The new artist is meeting the general public before they meet the record company. They're able to put the material on YouTube and have a million views before they even meet an executive at a record company, and get the deal based on that.
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.
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 was an artist, I was executive producer on my first album, so I've always had to manage both. I couldn't get a record deal. It wasn't by choice - I couldn't get a record deal, so I had to figure it out.
Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public.
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.
When you are doing music videos through the '90s, which I did, and the 2000s, you were put in the position, really, as an independent filmmaker. You were being financed by a major record company or a minor record company or whatever.
I have to meet everybody I work with before I work with them. Before I say yes, I have to meet them, and then I take it from there. I don't care if you've had the best record or the worst. That doesn't matter to me. I don't care about that stuff.
If I want to do an orchestral record, if I want to do an acoustic record, if I want to do a death-metal record, if I want to do a jazz record - I can move in whichever direction I want, and no one is going to get upset about that. Except maybe my manager and my record company.
Whenever I talk to people who founded a company, I often like to ask the prehistory questions 'When did you meet? How long have you been working before you started the company?' A bad answer is, 'We met at a networking event a week ago, and we started a company because we both want to be entrepreneurs.'
Poison is one of the first, if not the first, truly independent bands to sell 3 million copies of our first record. It was before we were with a big company.
You don't have to wait for a record company to tell you that you're good or to sign you. You can put your music out on itunes, youtube, soundcloud, so it's kind of a plus, I think.
If you don't have a record deal, you've got to be a record company.
Several record companies had rejected my song 'Owner of A Lonely Heart' on the grounds it was 'too left field.' I never create to make a hit just to satisfy some record company executive's quarterly profit statement.
If you are the record label who owns Lady Gaga, and you have a new artist coming up, you can say, 'Let's have the artist play just before Gaga.' Now you've exposed the huge Gaga audience to the new artist. It's similar to showing a trailer before a movie. The hit creates a hit.
No record company in the world would say, 'We're not promoting if you keep calling somebody a snitch.' They know what makes money. A record company would never be that stupid. Ever.
I had a good record company right from the beginning, and I'm still with them after all these years. I think I may be the only person in the world that's had a tenure this long with any record company.