Pop artists work really hard, and they might not work for the same things that indie artists do, but they're still musicians, and they're still making art.
Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.
I hear some new artists that sound country but the record labels and country radio lean more toward a more rock feel for what gets signed to a label and played on the radio.
They pay me the big bucks to make the big plays.
Equal Vision seems to be doing really well. A lot of these major labels are just imploding and becoming indie labels, anyway.
I think people who say radio is gone or radio is irrelevant are way off the mark. It's still by a huge degree the dominant medium. I know it's changing but radio is still incredibly important.
Big labels can buy you radio play, they can buy you social media likes and YouTube views. I don't have any of that, but I'm still getting a Top 3 album and Top 20 singles.
I believe that, artistically and culturally, the free radio air should be able to support local artists of whatever genre. Play 40 percent of your local artists; don't suck up to major labels to the point where you neglect your own locale.
Radio is so cutthroat, but I do feel like the music industry is structured so differently than it used to be. I'm amazed and in awe of artists who can build a parallel universe that's so big and clearly defined that the mainstream finally has to pay attention.
As someone who grew up with a father who was the prime minister, many people liked me, and many didn't. I don't pay much attention to labels and certainly don't let people define me through the labels they apply. I stay focused on what I need to do.
A lot of artists feel it's not worth it to sign with a major label, because if you don't have a giganto hit, then you're not going to get a video made. You're not going to probably get much tour support. You're not going to get promotion. You're certainly not going to get a publicist who's going to pay much attention to you.
Man, them engagement rings, boy, they cost a lot. I was looking at 'em. Cost like a thousand bucks, two thousand bucks, y'know. Three thousand bucks. Something like that- four thousand bucks. Big number divisible by a thousand, anyways.
People will pay exactly what things are worth give or take a few bucks. You might pay a few bucks more if you like the dealer and think the dealer will take care of you, but most people are going to the internet and don't care about that. I don't think that hard earned money is given away.
I was really amazed when I started hearing 'Songbird' on the radio. I couldn't believe that the record company promotion department had actually convinced radio music directors to play it -because there wasn't anything like it on the radio at the time.
When I got my record deal at Atlantic, at the time, 'indie' wasn't a style of music: it was a kind of label. And I think, eventually, the bands that ended up on those labels began to be branded as 'indie bands,' and then it became a genre.
Country radio certainly widens the boundaries of what I can do. Other artists may do something more edgy that gets on radio and that opens the door for me to be more edgy, I think.