Label Decision Quotes

I think all the bad blood started when Geffen released a greatest hits package of my solo stuff.

I remember telling the head of Warner Brothers that if they'd just make a video for 'Ol' Red'... and if it didn't work, they could drop me from the label.

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 spent a long time experimenting, saying, 'Here's a record that's free, or $5 if you want a nice version or $250 if you'd like a really nice coffee-table thing.' Everything felt like the right thing to do at the time and then six months later would feel tired. And I would feel tired. So that's one reason for returning to a major label.

One of the reasons why I thought it was a good decision to put Def Jux on hold is that it's a hell of a lot easier to dismiss something as a movement than to dismiss individuals making good records.

Well, we were originally called Huey Lewis and the American Express. But on the eve of the release of our first record, our record label, Chrysalis Records was afraid that we'd be sued by American Express.

A few years ago, one of our singles got beaten out by Better Than Ezra. The label could only have one band at a time being taken to the right people at radio, and they opted for Better Than Ezra instead of us. Who knows.

The fastest I ever did that was when Kill the Moonlight came out after Girls Can Tell, and I remember both labels I was working with at the time saying, "If this was any other period, I would probably say this is too fast, but because this is first time anybody has ever paid attention to Spoon, let's keep it on an upward trajectory."

There was a bidding war between Epic Records and Jive - now RCA - which was bittersweet. Just having labels bid over me was really cool, but I ended up going with Jive because it felt better over there, and they have my favorite artists like Usher, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake.