Music Contracts Quotes

My first record wasn't even with the Fugees. I was signed to Big Beat Records, so I was signed back in 1989 to the label that the Knocks are on now. You can always tell which generation had the pulse based on how they see things.

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 thought that the music industry was going to be pretty easy - getting features and stuff - and everyone was going to be nice. But I realized that it's really, really hard to get features.

I don't get involved in record label politics.

We've been lucky. Even as a young, local-level band, we were able to rise out of the local scene without having any debt, without having signed the wrong deal with the wrong manager or the wrong booker or a small label.

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.

I think we in the Alpha Band, which was a strange group anyway, weren't dealing with any of these issues. They sneaked up on us and took us over, before we know what was going on.

I never had to ask Def Jam for anything.

I like Rick Ross as a person. I like Jay-Z and Kanye West as people. But I hate the companies that they record for.

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

I'm the only artist who got paid by Puff, like really, really, paid.

The first time Kyuss was about to get signed, they're like, 'We'd like to sign you!' and we just said, 'No! Forget it!' because we thought people were always trying to invade everything.

The big thing is I'm not with a major label. I've been independent since the get-go, and I've been very lucky to get some good advice on keeping hold of copyright and that kind of stuff.

When you're 17 and a record label says, 'Hey, do pop,' you listen.

I have always abhorred the business end of music.

By the time 1997 had rolled around, I had been in the music business for all my life, from the age of 15. I started recording professionally when I was 18. I had seen how record companies work, how the business works, and truth be told, I was pretty disgusted by everything by that time.

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.

By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry scum.

We are meeting with Sony, and we have a couple of other labels that suddenly have interest and that's really great because none of them have actually heard our stuff.

Doing things in my day was simple: you either signed to a big label or you signed to a very small label, and you worked with that one, and then they eventually signed you on to a big one.

I was fortunate enough to have gone through the major label process and kind of have the inside scoop on some things, some information I wouldn't have normally had. To go from a major to an independent, I don't think it's an easy transition.

I like the music. I love it & live it in fact. But for me the business part of music just plain stinks.

I was always looking to record, but how much I actually pursued it was another thing. The major labels weren't that interested in me, and the smaller labels didn't have any money to do anything.

Yeah, well I've had a record deal for a long time so I'm kinda used to the cameras and the people, I'm used to dealing with peoples' opinions.

I thought it was a prank. There is no way six different major labels trying to reach out to me. But it was actually happening.