Jay DeMarcus Quotes

I have done a bit of recording and the songs are available on iTunes, and I've got some nice comments. It's something I enjoy doing, but I'm not looking for a singing career any time soon. As long as one person gets enjoyment out of it, I'm happy to make it available.

It is one thing to record an album but it's a huge difference when people play it and listen to it and embrace it the way that I do. It has always been my dream to get my music out to the world and have people hear it.

If you don't write good music, people aren't going to listen to anything you say.

My passion is music, you know, and music influences culture, influences lifestyle, which leads me to 'Roc-A-Wear'. I was forced to be an entrepreneur, so that led me to be CEO of 'Roc-A-Fella' records, which lead to Def Jam.

I guess if I'd have more of a producer attitude, maybe I'd sell more records. But I'm basically a songwriter.

I've always wanted to make some kind of music that was universally appreciated.

I want to make music that people will hear.

At the end of the day, I just like to make the best music that I can make and put it out to the world and see how they respond to it.

'7 Years' is, you could say, a song that eats its own children. That we need to get past the song and get to the person and get to the record and get to the music so we can keep releasing.

When you work on an album for three and a half years, you're kind of ready for it to get out there. To have your songs reach people.

I don't spend much time listening to the records when they're done. Usually I let go of it. Especially in the Eighties and Nineties - they were like product, almost.

I don't believe in the philosophy of stumbling across hit records.

I love Mariah Carey. Remember the breakdown? I loved the breakdown.

I enjoy touring. I enjoy recording the music, I enjoy dreaming it and I enjoy performing it. I also definitely enjoy selling it, because I like to eat.

I've never worried about how a new release will be received. I simply try to do the best I can and leave the rest to the gods. The music industry in those terms is something I loathe and detest. It conjures up images of a gigantic factory spewing out parts of the machine.

I actually quite like promo, which is quite odd for an artist, but recording's not the easiest thing.

My work has been marginalized as far as the jazz-business complex is concerned, or the contemporary-music complex.

You make your music, then you try to find whatever audience is out there for it.

It's like half the campaign of selling a record is trying to convince people that you're an artist. Well, I am an artist. This is what I do.

I'll always write music. Whether I release a record, whether I let the public hear it or not, I'm always writing music.

There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.

I follow a simple formula when I compose. I ask myself, 'What would the audience want to hear?' and 'Why would they buy my CDs?' And the process of answering these questions through music follows. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it backfires.

I once wrote on my MySpace profile that music is never authentic. It was a reaction to constantly reading the word 'authentic' in connection with bands. But what does that mean? A baby crying after being pushed out of its mother's womb, now that's what I'd call authentic.

U2 albums never get finished. They just get released.

Music is the one part of the entertainment business where you can't fool anybody into buying a record.