Rodney Atkins Quotes

Being a recording artist and having thousands of people listening to your music and singing your songs, and paying for it? It feels great!

I think labels for the most part want to sign new discoveries so that that label alone is seen to be responsible for the rise of the artist. Not many labels want bands who have already made their mark, because their success is usually attributed to some other label somewhere else at another time.

Some artists will tell you that's all they want to do is write their own music, and that's great, but George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, they didn't write everything they recorded, and they've had major, major careers. I think it's all about the best song.

After two years in the songwriting world, I wrote 'All About That Bass.' L.A. Reid heard it and signed me as an artist.

At the end of the day, you sign a record deal and you understand where it could go if you had the right song.

It's pretty crazy the amount of people that have covered my songs.

There [are] times when I put out an album, and I don't hear my songs really on the radio a lot, and it's like, Dang, I ain't inside that world. But I'm still moving some people or touching some people.

There's more well-known artists who aren't making as good songs as people who are just coming out of nowhere. That seems to be more typical in the last few years than ever.

As much as we think we are as artists, we think, oh, you know, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and really at the end of the day it's the fans that make that determination. Because if they don't buy it, stream it, share it or talk about it, then you're just a crazy person with an idea.

Everybody recommended me to Sinatra and Don Costa, because everybody was enjoying my music. I got a big following going on. Nino (Tempo) told Don Costa "you gotta come see this guy." And that's how Don Costa heard about me, through Nino Tempo. Then, Don Costa brought me to the attention of Frank Sinatra and Reprise Records.

I've been approached by major labels every single year of my existence as an artist. Since 1996.

I'm not sure how we exist, as an artist, without country radio.

I like getting my own thoughts out right now, I have fans to solidify, so that's why I don't do tracks with too many younger rappers or newer artists. People may consider me to be a music snob or whatever, but I like to preserve what's mine and I also don't just do tracks to do tracks, I make every song with a purpose.

A lot of artists come into the game with a radio record, but they don't establish the fans as fans of their style of music. It's just that they're a fan of that song, and after that song plays out, it's real hard for 'em.

I don't remember half of the new bands, though - and I think that's kind of where we're going. It's turning into just a big derby of songs. May the best song win.

What I do now is all my dad's fault, because he bought me a guitar as a boy, for no apparent reason. ... I wrote some of my best love songs ever when I was unhappy and my saddest love songs when I was very much in love. When I wrote 'You're in My Heart', which is an uplifting song, I had just broken up with-Now who had I broken up with?. ... Half the battle is selling music, not singing it. It's the image, not what you sing.

Record labels today are much less patient: Artists have a bad record, and they're gone.

Here's the tragedy of the modern record business: It's radio. If you're not on radio, nobody really is going to hear you or see you or care about you.

Since the whole world is now concerned more about K-pop, I want to make more great songs which can be listed to as classics.

The world has changed a lot since I started making records.I used to go into a studio and there were songs there, chosen for me to see if I liked them. I wasn't encouraged to write.

A lot of people, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry and a lot of people have written for other people, and of course Bruno Mars. So I think it's a great way to break into the industry and show people what you can do and show them your talent and people tend to listen a little differently to your own music as an artist, when you've proven yourself as a good songwriter for other artists.

I've never been the big recording star I'd love to be some day. I've had lots of hits off and on through the years but I've never had the success of other artists - one hit after another back-to-back-to-back and big hits, where every song is going to be number one. I'm not greedy or nothing. I just want everything. Is there something wrong with that?

Record stores are the backbone of the recorded music culture. It's where we go to network, browse around, and find new songs to love. The stores whose staff live for music have spread the word about exciting new things faster and with more essence than either radio or the press. Any artist that doesn't support the wonderful ma and pa record stores across America is contributing to our own extinction.

Six months is the most you can ask of any fan in this day and age, with the Internet and all these new artists. I understand that my music is in a lot of mediums. Some people want me to make an R&B album. Some people want me to never sing again. I just don't want people to be able to draw comparisons between my old songs and my new ones.

So many people have listened to my song because of it - I'm beyond grateful. It's funny because when I met Spencer and Dustin, they were so excited to meet me, but I was like you're the celebrities to me - they're the ones with a video has over 10 million views.