A Quote by Bat for Lashes
The record company doesn't know what to do with me, because I'm not a Lily Allen, but I'm not really an indie artist, either. All the best artists have been in the middle.
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My responsibility is to the artist first. There's something that artists intrinsically know about their music and their fanbase that neither the record company nor the producer really knows.
I don't understand why people make me want to make music that's a join-the-dots thing by numbers. I find it really difficult when people say, 'Aw, you should have made a really big hip hop record, that would have been really good for you' or, 'You should have made a song like Lily Allen, that would have been so great.'
Sometimes it's just the creative intent of an artist or band that inspires me. I'm generally drawn to artists or bands that put themselves out on a limb somewhat and do something that infuriates both the mainstream and the indie purists, but that can't necessarily be classed as either. To me it seems somewhat convenient to be on either end of that scale.
In the record business, if you sign an artist that don't really know too much about the business, you can really get over on them in a lot of different ways, so it's a lot of people that don't give artist the game because they're trying to make the most money in the fastest way off their artists.
That's my favorite subject because it really levels the playing field for artists these days. You don't have to sell out to the record company. You don't have to get a five hundred thousand dollars, or whatever, and pay them back for the rest of your life to record a record.
Every person at a record company didn't want to be bothered with me because I was too smart. They knew if I recorded, they were going to have to pay me. They knew I wasn't going to be the artist that would just go in and record. I wanted to know about my royalties.
I've never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I'd be left with the record company. And then - because they got fired - the record company wouldn't do anything for me.
The one constant in this ever changing music business is the heartfelt and “ear to the ground” Indie Record Stores that avid music fans and artists alike know they can count on to keep music thriving locally. I tour all over the world, and it's these Indie Record Stores that many times make or break a market. People will always want an “album” to hold, not just have downloaded, and Indies fill that need and then some.
When new artists come out and they're not being cosigned or some company doesn't have a stake in it, or someone's not getting paid under the table to produce the whole record or bring it to video, the artist really suffers.
My contract with mercury PolyGram Nashville was about to expire. And I never had really been happy. The company, the record company, just didn't put any promotion behind me. I think one album, maybe the last one I did, they pressed 500 copies. And I was just disgusted with it. And about that time that I got to feeling that way, Lou Robin, my manager, came to me and talked to me about a man called Rick Rubin that he had been talking to that wanted me to sign with his record company.
I don't wait on the music industry to qualify me or give me my paycheck. I go about my business as an artist and I believe that my value is in my product and in my art form, and that's why I can't be stopped, because I began producing my record by myself, without a record company.
Most artists have contracts directly with the record company, and when they do music, all of their music is owned by the record company. But I did mine through a production company.
Artists and the traditional record company model are at odds. The music business has notoriously taken from the artist. That shouldn't be the narrative.
I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.
I just like artist-driven projects, but for artists themselves: artist spaces, artist mentor programs, and artists buying buildings and making lofts. Doing whatever we can do. Because at the end of the day, I really think that we as a community only have each other.
I wasn't born an artist. I was really good in science as a kid. I probably shouldn't have been an artist because I'm much more interested in science. But I was raised by artists. I can't really escape it.
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