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I Do Not Want And Will Not Take A Royalty On Any Record I Record. I Think Paying A Royalty To A Producer Or Engineer Is Ethically Indefensible. The Band Write The Songs. The Band Play The Music. It's The Band's Fans Who Buy The Records. The Band Is Responsible For Whether It's A Great Record Or A Horrible Record. Royalties Belong To The Band. I Would Like To Be Paid Like A Plumber. I Do The Job And You Pay Me What It's Worth.

-Steve Albini

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I Do Not Want

Steve Albini

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I Do Not Want And Will Not Take A Royalty On Any Record I Record. I Think Paying A Royalty To A Producer Or Engineer Is Ethically Indefensible. The Band Write The Songs. The Band Play The Music. It's The Band's Fans Who Buy The Records. The Band Is Responsible For Whether It's A Great Record Or A Horrible Record. Royalties Belong To The Band. I Would Like To Be Paid Like A Plumber. I Do The Job And You Pay Me What It's Worth.

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I Stopped Drinking Almost Immediately After I Had Ready Access To Liquor, When I Got To College. It Almost Immediately Lost Its Appeal For Me.

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The Band Cannot Sign To Another Label Or Even Put Out Its Own Material Unless They Are Released From Their Agreement, Which Never Happens.

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What's The Most Outrageous Thing I've Ever Done? Let's Just Say I Don't Think I've Done It Yet. The Most Outrageous Thing Is Yet To Come.

I Moved To Chicago In 1980 To Go To College

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It Betrays Hubris On The Part Of The Artist To Think His Medium Is Limiting Him, And I Think We All Recognize This

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The Woman I Am Currently Crazy About Was A Vegetarian For A Year Until I Started Dating Her. As Is The Case With Most Vegetarians, She Had Never Eaten Properly Prepared Meat, Only Commercially Packaged Or Otherwise Abused Flesh.

Know What You're Trying To Do Before You Do It. Turning Knobs At Random Isn't Enlightening Any More Than Throwing Paint At A Wall Blindfolded Will Let You Paint A Nice Picture.

When People Are Absurdly Tall, They Command Everyone's Attention When They Walk Into A Room. Nobody's Ever Dismissive Of Somebody For Being Too Tall.

I'm Only Interested In Working On Records That Legitimately Reflect The Band's Own Perception Of Their Music And Existence. If You Commit Yourselves To That As A Tenet Of The Recording Methodology, Then I Will Bust My Ass For You.

Whenever There's Active Promotion On The Part Of Somebody Else, Whenever I See Somebody All Dolled Up For A Fancy Photograph And Someone's Handing Out Flyers Or Whenever There's Active Promotion For Something Like That, As An Imposition On My Day, I Hate All Those People And I Want Them To Fail. I Have A Visceral Reaction To Advertising And Promotion. There's Just Something About Salesmanship That Grates On Me On A Very Base Level And I React Very Negatively Towards It. I Want Those People To Suffer And I Want Their Enterprises To Fail.

Find People Who Think Like You And Stick With Them. Make Only Music You Are Passionate About. Work Only With People You Like And Trust. Don't Sign Anything.

I Have No Problem With Bands Using Participant Financing Schemes Like Kickstarter And Such. I've Said Many Times That I Think They're Part Of The New Way Bands And Their Audience Interact And They Can Be A Fantastic Resource, Enabling Bands To Do Things Essentially In Cooperation With Their Audience. It's Pretty Amazing, Actually.

Almost Any Decent Cook Will Make Food By Eye And Taste. Virtually All Of My Family Cooked That Way.

In Terms Of Other People's Perception Of Me, That's Their Business. There Are People Who I Have Never Met But, For Whatever Reason, I Am Certain That These People Are Jack-offs. I've Never Met Billy Joel, But I'm Absolutely Convinced He's An Asshole. I Can't Justify That Opinion, That's Just What I Think. But My Opinion About Billy Joel Isn't Going To Affect Him In The Slightest. In The Same Way, I Am Sure There Are People Out There Who Are Completely Convinced That I Am An Asshole, For Whatever Reason. They Might Even Feel More Justified Than I Feel About My Presumptive Opinion Of Billy Joel.

I'm Not Really Interested In Participating In Mainstream Culture. Participating In The Mainstream Music Business Is, To Me, Like Getting Involved In A Racket. There's No Way You Can Get Involved In A Racket And Not Someway Be Filthied By It.

Mainstream Culture

I Wouldn't Mind Being Taller, Because When I'm In The Company Of People Who Are Absurdly Tall, There's Something About Them That I Can't Help Admiring.

Toast Is Bread Made Delicious And Useful. Un-toasted Bread Is Okay For Children's Sandwiches And Sopping Up Barbecue Sauce, But For Pretty Much All Other Uses, Toast Is Better Than Bread. An Exception Is When The Bread Is Fresh From The Oven, Piping Hot, With Butter Melting All Over It. Then It's Fantastic, But I Would Argue That Bread Fresh Out Of The Oven Is A Kind Of Toast. Because I'm An Asshole And I Refuse To Be Wrong About Something.

Buy Groceries And Feed Yourself, Even On The Road

There Is A Lot Of Use Of Protools In Professional Studios, But This Is Mostly For The Special Effects It Allows, Not For Sound Quality. These Special Effects Soon Fall Out Of Fashion, And I Don't Think This Trend Will Define Studios Permanently

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Im Busy Doing My Job, And Being A Loudmouth Doesnt Appeal To Me As Much As When I Was Younger And Had The Youthful Delusion That I Was Smarter Than Everybody Else.

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I Do Not Want And Will Not Take A Royalty On Any Record I Record. I Think Paying A Royalty To A Producer Or Engineer Is Ethically Indefensible. The Band Write The Songs. The Band Play The Music. It's The Band's Fans Who Buy The Records. The Band Is Responsible For Whether It's A Great Record Or A Horrible Record. Royalties Belong To The Band. I Would Like To Be Paid Like A Plumber. I Do The Job And You Pay Me What It's Worth.

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Doubt The Conventional Wisdom Unless You Can Verify It With Reason And Experiment

Conventional Wisdom

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Clip Your Year-end Column And Put It Away For 10 Years. See If You Don’t Feel Like An Idiot When You Reread It.

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Make No Mistake About It: Once A Band Has Signed A Letter Of Intent, They Will Either Eventually Sign A Contract That Suits The Label Or They Will Be Destroyed

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