My juices needed restoring. I needed a sabbatical from the record business.
I recorded with Sinatra, but the recording business is a very strange strata right now.
I have a pretty good record of winning in court.
Money don't rule me, record companies don't rule me.
I have no problem going on record with this and probably have gone on record with this before, there aren't that many people who I respect. There just aren't.
Artists were nurtured back in the '70s. Their music was developed by the record companies.
I don't get involved in record label politics.
No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
All I knew about Ethiopia was from a few records that I like, as well as what I read about the famine. But you get there and it's another world. It's filled with art and music and poetry and intellectuals and writers - all kinds of people.
In a sense, the music business and I haven't always been the best of bedfellows. Artists often have to fight their corner. Your music goes through these filters of record labels and media, and you're hoping you'll find someone who'll help you get you...
I was tempted my junior year to go out of college and forgo my eligibility. I had broken several world records. I did have a lot of people telling me that I should go pro.
I like recording by myself wherever I can, just because then I feel like I have ultimate freedom, and I can just control whatever I want to put down. There's something about going into your own little world.
Obviously, as the music business has suffered tremendously, with being able to illegally download everything, it's also become amazingly easy to find new bands, because everyone can put their stuff online. Even if you can't find a record label, you c...
I like everything in this iPhone, iPod world where you can do everything all the time. Back in my time, you bought a vinyl record when you were a kid and took it home, and it took a bit of effort to actually get it out of the thing and not scratch it...
That's what so great about making movies. It's that you get to do stuff you never would be able to do in real life. You get to go to a recording studio, you get to go to Navy ships and fly all over the world for press. And it's just a great job.
I think I've had the longest career of strength, focus, and still being able to sell records. I think I'm that guy. I'm still blessed with the opportunity to make music and pass out a message like, 'Life is good,' to the world.
You look at what One Direction has done and just say, 'That is just lucky;' it is not. It is happening because they are talented boys, good looking lads; and yes, their songs might not be the typical songs that lots of radios want to play, but they a...
I have a stunt double. His name is Glen Levy, and he has the hardest punch in the world. Seriously - it's actually been recorded by National Geographic. He calls it the Hammer Fist. And he's my stunt double! He makes me look awesome.
Each album takes two or two-and-a-half years to finish between recording and touring. It's like being with an old boyfriend every single night watching the same things on TV. There is a world out there going on that I'm missing.
We'd been noticing how much more important the internet had become - once information is out there in the world now, anyone can get it. Since that was beginning to happen with the record anyway, we figured, OK, let's just stream it for free ourselves...
I have a Guinness Book of World Records entry as the most-watched person on television; now I have a new entry as the only man who has a crab named after him.
