A Quote by Billy Idol

They wouldn't play my records on American radio because I had spiky hair. They said, 'Punk rock doesn't sell advertising, it won't make any money.' — © Billy Idol
They wouldn't play my records on American radio because I had spiky hair. They said, 'Punk rock doesn't sell advertising, it won't make any money.'
Rock and roll seems to have had a mellowing in the business where it got harder to sell individual records and make money doing that.
Prog-rock and concept records and some ambitious projects were kind of anathema post-punk. They were destroyed with the advent of punk rock. You don't necessarily need to have a degree in music composition to play in a rock band anymore, which is a great thing.
I had this bad-boy-from-New York vibe going, dressed like a punk rocker with spiky hair.
People will always have the desire to make rock and roll records, and they'll always have the desire to sell rock and roll records. Most of the people making these records do it because it is a business, and if someone says, "You can't do this", they won't complain. They'll just keep making records, but they'll get blander and blander. There'll still be rock and roll, but compared to what it really could be or ought to be, I don't think it'll be all that terrific.
I can play punk rock, and I love playing punk rock, but I was into every other style of music before I played punk rock.
I don't sell millions of records. As a matter of fact, I'm not even interested in selling millions of records. I enjoy MCing. I make a decent amount of money. I can feed my kids. I keep a roof over my head. I don't have to sell a million records to maintain my lifestyle.
The whole punk scene is, of course, responsible for the Go-Go's ever getting created. Because before punk rock happened, you couldn't start a band if you didn't know how to play an instrument. But when punk happened it was like, 'Oh, it doesn't matter if you can play or not. Go ahead, make a band.' And that's exactly what the Go-Go's did.
The fans never gave up on CM Punk. If CM Punk wants to be part of 'All In,' he can be part of 'All In.' But I am not putting it on him to draw those 10,000 seats. If we did have CM Punk, we would not tell you we had CM Punk - unless we didn't sell any tickets.
We are all advertising, all of the time. If you want to sell your car, what do you do? You clean and polish it and make it the best you can. Some people bake bread when they are trying to sell their house because the smell adds a friendly feeling. Even the priest, with all his or her fervour, is advertising God. Everybody is selling.
I don't have any phobias with any language, and I've grown up listening to Anglo-American rock n roll as well as Welsh-language punk rock and I'm all for sharing languages.
I certainly didn't want to be in a punk rock band, because I had already been in a punk rock band. I wanted to be in a band that could do anything - like Led Zeppelin.
In rock n' roll, we don't sell records at all like we used to. Yet the artist still has to pay to make records. So you've just got to get out on tour and be smarter about your merchandising.
It's all magic to me. Country to punk rock, all of it. Chopin to Kurt Cobain. But it always all comes back to punk for me, because that was the last time, punk rock or grunge rock, was the last time that passion ruled the airwaves
It's all magic to me. Country to punk rock, all of it. Chopin to Kurt Cobain. But it always all comes back to punk for me, because that was the last time, punk rock or grunge rock, was the last time that passion ruled the airwaves.
I make an embarrassing amount of money for a borderline Marxist, just by selling 100,000 records. I don't sell millions of records, and I don't need to.
Artists should re-emphasize performance and de-emphasize recording. You always make more money if you have a healthy performing life than you will if you have even a moderately healthy recording life. Don't make recording the most important thing you do. Make performing the most important thing you do, and then you can make recordings and sell them at your shows, because record labels aren't going to be around to help you get on the radio stations, and the radio stations probably aren't going to play you anyway.
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