Johnny Cash Quotes

My first record deal was an independent record deal back in 1995 or early 1996.

When you get a record deal, you got to be pretty headstrong, know your direction.

I was fortunate enough to have gone through the major label process and kind of have the inside scoop on some things, some information I wouldn't have normally had. To go from a major to an independent, I don't think it's an easy transition.

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.

Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.

I'm really happy with Elektra, I don't have anything bad to say about them at all. I always knew a major label was the right place for me to be. I never really had an opportunity to go to an independent label anyway.

The independent route was the best move for me. But I think I've maximized everything I could do independently. I've done everything out the mixtape market. I think getting the big machine behind you is the next stage when you've maximized the independent level.

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'm confident being at Universal, which is a great home for me, 'cause they understand what I'm trying to do.

I'd done recordings, little demos, since I was in college, which I used to get gigs. But I never thought I'd have a record label.

Drake was a fan before a friend. He already was a Cash Money millionaire. When opportunity came, maybe we put the most on the table. That was my thinking because I just thought that this was a very talented young man. We saw a future with him, so it was about him being comfortable.

When I first started out in the music industry and went to Elektra Records, I didn't go to be an artist, I went to get a record label started. And they said in order to have a label deal, I had to be an artist - so that's what I did.

We're giving RCA another record, and that should finish them.

I started my own record label.

My record label is treating me like I'm a new artist, which is exciting after all this time.

I have an independent record label called Favored Nations on which I released an album by an artist called Johnny A, who plays an arch top Gibson through a Marshall, but the tone is all in his fingers.

We were ready to launch Barry White, but the record company wouldn't put it out. Said it wouldn't sell.

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.

That's the best thing about being with an indie label, it feels like a family. If it's a major label, they put so much pressure on every single.

I did my first album with my own record label.

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.

One of the main reasons why it didn't work out for me and Aftermath is because I felt my music should sound one way, and they felt it should sound another. But, I learned a lot from watching Dre, and when I left California, I knew it was time for me to get my own label.

I started out writing and producing as a way for me to get the confidence to put out my own record and to learn and to really be a student of the industry.

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.

A lot of new artists sign their deal and then go into a development stage for a year or two or sometimes never get out of it. For me, because I had been a working songwriter in town, I had a collection of songs that I was ready to make into an album. At the time, I didn't realize it was becoming an album, but it was.