Rick Allen Quotes

As soon as you start making a record, things start getting lined up: the promotion, possibly even a tour.

There's timing. And then there's also certain people at the record company who worked incredibly hard and were incredibly enthusiastic about what I was doing.

The American record company Geffen got so fed up with me that they said they weren't going to release my fourth record unless I gave it some title. So it was called 'Security' in America, and it had no title everywhere else in the world.

'Dream Police' was in the can and ready to go when 'Budokan' started taking off worldwide, sales-wise.

It was so simple in the old days. You put out an album, people promoted it, it got in the charts, and you had a hit.

You need a platform upon which to release an orchestral record, otherwise it's just going to be an obscurity.

In those days it was pretty cut and dry. If you had a record company believing in you enough to cut an album then you had better have the ability to work the album on the road.

Our first record didn't come out on vinyl, so I think that might have had something to do with actually being in a position to make sure that it came out in vinyl this time. It sounds way better.

The whole time after you record an album, you're just waiting for the release date. You're waiting for fans to hear it and stuff.

When I made my first album, there was no indication that anybody other than my parents were going to buy it.

I know acts and I'm not going to name names but these people sold ten million copies the first time and the second album sells three million and it's considered a failure and they're dropped and that's really a shame.

It's so hard to pick a 'single.' I always want it to be whatever my favorite tune is, but often the record company and the person whose job it is to take it to radio have different ideas.

I asked my friend Greg Andersson to introduce me to people that can distribute my album.

Yes it was we, are a few years back parted from our record company and took the album that we were making with them and released it independently in the United States had a number one Independent debut in the United States.

I made that first record in 2008, alongside the EP, but my label at the time waited three years to release it. They thought maybe someone bigger would buy it, but they didn't, so in the end they just released it themselves.

I don't think the record company is aware of it. Because they just bury my albums and don't release them.

This is a business built on promotion. We've been giving music away to radio stations for 30 years.

I don't think they like the idea that the people who are buying the record get to choose what goes out, because it's their job. The fans even pre-ordered stock to make sure that I had some sort of presence.

I genuinely don't know how many albums I'm going to sell when the new album comes out, because I honestly don't know how many fans I've actually got at the moment.

Traditionally the show must go on which is a stupid thing to say, but that in a nutshell is what's going on. We have a new record out; if we won't tour, the new record dies. It's reality - it's what business is nowadays. You just need to tour to sell your albums.

Our managers hadn't had that kind of success - the record company hadn't, we hadn't - and the feeling was that the next record had to be even bigger, and if it wasn't it would be some kind of failure.

We completed and released 'No Code' in 1996. We began some off and on touring for that release.

But when our first album came out, I didn't think it was going to sell a lot of records.

I know if I don't tour people will forget the record and you run a high risk of the record failing.

I certainly have gotten caught up in the music business at various times in my life, mostly because you want to get along with whatever record company you're dealing with. I don't want to be flaky. I don't want to be some temperamental, hard-to-work-with musician.