We didn't want to be tied to that damn teenybopper market. We tried to convince our record company that we could do more than silly AM hits, but they wouldn't listen.
When you buy enough stocks to give you control of a target company, that's called mergers and acquisitions or corporate raiding. Hedge funds have been doing this, as well as corporate financial managers. With borrowed money you can take over or raid a foreign company too. So, you're having a monopolistic consolidation process that's pushed up the market, because in order to buy a company or arrange a merger, you have to offer more than the going stock-market price. You have to convince existing holders of a stock to sell out to you by paying them more than they'd otherwise get.
I still listen to older music a lot more than new singers. I listen to whatever's on the radio, but when I want to listen to something that moves me I put on a Stevie Wonder record.
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.
When I listen to and play the songs from 'Narrow Stairs' now, that record feels like a record where we had established a style that arguably was more our own than it was in the beginning. Going into that record, I felt a lot more confident in my songwriting. It was a fairly prolific time for me.
When I was starting out with record companies, there was a tendency to simplify the image as a prodigy. I have more than one adjective, and I've always tried to be myself and listen to my instincts.
The Soft Machine's 'Volume Two' inspired me heavily. That record just feels like it was all done in the same breath. It's genius, and it's silly at times. But I love the fact that every time I listen to it, I listen from the beginning and want to play it out.
I have many hits, big hits, that have been written by people I don't know. In almost all my shows, people say, 'Chente, here's a CD.' When I get home, I listen to them all, and what I like, I record.
We had such a small budget making our first record, and the only way we could make it work was that the record company would find studio time in the middle of the night - literally, that was so cheap that we could afford to do it.
Al Gore wanted to tell people what they could listen to and what they couldn't, what they could record. It was basically coming down to the idea that he wouldn't let anybody record any music that he didn't think you should be doing. There was going to be an organization that would tell you what you could and couldn't record.
When I listen to a record, or when I'm making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble. I don't only listen to the guitar player.
No one was more surprised that that first Boston record took off than the record company itself.
I'm not interested in gigs unless I really want to do them. I walked away from music in 1997, and then there was a greatest hits in 2002. Thank God, it didn't do too well because the record company wouldn't promote it.
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.
More than once in the history of Whole Foods Market, the company was unable to collectively evolve until I myself was able to evolve - in other words, I was holding the company back. My personal growth enabled the company to evolve.
As I look back, I understand what [the record company] was getting at. They were trying to market a record and make it as commercially acceptable as possible. It hurt me and my credibility with critics.
We've got to convince our egos and our minds that if we want to live happy lives, love is more important than anything else!