A Quote by Wayne Static
I realized how important it was to have a good team - manager, attorney and label. It's not just about putting out a record and somebody signing you.
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I work at a record label where I have archives. These things [memorabilia] occurred and are important to somebody, and they're important to me. I find the record industry largely repellent. This music, the Teen Idles, all of that stuff, is important to me. I don't have lawyers, an agent or a manager. However I find the music industry largely repellent. I just make records because that's what I love to do. So I think that era, those pieces of media, I keep in my collection.
My whole team, it wasn't about putting the album out, it was about getting off the record company and going independent or going to another label. To the point we were like, 'Listen, just take 'Lasers.' You can have whatever percentage off the next ten records I do for the rest of my life. I just do not want to be here anymore.'
I've been an educator all my life pretty much. It's important as a manager and also as a record label, to educate your artists on public speaking, how to build that connection, how to communicate effectively, to have a general working knowledge of the music industry.
Let's just cut a live record with three microphones in four days and talk about lizards and aliens. If I had taken that idea to even an independent label, I don't see a label out there that would've said, 'Oh yeah, that sounds great. We know how to market this.'
Remember the Stax label and how if you liked one record, you liked all the others as well? You don't talk to a lot of people who tell you how much they love their record label. I don't care how many records they sell.
If you have good songs and a real desire to make music, the next thing to do, instead of approach record companies, is to get yourself a really good manager because then it allows you to focus on your profession of being a musician. Then they can focus on the darker art of the record label and the music industry.
For us, being a label, we took out the whole aspect of the business that goes into sifting through people who don't care, who don't get what you're trying to do. We can just hire and work with people who get it - the people who understand what this project is about. When you're on a label, you're just hoping somebody will stick their neck out and work for you. Most bands are just like, "I hope they do it. I hope they promote it." But being a label, we know exactly what's happening.
We think the most important criteria for selecting an investment firm are the manager, team, and track record.
Originally, after 'Tambourine' came out, another record was supposed to come out, but I had issues with my record label at the time, which was Interscope. We couldn't agree on a record, so that took some time. I had to leave them and find a new label.
In theory, when you're working with a record label, you're just borrowing their money. And that's basically how the record industry works, right? It's like, you borrow $100,000 from a record label, so you don't make any money until you make back that money for them. In theory, they have you held hostage, so you've got to do every little stupid thing that they want you to do.
The technical director's role is very important - not just on contracts, not just on signing players and seeing through the philosophy but also in taking a bit of weight off the manager.
The potential success that could come with signing with a major label didn't quite outweigh how important it was for me to make my music the way I knew it needed to be made.
Commercial success still hasn't come to an artist that isn't signed to a record label. There are very few artists that can succeed without the help of a record label. The role of the record label is still required, it's still necessary.
The best way to tell somebody how to figure out how to relax the tongue is to just say, well, notice where it is when you aren't doing anything. That's the relaxed tongue. It's not about putting it somewhere. It's about letting it be where it wants to go.
I went from the most underground band in the world to signing with Madonna's producer and a record label that is extremely mainstream - it was interesting.
Because I was independent for such a long time, and I was always just feeding my fans - every month, I'd be giving them something new. So I had to adjust to the process of making a record. And after signing with a label, there are just certain things you can't do anymore. It was frustrating at first, but as the months went by, I got used to it.
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