Peter Steele Quotes

That's my favorite subject because it really levels the playing field for artists these days. You don't have to sell out to the record company. You don't have to get a five hundred thousand dollars, or whatever, and pay them back for the rest of your life to record a record.

You don't want the biggest record deal as far as money goes, you just want to make sure that the people at the label really support your band and the music and stuff.

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?'

The band cannot sign to another label or even put out its own material unless they are released from their agreement, which never happens.

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.

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

I don't see myself ever being in a position where I need to sign to a label.

I actually re-signed with Warner Bros. on my own. They've been really good to us and all the people over there are great; they love me and I love them. So I'm just sticking with them.

I'm an independent. I've signed with no label.

Giving a record company an album is like giving a gangster your baby or something.

We've been lucky. Even as a young, local-level band, we were able to rise out of the local scene without having any debt, without having signed the wrong deal with the wrong manager or the wrong booker or a small label.

You no longer have to have a big record label behind you and have to kowtow to the politics that enabled you to get there. You can be a phenomenal artist and put your stuff out there on YouTube and find yourself becoming a star.

There were so many different labels coming to me and they just didn't seem right, but 300... they wanted me bad. It felt like a family.

Nobody really produces my albums.

When you find fame, or you get signed to a record label, it's not what you imagined - because you imagined they would have 100 percent trust or faith in you as an artist. Unfortunately, that's not really the case - it's what sells.

Our records are commodities. We're looking to make a sale. The radio stations are looking to get the advertising dollars. The end.

I'm so glad I didn't go into the big-music industry until I was 19 or 20.

People thought we were crazy for starting a record company. They really thought I was shooting myself in the foot.

When you go pick out my album, the money actually comes to me and my company directly.

It's not an uncommon event for artists and labels to part ways - Patty Loveless, Vince Gill both did - and it often happens for the better.

I just think that any person who wants music to be their career shouldn't focus on a record label. I have seen friends who sign to a label too early in their career, and they lost control over their music, and their releases were delayed or never put out.

The record companies don't give you a chance, like in the old days when they went, 'Here's a pile of money. Go make a good record!'

Roc Nation has an army. I'm happy because this is what I needed. I have the music, but they have the muscle.

I put a song on Soundcloud, and Annie Mac made it record of the week, and a month later, I signed my record deal.

We got very lucky, and we were really honored with how amazing our family is now at Hollywood Records... They believed in us, and they let us make the record we definitely wanted to make. And they let us be the Jonas Brothers.