Originally, I thought of being a photographer and nearly went to art school, but I got a record deal instead.
That first record, I wrote before I had a record deal.
‘You Should Be Here’ came from a real place. I lost my father… it was right when I was getting my record deal. There’s just been so many moments that he hasn’t been here for. It’s kind of the reason I wrote the song.
I’ve had a record deal before and I was willing to do whatever they wanted me to do and I thought that would be it. By the end of it, you know, I hated myself.
Some people choose to go on ‘American Idol’ or another singing contest, and some people choose to beat down barrooms before anyone even knows who they are, in order to get a fan base, so when they do get a record deal, they have that to put in front of a label.
I always said, if I got a record deal, I’d want to record the best songs I could, whether I wrote them or not.
‘The Voice’ ignited a fire in me to be an artist and to be a country singer, but not winning ignited an even bigger fire, because I was just like, ‘First of all, I know that I want this’; now I wanted it even more, ’cause I didn’t know if I had a record deal.
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.
A record deal is my dream.
I’m one of the few that comes from this vantage point: I never tried to get a record deal.
When I was 17, I signed my record deal and passed my driver’s test. It was a very good year!
I had a publishing deal way before I had a record deal.
I was really fearful that I was going to lose my record deal. It’s really scary as a female to not have that success early on in your career, ’cause you don’t know how many chances you are going to get.
The Midwest breeds funny, eccentric people, to varying degrees. You play shows not because you’re expecting to get a record deal, but to do something fun outside of mowing lawns. Everything else is just gravy… Or mustard.
People still look for that elusive record deal, but you still can release records on your own, which is amazing.
I struggled with depression when I was in high school, and I remember thinking that if I got a record deal and got a hit song, that it would solve all those problems for me.
I tried out for American Idol, I got a record deal, and now it’s like my best days are ahead of me.
You sign your life away, basically, when you sign a record deal, and if you have a platinum album, then you go back in and renegotiate.
I made my living as a theater actor before I got my record deal.
I used to do stand-up when I was in high school. But I was also making beats for this rap group, and when we got a record deal, I sort of stopped doing the comedy and focused on the music instead. When that ended, I decided to go back to school, take broadcasting, and start my show on public-access TV.
It only took me six months to get a record deal, but it took me 20 years to have a hit.
I dropped out of law school when I got my record deal.
But now it’s kind of a given that a 15-year-old would have a record deal and sell a quarter of a million records. No one’s expecting her to answer any deep theological questions. And I’ll tell you, I was asked some deep theological questions from the git-go.
When I first got my record deal, I was like, ‘I just want to sing,’ and I never put much thought into what really goes into a record. But as I got older, I developed a passion for writing.
I couldn’t get gigs because you need to be 18 in most venues. So I started doing videos. I wasn’t thinking about getting a record deal, I just wanted to know if people thought I was good.
I had knockback after knockback before I got anywhere. After I got my first record deal I thought that was it, then Gut Records went into liquidation. I was 20. I had no idea what that meant. I had a few days to get myself out of that contract or my work would be owned by someone else.
I was really from the streets, and I really did hustle in a major way. When I got my record deal, I left the streets alone as far as hustling. I never, ever hustled again. I said, ‘I’m gonna change my life, I’m going legit. This is where I’m at.’
A year before I met Mark Brydon – he was the one I used to make all the music with in Moloko – I was living in Sheffield with a guy who was studying architecture. I used to go to his college and crash the lectures there. I had enrolled to do a fine art course, but then I met Mark, and we signed a record deal instead.
When I got my record deal, my mum was still struggling a little bit, so the entertainment industry took advantage of that. My mum needed money, and so she signed a contract.
I was very dramatic – very, like, ‘It’s never going to happen. My life is over at 16 because I’m not already famous. I’m not going to get my record deal. I’m not going to be able to sing for a living.’
Well, I had a record deal since I was 18, and it got me where I am.
I was an artist, I was executive producer on my first album, so I’ve always had to manage both. I couldn’t get a record deal. It wasn’t by choice – I couldn’t get a record deal, so I had to figure it out.
I feel like I am a celebrity for no reason, like people are resentful I didn’t have to play bars for 10 years to get a record deal.
Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.
I had pretty much raised my kids and my first wife and I were divorced, so I began, in earnest, to start my musical career again. Going for the big record deal and all of that.
We played nightclubs for seven years solid before we got a record deal, and then ‘Cowboys From Hell’ and ‘Vulgar Display Of Power,’ we toured non-stop four years for those records, and we developed the most brutal, loyal fan base on the face of the earth.
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