Matthew Sweet Quotes

I'm really excited because Interscope is really focused on artists. They've been working side by side with me creatively and allowing me to make a lot of the creative decisions, which you don't always hear about. That's why I didn't want to sign originally with a major label.

The reason I never wanted to sign with a big label was because I didn't want no one telling me how to make my music.

I wanted to put out a solo record because I was stuck on a major label and sick of it.

It is great to have your own label; you can cultivate your own artists... I've worked with pretty much everyone I wanted to.

I've had offers to sign a record deal, but the people I've talked to have wanted to package me and have me meet with songwriters who've written stuff for Whitney Houston, that sort of thing. That's not at all my style.

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 started my own record label.

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.

The music industry is such a different world from the acting world. Everything is really last minute, but I love the challenge, and I love owning my material and being able to put out what I want.

With my previous record deal, it'd be like, 'OK, so I have this track then, EMI - do you know any singers, maybe? Do you have any singers on your little label there?' And funnily enough, they didn't. But I prefer finding unknown singers myself anyway.

I love doing third albums. A group makes its first album, and then the record company rushes them into the studio to make their second album. After that, they go, 'Whoa, wait a second.' They get a little more confident. They step back and say, 'Okay, now we're gonna do it.'

I always knew I wanted to create original material, and after having meetings with all sorts of record labels, I decided that Sony was the right place to do it. They knew what I wanted to make and gave me the freedom to express myself.

I think what I've learned to focus on is my music, and that's why I made my record independently.

We make sure we have total artistic control with our albums. We were working with Interscope Records, and they had a hard time with us having all the control. So when we signed with Warner Bros., we told them we would be working hands-on with our producer, and they were cool with it.

Leaving Interscope was not a personal thing. These record companies are a certain kind of machine, and we weren't able to function in it.

I just think that any person who wants music to be their career shouldn't focus on a record label. I have seen friends who sign to a label too early in their career, and they lost control over their music, and their releases were delayed or never put out.

We got very lucky, and we were really honored with how amazing our family is now at Hollywood Records... They believed in us, and they let us make the record we definitely wanted to make. And they let us be the Jonas Brothers.

To me, Def Jam put my career on hold. I was used to making 13-14 songs a year, and they trickled that down to nothing.

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'm not just going to get a deal; I'm going to get the deal. And in my deal I got by signing with No I.D. to Def Jam, I got full creative control, the money was great, the contract was good, and I got to create the album that I wanted.

You wait all your life to be signed by a major label, and then when they sign you, they don't want you to do what you want to do.

When me and Eric did songs back in the day, we didn't go and sit down in front of no A&R. We made our album, and then, when we finished, we handed it in, and then we picked the best song for the first single.

Manny Smith & Interscope CEO John Janick understand me and my vision for myself and also my label. Interscope gave me the opportunity to take over the game completely, and that's what I'm going to do.

I've always been independent with my music. I've always run my own music label.

Like everything at Big Machine Label Group, the music comes out when it's ready.