Ben Schott Quotes

Miley Cyrus is about making money. Amanda Palmer is about making art.

I now believe that major labels can only work with people who care more about fame and money than the quality of the art they produce.

As an artist, I don't care about where we are in the charts and all that. The important thing to me is to connect with a creative project.

I'm just happy that I'm able to take care of what I need to take care of, live, and do the thing that I love the most and that is to sing. People want to hear it, buy it, see it, hold it, record it, bootleg it. It's fine with me as long as it's good but when it's bad I'm in trouble!

All the music that I've made in the past I've believed in. I think some of it has been more commercially successful than others, but it wasn't premeditated.

There's this misconception in the industry that you might have to go a little lighter or skate on the surface in order to reach people - and then in your second album, you get to tell who you are.

I'm just a musical prostitute, my dear.

It's not just the 'Grammys' that I've pulled out of. I also pulled out of the English awards as well. The reason that I wanted to pull out was because I believe very much that the music industry as a whole is mainly concerned with material success.

There is a big difference between No. 1 and No. 2. I don't care who wrote it. I'd love to one day have a No. 1 that I wrote, but if that ain't in the cards, whatever. My job is right now is to make the best music I can and try to get it to the people, whether it be something that I wrote or not. It's my job to be the best I can for the fans.

Most of Hollywood is about making money - and I love money, but I don't make the films thinking about money.

I don't feel I'm making a conscious effort to go more commercial.

I would urge all bands that say they only care about credibility and don't care about money to send Gene Simmons every dollar that they don't want. I'd be happy to take it off them.

As a producer, you're pretty much creating a body of work that an artist has to stand behind.

No one starts playing my kind of music to make a fortune. But I do want to keep doing what I do and I do want to continue selling records. And I would, eventually, quite like some money.

It's like, hey, some people cook for a living, and some people milk cows. I write songs.

You want to sell records, but if you want to call yourself an artist, your job is how you express yourself.

Hip-hop from the beginning has always been aspirational. It always broke that notion that an artist can't think about money as well. Just so long as you separate the two and you're not making music with business in mind. At some point, it has to be real when they touch it, when they listen to it. Something has to resonate with them that's real.

I love making music, but I also love making music that's on the radio. In some circles, that is considered less artistic. And I've always tried to resist those people that say the two can't exist at the same time.

It feels different.... When hip-hop was beginning for me, people weren't making the kind of money that they make now. It was for the love of doing it and having fun with it.

I suppose we'll make money off our album and our singles and stuff, but, like, they were made as we wanted them, exactly with what we had to say, and done exactly how we wanted them, right? And, like, we didn't put them out to make money. We put them out because we wanted to do them, do you know what I mean?

There's a lot of pressure that comes from the mainstream stuff, and already people who have been saying - people who don't know any better - have been saying things to me like, 'You should really think about neosoul. You'd definitely be more successful in that.' But that's not my expression.

There's certain artists that are meant to have certain paths and go the way of the corporate world. And then there are artists who are artists.

If you're making music strictly to make money, you might as well find another job.

In my music career, I never was interested in working and writing and creating songs based on what kind of rewards I could receive in return - a hit song, per se, is what most contemporary artists have to deal with when they deal with a label.

I really wanted a No. 1 single from my first album, but I would not do anything different. It was real and honest and I didn't pretend anything.