usher, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake.

The first time Kyuss was about to get signed, they're like, 'We'd like to sign you!' and we just said, 'No! Forget it!' because we thought people were always trying to invade everything.

I remember telling the head of Warner Brothers that if they'd just make a video for 'Ol' Red'... and if it didn't work, they could drop me from the label.

Any artist manages his own business along with his manager. Every band should.

Now record companies are run by lawyers and accountants. The shift from the one to the other was definitely related to when the takes started to get big.

I was with PolyGram; that was the big label that I was with for the longest, like 12 years.

It's always push and pull with a record company.

More labels should be like that. Instead of putting these records out myself, I should have just signed with them, but they probably don't like my music (laughs).