Shankar Mahadevan Quotes

Now so many really good groups who have had a first major hit can't get a deal for a second one.

I don't know if it's my music, my lyrics, my sound, and knowing the music business the way I do-all I can say is, my career has lasted way longer than I expected.

When I put out a record or single I don't allow myself to set up expectations like, 'This song must be a number one hit. Its got to sell X amount of records.'

With the 'Silly Boy' track, I mean, people knew about it, but it wasn't really like, 'oh that's Eva Simons.' But when 'Take Over Control' came out, that's when people started to get interested in me personally, which is great because it was something I really believed in.

I know I will never have a hit single in America.

I still have people saying to me, 'Oh, you're still together?' They don't realize Leppard's been around this whole time, because people just don't get to hear us.

Most bands have a two-year success rate. By the third year, it's sort of over. Here we are in Poison still together 26 years later.

It's a cruel, heartless world out there in commercial rock 'n' roll, and when you take as much time off as we did, eight years, booking agents don't know if you'll draw.

Backstreet has been around a long time. Normally, groups like us have a shelf life of two to four years. We always wanted to have a long stay in the music world.

One thing that I do want to say is Drake, as an artist, anybody has to respect him. He's in the game, and he's been in the game - he has longevity, even if he doesn't write or writes his music.

The only way to have longevity is to have good songs.

It's a sense of pride, a sense of you set out to get a record deal, and we got that. We set out to get a No. 1 record, and then we got that. Then you say, 'Wow, that was impossible and now even more impossible is to stay No. 1 and stay current and put out new records that people care about,' and we really stuck to that.

My original goal was to get into the Top 100. I listened to every song in the Top 100 every day. I knew them all - this is where the gods reside.

You see so many musicians come and go. For me, it's really about the longevity in the music industry. It's not all about having a lot of hit records at one time.

Any song that does well, we're happy with. All we can do is keep writing great songs and hope that one catches on.

I want to sell out arenas and sell millions of records.

Nobody gets into a band and thinks they're going to have a 30-year career.

When you get to the 35-year mark in your career, you make albums for your fans to love you more, so they don't forget about you.

I don't want to put my fate in country music fans; I'm too stubborn.

When 'I'm Sorry' came out and became such a huge hit, that made 'Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree' start selling. Then that became a huge, huge hit.

Before, I was more concerned with getting on the radio, like many young artists.

We used to call it recurrent airplay when someone had a hit.

The record business has always mystified me. Sometimes there are reasons why things sell or don't sell that can't be understood by mere mortals.

I just want to make music, I don't want people to talk about me. All I've ever wanted to do was sing. I don't want to be a celebrity. I don't want to be in people's faces, you know, constantly on covers of magazine that I haven't even known I'm on.

It's such a cycle. You'll see a rapper drop a song, and next thing you know, he's gone.