I've worked in the studio with a lot of young girls, and they'll go, 'Oh, the label is telling me to take off my clothes, and I don't feel comfortable.' Well if you don't feel comfortable, don't do it.
For the first four or five years I was in Korea, I took a lot of direction from my management and label in terms of what people want. I found myself trying to fit into that thing I never felt comfortable with because the critique I got was that I was too American, and too sophisticated and polished in terms of my musicality and it won't sell.
You can have a favorite band, but when they sign with a major label... maybe a new producer says, 'You can't do that, take this down a notch.' And you'll keep listening, but you'll always think their first album was their best album.
It wasn't that we were afraid of the Church or the Vatican. The record company thought people might find the title offensive. They asked me if I would change ["A Deal with God"].
When I was on a major label I felt obliged to say yes to every interview, tour and whatever else. The label is always telling you, 'This ain't going to last,' so I worked myself half to death. I learnt from that and I like to pace myself now.
I suppose one thing that's always fascinated me is that thing where you're a band and you want to start recording and you get a label and a producer, and then there's that pressure to go out there and really toil.
That's the best thing about being with an indie label, it feels like a family. If it's a major label, they put so much pressure on every single.
From doing Power Station, it was like, it's the same guys, but it doesn't sound like them. When we were in Duran, the labels and management wanted more Duran stuff so they could sell it.
The people who are competing business-wise out there want what other successful labels and artists have. I don't want what they have; I want my own path, my own sound, my own identity. Record labels care nothing about identity or artistic freedom, they want good business.
I am one of the few composers who has been lucky enough to manage to do songs with female singers, despite the labels and producers wanting otherwise. They don't believe that songs with female voices can work and often push us to work with male singers.
The record label used to try and make us do stuff, like dance, and we'd say, nah, not doing that.
I'm not with a label, so I haven't ever felt pressure to be a certain way. I've got a cool team who just love music.
It's a pretty great thing to have a record that at the end of the day you're not totally sick of and you're actually proud of. We're pretty lucky, because a lot of bands come out with their first record on a label and they're forced to make decisions they might not stand behind because someone's telling them it's a good idea. We didn't have to do that. I think that's one of the things I'm most thankful for.
