I've heard that Oasis or Coldplay will sell tickets, but they can't sell records. They sold out Madison Square Garden in three hours. And they can't sell albums. I don't know what's going on.
I think everyone should sell whatever product they want to sell for whatever price they want to sell it for, but ultimately the market will dictate what it is and people will have to charge less money for everything. Record companies have been overcharging people for way too long and now this is the trouble that they're in.
You know, punk bands now sell with one record - their first or second record - sell 10 times the amount of records than the Ramones did throughout their career with 20-something records. That's why I go over to Johnny Ramone's house and do yard work three times a week, just to absolve some of the guilt.
We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it's beautiful, not necessarily commercial.
Because of the way the record business has kind of stumbled and disintegrated, in a way, you're as likely to sell records at your merch table at your gigs as you are to sell them in a regular record outlet or even online.
I don't think most rock stars are particularly calculating. I don't think they sit there and think, 'I will do this; therefore, on Monday, I will sell another 200,000 records'.
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.
I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it.
I don't think, like, 'I've got to sell so many records here, or so many records there.' That's the record label's job. They've got to worry about how were doing in Kazakhstan or Germany. My job is just to write and sing.
Obviously there was the idea that we could sell more records if we played live, but I guess I didn't care enough to sell more records to do that.
God works funny so it might have just been meant for me to be an artist that doesn't sell two million records. Maybe my records might change somebody's life rather than sell thru the roof.
I sell bikinis. I sell comforters. I sell Cam'ron pillows. I sell a bunch of things off my likeness, and it all came from music, so it's definitely a blessing.
What my whole object was is not to really sell records. I was trying to sell songs.
I think we make too many records. One record a year is crazy to me. But some people have to sell tickets. The label has to meet their quarterly number: 'We need a record a year.' All of a sudden, the tail's wagging the dog. It's not the music; it's everything else making the music. That's just backwards. It's wrong.
There's no such thing as 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' There's only 'smart sell' and 'stupid sell.'
I want to sell out arenas and sell millions of records.