Steve Miller Quotes

I am in a business that's built on record sales and reputation and how your single is doing and where your song is on iTunes. But the kind of music that I do comes from my beliefs.

All I've really been working on since I was a kid is music, but sometimes I feel like I'm an imposter or something.

I want to keep making records as long as I can and that's the beginning and end of my concern about selling records.

I guess people assume I have some sort of totally magical life, but I'm a working musician, fortunately. I've worked on my craft, and I'm very fortunate I've been able to survive in a very competitive industry and enjoy my success. It's not easy.

There's no leader of this band, and there never will be. That's the key. You can't control how the public perceives you-people see rock'n'roll bands as the guitar player and the singer.

The choices for me now are completely creative. I know, when I'm going to make a record, it ain't going to sell.

I was working with Bill Graham management at the time and it was obvious to everyone concerned that albums like Open Fire, while they were good for me creatively, were not going to be commercially successful.

There are so many things to think about when you make an album. Like, who am I trying to impress? Am I going to get respect, critical acclaim? Or am I going to sell lots of records?

I don't know how many records I'm selling.

Bands that say they don't care about how their records sell are liars.

I'm worried about looking like a bad person when, in fact, I try to be a good person. I don't like the public image that I've been dressed with and it worries me.

Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public.

I'm in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.

So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.

I know acts and I'm not going to name names but these people sold ten million copies the first time and the second album sells three million and it's considered a failure and they're dropped and that's really a shame.

I knew I had a gift. I wanted the world to hear my music, and I wanted it to be my career, but I didn't know how to go about it.

I actually don't think that I'm gonna sell a lot of records.

It must be quite mysterious to some people why I bother to carry on. Because, you know, I don't sell that many records.

I'm a musician. It's what I do! I wouldn't be too good at anything else.

I need to reach a lot of people to sell records.

But I remember we sold nearly 18,000 records in one day.

I mean in recent years, I think you've only got to sell thirty or forty thousand to get a #1.

I never gave up on that idea, you know, that jazz musicians have the same opportunity as everybody else and that it's what you put on that record that makes the difference whether you sell it or not or are able to get it into people's households.

There's this misconception in the industry that you might have to go a little lighter or skate on the surface in order to reach people - and then in your second album, you get to tell who you are.

People get passionate about a song. It's been my experience if you put out radio candy, something commercial, it doesn't sell records.