We won a contest at the teen fair in Vancouver and the first prize was a recording contract and we recorded at a radio station on the stairway, and we did a record and it got put out.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Well, I had a record deal since I was 18, and it got me where I am.
Before I had a record deal, I was living in New York and playing anywhere I could, from somebody's house to an open mic to coffeeshops.
I made a CD in my dorm room and put it on the Internet, and my friends blew it up. Within a few months, I was doing shows across the country without a record deal, without a single, without anything.
You can only be lucky if you have a place to record.
In 1980, I moved to Chicago, and I recorded demo tapes for my friends' bands, and in 1981, the first Big Black record - the first thing I did that was an actual record.
I had a very unusual contract. Most artists actually pay for their record dates and it comes out of their royalties. I paid for nothing.
The record company stay out of my way. Whenever the record is finished, they take it.
Well the way I ended up with my own record is that I did this concert at Wesleyan University. It was just one night and we had no thought of making a record.
I'm trying to get the record that I made at my birthday party last year, trying to get that out, and the lawyers are diddling around with it and it probably won't be out until next year. I don't know.
I never sought out a record deal. It caught me with my pants down. I was just a musician doing my thing, I didn't even send my records out.