Pete Burns Quotes

If we'd had a Svengali manager and done what we would have been told, maybe we would have had a bigger, more hugely successful career.

I have just enough people paying attention that I have the freedom to be in charge. And I have a great record company - Nonesuch understands what I'm about.

After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.

I don't know what record company would sign a 45-year-old former 80s pop star.

When I was a teenager, I had a record company after me. They wanted me to be a pop act. They said they wanted me to be the next Sonia. I was 16 at the time. I said, 'No thank you.'

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

I am not going to be dictated to by fans, certainly. I am dictated enough to by my record company to last me a million years.

My responsibility is to the artist first. There's something that artists intrinsically know about their music and their fanbase that neither the record company nor the producer really knows.

We went into that knowing that we were never going to sell a major record 'cause we didn't sound like these bands, so I just thought this was an opportunity for us to make the kind of records that we wanted and make some money at the same time.

I don't really have control over my direct impression on people anymore. I used to be the person putting my CD in people's hands. But I'm kind of a mainstream artist now. Not by choice.

It is great to have your own label; you can cultivate your own artists... I've worked with pretty much everyone I wanted to.

A lot of people thought my career was over. If you're not releasing records, then something must be wrong. Either the record company doesn't like your music, or you've been dropped. It has to something negative. It's not like you wanted to take a break, or want some balance, or smell the roses.

Of course, I want to sell records, and of course I want to get played on radio, but it has to be about making the record that I'm proud of.

I'm really excited because Interscope is really focused on artists. They've been working side by side with me creatively and allowing me to make a lot of the creative decisions, which you don't always hear about. That's why I didn't want to sign originally with a major label.

In my music career, I never was interested in working and writing and creating songs based on what kind of rewards I could receive in return - a hit song, per se, is what most contemporary artists have to deal with when they deal with a label.

I think what I've learned to focus on is my music, and that's why I made my record independently.

When Alcatrazz played in Japan in early '84, the record label offered me the opportunity to do a solo album while continuing to play in the band. I wanted the whole album to have vocals, but the record company didn't want that. Initially, the album was released solely in Japan.

You might be like, 'I want really big hits.' But when you get really big hits, and your label is making $150 million, they are people who are now interested in what you do. They are going to begin to tell you what to do, and so you become important. So your creative freedom - you're not going to have that again.

I just think that any person who wants music to be their career shouldn't focus on a record label. I have seen friends who sign to a label too early in their career, and they lost control over their music, and their releases were delayed or never put out.

Obviously, my label would want me to be on the radio all the time, but that's not my personal goal.

Doing stuff on my own terms and making a record without being signed to a label - I credit that all to my commercial work.

I've had offers to sign a record deal, but the people I've talked to have wanted to package me and have me meet with songwriters who've written stuff for Whitney Houston, that sort of thing. That's not at all my style.

Roadrunner wanted to make Born in the Flood the next Nickelback, but I didn't want to be that. I didn't want to be a huge rock star playing songs I didn't like. I didn't want to be stuck playing 'Anthem,' the song everybody liked but I didn't want to put on the record, for the next five years.

I was working with Bill Graham management at the time and it was obvious to everyone concerned that albums like Open Fire, while they were good for me creatively, were not going to be commercially successful.

I'm just not interested in selling out to get on the charts and make people happy.