A Quote by Gary Wright
We lived on a farm in the English countryside, where we wrote a lot of our music. You really were treated like an artist during those days-not like product, which is now the mode.
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In those days, when you got boxed, that was it. A lot of old people were there because somebody wanted the farm. It was about property. People are treated like property.
There was a time when my taste in music was mainstream, for example - people like Jimi Hendrix - who I really based a lot of my inspiration on, was the most popular entertainer of his day. He was really number one. And bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles are really number one bands. But those days are very much done. I can't say that if I listen to the number one artist now that I get excited.
We were like farm animals compared to today's players who are treated like thoroughbreds.
The thing about being on the majors, from the beginning, going into this, I was like, "I'm not going to be treated like a factory," because that's never the way it was done before. You're talking about a major label, we're talking about serious business; you're not an artist anymore, you're a business, you have to work in terms of product, you have to release a product, and I don't really think that way at all.
Patti [ Scialfa] was an artist and a musician and she was a songwriter. And she was a lot like me in that she was transient also. She worked busking on the streets in New York. She waitressed. She had - she just lived a life - she lived a musician's life. She lived an artist's life. So we were both people who were very uncomfortable in a domestic setting, getting together and trying to build one and seeing if our particularly strange jigsaw puzzle pieces were going to fit together in a way that was going to create something different for the two of us. And it did.
An awful lot of England is slowly eroding, in ways that I find really distressing, and an awful lot of it is the hedgerows... We're reaching the point where a lot of the English countryside looks just like Iowa - just kind of open space.
A lot of things encouraged me to start my label. I think it's very important for an artist to know how many records they've sold and where they've sold. I know that I have never been treated the way I'm supposed to be treated - like an artist. That's why I do things for myself. I feel like I'm a free man.
Now people like Susan Sarandon are noticing that people of color live this way?! This is the way I've always lived! What's happened is that it has now reached a level of national discourse where it's on the table. But they've never minded that we were treated like this off-stage.
It's just about being honest. I listen to a lot of stuff that's out there, some of which I wrote, and I'm like, 'Where is that? Where's the honesty?' So that's what I want to get to in my music now.
You get the feeling that on a lot of days the audience for most music would kind of rather not be faced with the artist, especially because we've been educated to think that the artist are these special creatures are otherwordly and aren't like us.
I want to work very hard on music, put out a lot of nice product - good quality product - and then just help people out, like a Gucci Mane, like a Future... like a Prince, like a Michael Jackson.
Some days felt longer than other days. Some days felt like two whole days. Unfortunately those days were never weekend days. Our Saturdays and Sundays passed in half the time of a normal workday. In other words, some weeks it felt like we worked ten straight days and had only one day off.
What makes me really happy is a walk in the English countryside. A nice sunset, that British countryside - it means I'm home.
The English countryside is the most staggeringly beautiful place. I can't spend as much time there as I like, but I like everything about it. I like fishing, I like clay- pigeon shooting.
We were teens in the Eighties, and that's the kind of music that we all grew up on. When you're in those really formative years, from, like, 13 to 19, what you listen to is so influential, and I think that's just part of our being now.
Am I happiest on the farm or out in the middle? I am a cricketer, but the farm is a very special place and I absolutely love being in the countryside and getting away from the bubble. I like to think I'm a farmer, but there's so much experience that goes into that.
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