Alex Lifeson Quotes

This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don't sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder.

The reason I never wanted to sign with a big label was because I didn't want no one telling me how to make my music.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don't think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

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.

I didn't want to be on a major label. I wanted all the attention and the noise to go away because I wanted to be something a little bit more substantial.

The music industry is such a different world from the acting world. Everything is really last minute, but I love the challenge, and I love owning my material and being able to put out what I want.

If anything, I'm the most hesitant to bring on a label. That terrifies me. I think people believe major labels are linked to success. They're absolutely not that.

In a sense, the music business and I haven't always been the best of bedfellows. Artists often have to fight their corner. Your music goes through these filters of record labels and media, and you're hoping you'll find someone who'll help you get your work into the world.

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.

I have just enough people paying attention that I have the freedom to be in charge. And I have a great record company - Nonesuch understands what I'm about.

As far as being on a major label, some labels get it and get what they have to do, and some labels don't. I don't think the label I'm on necessarily gets it, but I think over time they're gonna have to.

It's typical of record companies. They sign you because you're unique, and then they want to put you in a mold so they can sell records.

If it wasn't for the TLC story, many artists would not have smartened up, and you wouldn't have the Lil Waynes and people with their own labels.

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.

I'm really excited because Interscope is really focused on artists. They've been working side by side with me creatively and allowing me to make a lot of the creative decisions, which you don't always hear about. That's why I didn't want to sign originally with a major label.

If there's any profit to be had in Nashville-Underground, it's very long term. We're not about money, which gives us an edge over the labels.

I want to be in control of how my music is released and how I create it. What people don't talk about when they talk about major labels is how many artists get dropped or funding gets dropped when they don't recoup quick enough.

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.

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!'

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.

Major labels have always been around our band since the beginning, and we just waited. We knew we had to do some things, and we needed to grow as a band before we made that step. We needed to do it our way and not do it how it works for other people.

You wait all your life to be signed by a major label, and then when they sign you, they don't want you to do what you want to do.

If we'd had a Svengali manager and done what we would have been told, maybe we would have had a bigger, more hugely successful career.

A lot of big labels will just sign bands like a write off.