Jamie Hince Quotes

It's really hard to make a living as a musician. It's almost impossible.

At 17, I signed a recording contract right out of high school, so I started touring and traveling the world. I sort of missed out on the college experience.

I have to work really hard to get the record deal - I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.

The career high would be putting out a Kids of Widney High CD on my label, Ipecac Recordings.

After university, I set out to see if I could make a career in music. It was a tough journey at first, but by the time I was 23 I'd been signed by A&M Records.

The Roots - we signed our first record deal when I was about 19 years old.

I actually got signed when I was 14 with Sony Sweden. Things didn't really work out with that, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to be exposed to the industry at a young age.

To be honest, when you grow up in the music business, people heard me sing from a young age, and you get offered development deals and things like that.

We came from a small village and there is no music business there.

I've been working in music since I was a little kid. I would do background singing in my dad's studio all the time when I was a kid. I went to label meetings when I was pretty young, and obviously my goal was, like, 'No, we're gonna hold off.'

I was so moved by music that I wanted to create it as well, but once you decide that's what you want to do with your life, to be successful, you have to be business-minded, too.

When I was 17-years-old, I was in the music business.

I always knew, that in some way, I'd be connected to, and involved in, the music business.

I have very much enjoyed being in the music business in different roles through five different decades.

When I was young, I was offered my first recording contract in 1971 and was offered quite a bit of money if I would change my character and be a '70s version of Cher.

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.

All of them had so much to offer us as far as, you know, knowledge in the music industry, and especially Randy and Paula because, you know, they've been artists.

I had no idea what awaited me when I took a job with CBS Records, and it was a total surprise to find I had a gift and an ear for music.

You can always boil down the life of a musician to touring, playing, and writing.

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

I want to figure out what kind of artist I want to be, because with the 'American Idol' process, it just works really fast. The night of the finale, they said, 'OK, here are all the label people that you're gonna work with, this is the album you're gonna make and blah, blah, blah.' So it was a pretty fast process, but it's been cool.

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.

I always knew I'd be in music in some sort of capacity. I didn't know if I'd be successful at it, but I knew I'd be doing something in it. Maybe get a job in a record store. Maybe even play in a band. I never got into this to be a star.

I knew what I wanted to be, but I didn't know exactly how to get there. I thought you move to Nashville, you sing downtown, and someone discovers you, and you become a country music star. I had no idea.

Well, I tried to get a record deal in 1966 or '67, and everyone thought I was too eclectic.