September 06, 2011

How did you go from lifelong major-label artist to self-releasing Seeds We Sow?

My deal with Warner Bros. had expired. Trying to shop this album was kind of like starting over. I actually started [shopping] with Warner Bros. [chairman] Rob Cavallo, who is a friend of mine and is in this new position over there. Rob liked it a lot, and then he had to go back and deal with the people in Burbank [Calif.], and when I talked to him on the phone, he started talking about the numbers he had to make quarterly, and I thought, "Well, that's the end of that." I did talk to a few independent labels and finally decided that what they were doing was something I could probably just as easily do myself.

I'm astonished at how readily a great many people I know, young people, have accepted a reduced economic prospect and limited freedoms in any substantial sense, and basically traded them for being able to screw around online. There are just a lot of people who feel that being able to get their video or their tweet seen by somebody once in a while gets them enough ego gratification that it's okay with them to still be living with their parents in their 30s.