Ian Gillan Quotes

You just have to find a lawyer that won't let you sign certain things - and I mean the fine print, because I was gone from Phil Spector and signed with Gamble and Huff in Philadelphia, and Phil bought my record contract back from them.

Any artist manages his own business along with his manager. Every band should.

I stand in support of royalty for singers, but sometimes things happen all of a sudden and you have to sign a contract.

I had to get out of my record deal that I signed with my previous band and get a full solo record deal going so, with all of the paperwork that, that entails it did take a while.

Well I know I was contracted to Polydor so they couldn't use my name.

I guess I've learned that there's really no such thing as a bad label, there is only a bad contract.

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

I was signed by L.A. Reid on Arista Records when I was 16. He understood me and believed in me. Arista folded and I got put on RCA or whatever, then there were new people there, and every six months it changes and more new people come in.

One of the first groups we signed was the Fifth Dimension.

David Bendeth was introduced to me by an entertainment lawyer friend.

Make no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will either eventually sign a contract that suits the label or they will be destroyed.

One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it?'

I wasn't aware that Track Records were interested in the Bonzos.

I came close to signing Elvis Presley. I offered $25,000 for his contract and they asked for $45,000 and I just didn't have the other $20,000.

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

I sold my life to Capitol Records; it sucks.

I was never officially signed with Akon, but it was a shopping deal. That was around the time he was going through some problems with his label at Interscope. I waited, but when a deal didn't happen, I just went out on my own.

Shortly after that, we got management problems over in England, and Judas Priest asked me to join.

I was initially signed to a German label a few years ago.

Being a professional musician doesn't mean you spend 12 hours a day playing music. It means you spend up to 12 hours a day taking care of business, dealing with litigation, with the various characters who've stolen your interests, or fending off hostile lawsuits from former members of the band.

Every musician in the known universe has signed a bad piece of paper, myself included. But it's really very simple. You're the artist. It's your picture that's going on the CD cover, nobody else's. Protect yourself. Get a good lawyer. You'll kick yourself later if you don't.

For new bands, I think a major label is the safest place to be. Independent labels are the ones getting away with murder. A lot of them are hobbyists who rip-off young bands, taking advantage of people who would never get signed to a major.

I've never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I'd be left with the record company. And then - because they got fired - the record company wouldn't do anything for me.

With Pavement, we had no managers and never had a lawyer. We got lucky with not signing any bad deals.

You sign your life away, basically, when you sign a record deal, and if you have a platinum album, then you go back in and renegotiate.