Neal Schon Quotes

Music can be so disturbing and frustrating. I mean the business side of it. The actual making music part is fun, but the business side of it is just so out of control, has nothing to do with anything.

It's called the music business. We've all gone into it 'cause we love the music, and a lot of people end up with nothing at the end of the day, after they've done all of this great music, 'cause they never learned any of the business side.

I have always abhorred the business end of music.

I have known from the beginning one thing you need to know. That is, the music business is a business.

Most artists, you know, you spend their entire lives learning how to play music and write songs, and they don't really know how the music business works.

If you are a musician and you don't show any interest on the business level then you are actually vulnerable and people will rip you off. They will sweet talk you into anything.

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.

It's a small percentile of people who see one dime out of the music business.

But anyone who knows anything about the music industry knows it's not only about the music.

Things can turn ugly so quickly in the music business, especially if you have an unexpected success.

Actually, I have another record I made with them in 1976, but I've had such a bad experience with record companies, because I keep my head so much in music and not in business.

When I was 17-years-old, I was in the music business.

To the extent that '60s guys own things, yes... but I don't have the publishing, just like most '60s guys, and that was an error, you know... part ownership in publishing was the kind of era that started a little bit later, when real businessmen started to manage artists.

I don't get involved in record label politics.

As a person, I've been in the business since 1969, and I never remember getting an honest count based upon how many records been sold for Burning Spear.

I had business experience. I had made my living designing and building electronic equipment. Basic business was not new to me, but the music business was completely new to me. I knew nothing about distribution, or any of those things.

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

If you have good songs and a real desire to make music, the next thing to do, instead of approach record companies, is to get yourself a really good manager because then it allows you to focus on your profession of being a musician. Then they can focus on the darker art of the record label and the music industry.

I've always treated the music business as a business.

The problem that I have is with the music business. For some reason it seems almost impossible to get anything, any music, released which includes improvisation or soloing.

Music and the music business are two different things.

To some extent, the idea that rock 'n roll used to have this sort of free antediluvian identity, frolicking in the 1950s with Elvis or something, is totally wrong. It's insane. Elvis' relationship with Colonel Parker, his manager, was one of the most possibly corrupt, certainly lucrative, and intense business partnerships ever in rock n' roll.

Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn't want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist.

Los Angeles and New York are the big centers of the music industry worldwide so of course it can be hard for newcomers who don't know what to expect from the music business.

I'm developing a record company. I'm learning how to supervise music on a film.