If you sold a million records, the only way you could be disappointed is if the guy down the street sold seven million. But you've got to start dodging bullets once you've sold that many records, because everybody wants to kill you. We're not in that position. We can still be very successful and not have to worry about wearing bulletproof vests.
Vanilla Ice sold ten million records. For him to be on MTV, it made me feel like it could be done.
It's more important to have the one million diehard fans than to have 54 million people who aren't necessarily fans, or they might have liked one thing you said or one video.
The fans are the end result of what we do. Sometimes I think we forget that those are the folks that mean it in this game. There's plenty of evidence to be found that you can have all the #1 records in the world, but if you really ain't touchin' them, you don't come home with gold records and platinum records. I'm very proud that we've only had one #1 record, but we've sold two and one half million!
You know, if a band on a label sold a few hundred thousand copies of their record these days, they wouldn't make any money. But if a band can pump out 10 million copies of a record for free, and 50,000 of those fans come to the band's website to watch pay-per-view videos or buy a t-shirt, that's roughly $10 million in revenue per year.
I think Pantera is a type of band that has been documented very, very well over the years. With the past re-releases, we were fortunate enough to have old demos and stuff that never really saw the light of day. But Pantera was not the type of band to waste many riffs or many parts or songs.
There is no one like Toto in history in that we were both successful as session musicians and also had a band that sold so many million records.
I've sold a lot of records. I've sold, like, 150 million records, and I don't think I've had that many good reviews. It's one of those things that when you're really successful, critics hate you just because you're successful.
The music industry is saying, This is the format, and if you'll fit into this format, you can be on radio, and if radio will play you, MTV will expose you, and MTV will expose you, we'll sell records.
I don't think any other hip-hop artist has achieved what I've achieved or the numbers I've sold without commercial radio. MTV and BET have never supported me.
If you've sold over a million records, you are not punk rock, you are milking the system for everything that it's worth.
The fans like the idea we do what we want. It's not an act. Screw the record company and the beaten path. Without MTV or radio, we still have a huge underground following.
We've got the most loyal fans on earth and probably the most craziest fans I've seen since the Pantera days.
I wanted to sell a million records, and I sold a million records. I wanted to go platinum; I went platinum. I've been working nonstop since I was 15. I don't even know how to chill out.
With Damageplan, we had to endure the Pantera fans, because Pantera is what they really wanted. But with Hellyeah, at a show in Baltimore, the crowd knew all the words.
I think a lot of people who become music fans have that moment where they break from their parents' music, they break from the radio and MTV - at least in my generation, they did, and MTV isn't really a thing anymore. And you discover something that defines you, that is outside of the mainstream.