Tift Merritt Quotes

Selling records is fantastic. But if you're not loving what you do, and if everybody is throwing knives at you, it can get old very fast.

Jimmy Iovine signed me personally to a million-dollar contract, and I lost my identity for a long time. That system is so predicated on making a hit, or you're out of here.

Now so many really good groups who have had a first major hit can't get a deal for a second one.

I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.

I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it's not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.

I made a dollar a day sweeping a laundry out. Then we made a record that was number two in Los Angeles. We got so excited hearing it on the radio that Carl threw up.

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 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.

When you are a commercial music artist, your music depends on your popularity.

When I got signed to the 'Fader' Label, they got really excited about having me as their new artist. They were promoting my music everywhere. Pharrell was one of the producers who wanted to work with me, so I was really lucky to be one of those people who got to work with him.

If I had been thrown out into a radio tour when I was 18, or 17, and given a record deal, I don't think... it would have been a total nightmare.

You don't even know are we going to have a career? Are we going to be able to sell records? Are we going to have a label?

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 want to sell out arenas and sell millions of records.

I was kicked off a record label and didn't get picked up again. It was devastating at first because I thought, 'Oh my God. My career is over. What's gonna happen? What am I going to do?' Once I got that I could have a career, a very good career, without having a hit record, then I changed.

To come out in the music business, you only really get one shot. A lot of people get to play small gigs first, and build up that way, without anyone really seeing them.

YouTube was really good for building a kind of core, loyal fanbase. I didn't want to be a YouTube artist as such. I mean, there are people who are able to release albums and live off YouTube, but I felt - and not in an arrogant way - that I could be commercial and credible if I really put my mind to it.

Well, I tried to get a record deal in 1966 or '67, and everyone thought I was too eclectic.

The truth is an artist like me who doesn't get the type of promotion that we see more commercial artists receive, and especially in this climate of the music business, you have to be creative about how you promote yourself.

I was actually signed at a very young age - I was 12 - and one thing led to another, and I ended up in a mutual split from the label. But it was probably the best thing that could have ever happened, because I was able to kind of leave the industry side of it for a minute and focus on the independent side.

Anything I do has to have integrity, so if you just want to make music, it's not difficult finding support. The hard part for a publicist or manager is making a star.

There's a big difference between doing the odd gig and actually having a record out and your name being on the ticket.

After two years in the songwriting world, I wrote 'All About That Bass.' L.A. Reid heard it and signed me as an artist.

It was important to me to find a label that wouldn't back out after a first single. Everyone's so used to hearing me with Hootie, they're going to be skeptical.

By the time my first solo record came out, I was making a handsome living as a record producer. I had worked with the Band, Janis Joplin and all of these other artists in the Albert Grossman organization. So as my so-called solo career evolved, I never felt pressure that I had to come back and top when I might've done before.