I feel like some artists need a record label, and some don't.
My experience with record labels throughout my career has generally fallen into wishing I could do things that they're not built to do, whether it be arguing about having a nicer package - because I do believe some people care about that - to trying to always bank on art-versus-the-easy-commerce route; there's always been headbutting involved.
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.
I was signed to A&M, I was signed to Lou Adler, who had a company within a company, which was A&M Records, and everything - James Taylor, Rita Coolidge, Carole King - I worked on all of that stuff.
It's a tough life being a pop star. You know, at the end of the day when you've paid all the bills and put the kids through college and that, you know, there's only enough left for a small island off the South Pacific.
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.
Publishers and record companies love a broken heart.
Playing out in a band all the time at least you made money. Even if you have a hit song, it takes about two years to pay.
The hits I had in the '80s - I made those deals directly with American companies.
We only had enough money really to cut 10 things and be in there for a month because it's expensive, you know. And, singer/songwriters, today are lucky if they can get a deal, you know. So, we actually worked so fast that we really cut 20 things.
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.
Now we know that, the way contracts are set up, it's not really made for artists to get rich from selling records - that's the company's one shot to make money.
I think records are irrelevant, but I'm being approached about it all the time. If I could avoid it, that would be great.
I'm on the road earning my money. I didn't get any million pound record deals. Not unless you're Jedward! I'm doing very well, but I still have a mortgage to pay off. So I'm on the road.
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.
Rock and roll stars have it much better than writers when they're on a tour.
It's a very smart, progressive bunch, these people that make country music. They're not country hicks sitting behind a desk with a big cigar giving out record deals and driving round in Cadillacs with cattle horns on the front grille: it's a bunch of really wonderful, open-minded, great people down on Music Row that make this music.
When young players become one of the best in the world, everyone wants to sign them.
Who else is putting seven figures down for unreleased rap tracks?
People told me I was nuts when I went to sign an act from YouTube - and now, that's one of the most conventional things you can do as an agent or manager.
If I'd just been interested in record sales, I would have taken one of the deals I was offered after 'Soapstar Superstar,' made a quick covers album and probably had some success for five minutes. I decided that wasn't for me.
There are a lot of actors who try to get records made and try to make record deals, and everybody goes, 'Ugh.' It used to be expected in the entertainment business. I mean look at Sinatra, Bing Crosby. All these guys started out as singers.
My style of singing has always been referred to 'soul' singing when it fact it's more influenced by English R&B Blues Shouting. I'm closer to Led Zeppelin as a vocalist than to Ella Fitzgerald. It was torture dealing with major labels.
Royalties are not how most writers or musicians make their living. Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.
It's always boiled down to the quality of your music and the quality of your deal with whoever's distributing your music: There are artists who sold a lot of records and didn't make money because of their deal, and artists who didn't sell nearly as much who made a great living because they own their masters.
