James Arthur Quotes

When you come off 'The X Factor,' you're more likely to be a failure than a success because people almost want you to fail. There's this kind of feeling that you're separate from everyone else. You get it from artists, people in the industry, people at record labels.

[The producer told me:] "We can try one more record, and we'll see how that one does." Those records never did anything. My music never got mentioned. My color got mentioned.

I have never been accepted. I'll never make the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They're never going to let me in.

This whole 'X Factor' thing with people assuming I'm going to be a one-hit wonder - that won't happen with me.

I had basically been shelved by the record label for two years and I was writing songs every day. I made two albums that just never came out, and that was just a really big knock to my confidence, because everything I sent seemed like it just wasn't good enough.

I wanted to play in bands and get signed by a record label and tour the world and stuff, but that never really worked out.

I was told I was going undrafted. That's what I was told by everybody. I guess I wasn't good enough in everybody else's eyes.

When I was 21, I was in a pretty serious band, and we almost got signed - went to New York, showcased, all that - but didn't end up getting signed, and we broke up. I went back to the drawing board; I really took a hit from that whole experience.

I didn't know what I was in for when I joined 'The X Factor' - I underestimated it.

We had been working. We had a bunch of songs written and it came time to make the record, so we had our lawyer make the call to Elektra and ask for our advance. Then, we got dropped. It was actually exciting.

I was in the wilderness of Hollywood for almost ten years. I was off the studio lists. I wasn't getting the roles offered to actors that hadn't done a third of the roles I had done or had the popularity I had.

When I came off 'The X Factor,' I wasn't necessarily the biggest thing. I really wasn't.

I sort of dropped the ball after 'Bonnie and Clyde.'

I tried to work with a record label; I tried to work with a booking agency, variety shows. I went to Vegas. I just tried everything I could think of, and nothing took. No one thought there was a place for my style and my music; it was just too different.

ABC had all these schlocky, bubblegum acts, and we had to come up with suitable material for them. In which we were amazingly unsuccessful.

I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to be a superstar. I wanted to be on stage. I wanted to perform. I wanted to be in movies. But as you grow up, those dreams kind of fade away, and you're hit with reality, and you're like, 'Oh, not everyone can be Lil' Bow Wow?' Fine.

Everyone assumes it is just 'Wendy who works at Tesco' who goes to audition for 'X Factor,' and then their lives are changed, wham, like that. Me, I am someone who has tried for years in the music industry.

I just remember the feeling of being dropped from Island and having our hearts broken. Because we were given a chance to put out an album to the world. We got the chance for people to know who we were. We wanted to make our dreams come true and do hip-hop for a living, but we didn't do it right.

When I lost my first record deal, my wife and kids and I lost - I wouldn't say friends, but - we lost a lot people around us. They just vanished! They were nowhere to be found. I couldn't get a break, and I couldn't get people to even respond to my emails about songs, no matter how good something was.

There are no guarantees in the music field. There's a lot of rejection, a lot of criticism and a lot of disappointment. You have to be prepared for that. And after 1973, it just wasn't happening for me.

I'd been trying to do this since I was 15, sending out the demo tapes and doing all the things that everyone told me that I should be doing. But no deal - like, never.

I assumed no one would ever listen to my music, and for quite a lot of years, I was right.

In my head, I felt if I'd stayed at City and got a chance, I could have done a good job. It was made clear that wasn't going to happen, though.

Honestly, the biggest setback to my music career was people's perception that I was a reality TV star, not a rapper.

Having watched 'X Factor' over the years, they just haven't got it right. The male winners haven't been believable. They look like puppets; they sound like puppets.