Amit Trivedi Quotes

I left the entertainment industry part of my life behind in 1983, when we decided not to work with major record companies anymore.

The record company stay out of my way. Whenever the record is finished, they take it.

I certainly don't want to be a record label guy.

You make music to change the radio, not make music for the radio.

I hate record labels. They think they know everything. I want to hear them try to sing it.

I did not start IC and Inteam to have control over my music. I had control before and after.

I wanted out of my record deal with EMI. They wanted me to record one type of album; I wanted to record the type of music I wanted to make.

Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.

I started my own record label.

A lot of very popular mainstream artists are products of record companies and marketing companies, and any time anyone can stand outside of that, that's interesting.

The people who are making money are the ones who are writing and singing their own songs.

I will never sign to a major record label again. If, by some mega fluke, a record of mine looked like it might break big, I'd try and do it via an indie or somehow license it. I'm not having my music owned by those corporate bastards again.

So I guess the complete lack of any new developments is what struck me. That and the fact that much of the good we had done for the artists' side of the industry with G.O.D. had been just as quickly undone by the big boys.

Sometimes you are at the mercy of record companies or publishing companies.

It's hard for new artists to keep hold of what they own.

The big thing is I'm not with a major label. I've been independent since the get-go, and I've been very lucky to get some good advice on keeping hold of copyright and that kind of stuff.

After a song comes out, it doesn't remain yours.

I always thought that if record companies didn't understand me, fine - I'd go and do it by myself.

I've been doing my record label for 15 years called Dim Mak. I started my label when I was 19 in '96. I started putting out an eclectic roster of artists. In 2003, we found a band called Bloc Party, and in 2004, we started getting remixes for Bloc Party, and at the same time I was throwing Dim Mak parties in Los Angeles.

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

Mostly I've never let record companies become involved with my music, which was a very smart thing that my first manager Dave Robinson did, to keep them out of it.

I have had the good fortune to experience both the limelight and the traffic light as a musician. I did my first recording on my own and it was available at concerts. The second to seventh were released on small and then large labels. My eighth to 14th were done under my own steam once again, but with the benefit of the Internet.

Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential.

There's this thing called compulsory licensing law that allows artists through the record companies to take your music at will without your permission.

My original idea was to produce and not make records myself.