Ed O'Brien Quotes

It is hard, though, 'cos record labels love to boss you around. I won't let them do that anymore.

I made this record without a record label.

A lot of people thought my career was over. If you're not releasing records, then something must be wrong. Either the record company doesn't like your music, or you've been dropped. It has to something negative. It's not like you wanted to take a break, or want some balance, or smell the roses.

You don't need a record company to turn you into anything.

There's this sort of model that exists in Nashville that we think we have to abide by: You put out a record, and in two years you have to put out another one and have three or four singles. There are all these rules that I've just sort of thrown out the window.

I wanted to go back to writing for myself and my fans. I built my own recording studio, started my own label, and decided to use the Internet to sell my records.

If we waited for a hit record to tour, we would never have toured.

I want to be role model for people to be like, 'I don't need a major label to be a successful artist and to have a successful song.'

If I could have stayed independent from the jump, then, maybe, things would have been different. 'Return of 4Eva' would have been an album instead of a mixtape.

I'm not just going to get a deal; I'm going to get the deal. And in my deal I got by signing with No I.D. to Def Jam, I got full creative control, the money was great, the contract was good, and I got to create the album that I wanted.

For us, if you're a rock band, there's no way around it. You have to tour. You have to tour a whole lot.

The period of time between when you're done with a record and when you start touring is the worst period of a time in a musician's life.

There's a fine line between artist and product. I don't think the industry purposely does it, but I think that's just the way they maneuver. You have to be careful that doesn't become your story, where you become a product, and your art is tarnished because you're just seen as a tool to make money.

With the first album, there was a lot of angst. I was very naive. I thought I was on top of the whole thing, but I really didn't know what I was getting into.

I'm not just a rapper. I like to produce music.

I don't have to worry about what the average record company person thinks because I am the record company person.

I had to put me foot down with the first record company. It was about 1975, when singers were being given names like Gary Glitter and Alvin Stardust, so they wanted to call me Benny Santini just because me dad's an Irish-Italian with an ice-cream business!

I'll go through the budgets for tours and recordings, royalty statements... You have to wise up about it a bit more.

People talk about the pop part - they don't talk about me being an independent artist. I made it look easy, that's the problem!

When you're 17 and a record label says, 'Hey, do pop,' you listen.

Obviously, my label would want me to be on the radio all the time, but that's not my personal goal.

There were a few labels scouting me, but I felt like G.O.O.D. had my best interest at heart. They gave me the freedom to really do what I want, which is to expand my brand, make great music, and find ways to elevate my sound.

Just about the entirety of the first album, 'Brown Sugar,' I wrote it, the majority of that record in my bedroom in Richmond. And all of the demos for it were done on a four-track in my bedroom. I think EMI was a little leery of me being in the studio producing it on my own, which is what I was fighting for.

Obviously spending my teenage years in music, and in popular music, I wanted to continue this career, but in a way that allows me to dictate it and create it myself as opposed to relying on third party or more corporate decision making.

Starting my own label was more out of necessity. I'm not going to sit around and wait for labels to come screaming.