YouSaid · the spoken record

Miles Copeland

lines on the record: 82
first: 2022-12-26
most recent: 2022-12-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Oh, now you're pushing. I'd have to go through and there were probably many, many of them. But I would rather not say, but sometimes I'll go to a restaurant and I'll be eating and I'll hear four or five songs come across the radio. And I think, wait a minute, I was involved in every one of those songs. Yeah. And those are moments that I think, well, you know, I did have some significance after all.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that no matter who you are, there's always an element of luck. You know, are you at the right place at the right time? Do you make one decision that really works? My title of my memoir was, you know, two steps forward, one step back, my life in the music business was really. Say, look, you know, you're going to make mistakes. And you have to accept the fact that you're going to make mistakes. And that's part of it. So, you know, I would say overall, yeah, was I personally lucky? Yeah, I have to say I was lucky. Did I have things that I say were unlucky? Yeah. But you can't dwell on those things, you know. I have to say, well, overall, I did fine.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They never made another record. So you think, well, wait a minute, in a perfect world, if you'd had a number one record, which was your second album, you would think you would at least go to album three or four or something, you know. So said that Iris Records was unlucky in that respect and that we had one act that actually went to distance. And you think acts like the Moody Blues and these and that, they're still putting out records, the grateful dead, you know, a lot of these acts, they're still doing things. A lot of the punk bands have disappeared.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, when you look at record contracts, people always say, well, you know, you sign acts to five album deals and seven album deals and this and that. And aren't the record companies really bad and aren't they making all the real money? Well, I look at IRS records and say, how many acts ever got to five records? Only one. It was REM. Acts broke up after the first record, after the second record. We had a couple acts that got to the third record, the go-goes, for example. Fine young cannibals Broke up after the second record, which reached number one in the US charts.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're going to fail. And I think you have to approach him from the standpoint. Look, things are going to get screwed up, but you've got to keep hammering it away at it one way or another. And in that way, you'll succeed.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, I say that partly as a joke, but the reality is it's true. If you constantly look for good, you're going to find bad. If you know that bad is going to be there and you find good, well, then you're pleasantly surprised. When money is thrown at something, it causes dislocations. And sometimes people with the best intentions do the stupidest things. Know it's not a perfect business. Human beings are not perfect. So I've always had the view that, you know, don't be naive. That's not to say that, you know, I just, I assume everybody is a son of a bitch from day one. No, that's not true. But you have to accept the fact that, you know, not everything is going to work out. And I think if you approach life thinking that everything is going to work out,”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a very simple rule Do I like it? If I like it, all I have to do is find enough people who are like me that also will like the act. And if the price was right, if I could hear an act like in the case of the B52s, I wanted to sign the B52s. So I went to Jerry Moss. He wouldn't give me the money. So I didn't sign the B fifty twos because I didn't have the money. But I loved them. I thought they were great. But there were other acts that I did sign that I thought were great, that I did have the money for. So that was my rule. The reality is that sometimes your own gut is your best judgment.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So when the ad came out, the record company still hadn't released a single in America. Fans started phoning up their radio station saying, why aren't you playing the new Stingle? And the radio stations were going like, what Sting Single? The one with a, you know, sting and the jaguar in the desert, so A&M, which is now universal. Rush out the single. It gets 140 top forty stations, goes to number 10 in the charts. It was the most successful tie in ever between a product line and an artist record. And from now on, nobody would say, which they did say to me, well, Sting selling a song for a commercial, he's selling out. Well, that ended with that song.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Recut the video so that it looked like a commercial for Sing's record. I then go to the record company and I say, look, I've given the video to Jaguar and they looked at me like, you idiot, you're supposed to get money from. And I said, okay, if you can match this ad budget, I'll go back to Jaguar and ask for money. And I threw down to the marketing director, the ad schedule $18 million. The guy looks at it, his jaw drops to the floor. He had never seen a TV advertising campaign as big as that.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Three or four days later, I get a phone call. We've seen the video. We'd love to do something, you know, and I said, okay, here's the deal. Your car looks fantastic. I have a problem selling the single. Now, if you make an ad that looks like it's selling the single, I'm going to give you the video for free. So then comes the team to New York to show us what they've done. It's an ad so it shows the Sting and Shemami singing the song and the drag. At the very end, it says Desert Rose from the new Sting album Brand New Day. And the day earlier I had asked Jaguar what they were going to spend on putting out that video. So they gave me the advertising schedule $18 million. including an ad on the Super Bowl.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At this car driving across the desert and them singing desert rose, I'm thinking to myself, wow, that's a pretty nice car. And I realized as I'm watching the video that we made a car commercial. And I'm thinking, well, I'm going to find out who the advertising agency is for Jaguar and see if I can get them to do something. So the next day I called a friend of mine who was at one of the advertising agencies and they say, well, Jaguars with Ogilvy and Mather. So call them up. So I call up this guy who must have thought, who is this idiot? And I said, look, hi, my name is Miles Copeland. I manage Sting calling you to let you know that we used your Jaguar car in a commercial of Sting's new album. And I'm going to send you a copy of it and see what you think.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, again, it was a situation where we put out the album, we put out the single brand new day, and it did reasonably well. So I would go to the record company and say, okay, well, we've done okay with the first single. Let's go to the second single. It's got Desert Rose. And the label said, well, no, it's not a single because the opening voice on it is not in English, but Sting believed in the song, I believed in the song. The European said, well, we'll put the single out, but we have to have a video. So we were given a fairly limited budget. We got a director involved and he decided on a jaguar because it sort of looked like an English car and Stings English. And it was a simple thing. Stinging Shemami in this car, driving to Las Vegas, singing this song. The video goes out. I'm looking at the video with Sting. And I'm looking.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, it was funny that I have very fond memories of Sting. But I think he was under pressures as well. I remember getting phone calls from other managers saying, well, I'll bet it's the wife, isn't it? You know, I was located in Los Angeles now. I was married. I had kids. He's located in Italy or New York. There was no real reason for us to separate other than the fact, well, you know, we'd been together for 25 years and maybe it's time, you know. I think Sting said, well, I've set miles free. But from my standpoint, I have no ill feelings whatsoever.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What was I going to do? Just stop No, I mean, but, you know, as I said earlier on, one of the rules I had always followed was that you have to be able to afford something. So, which acts were affordable? They were ones where other labels had passed over them. They were acts that people had thought, well, maybe their day is over. Therefore, their price would drop. World music was not considered a big music. Acts that sang in foreign language were not doing well in America. So you could pick up a lot of these acts for very little money. So a lot of the acts that I would sign later on in life were acts that were priced right.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You have an emotional attachment, but you also have to be realistic that some of your people had gone to different companies. Some of the axe had left, or I am left. The Gogos broke up. So it changes. And you have to adapt with it. The police broke up after a period of time. You're working with Sting. Things change. In some ways, you're in control of it, in some ways you're not.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was a good outcome. But, you know, was it the outcome that I expected in the beginning? No. Would I have liked IRS to build and become a hundred million, 200 million, yeah, but those days had passed.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, that is exactly what happened to IRS records, which meant that the money I had to offer to sign the act had to increase, which meant the risks increased. And I think in the end it finally killed IRS.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But now you needed the sales, so sometimes you're telling yourself, well, I don't really love this act, but they're going to sell records, so I better sign them because I need the money. And when that starts happening, you kind of lose the idea that you started with.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the reality is that we were making more per record, but we needed to make more per record. And we needed more records. And unless the company we were being distributed by really rolled up the shirt sleeves and helped us, and we had the hits that we needed to pay for everything, we would be short of money. Well, one, we were facing more competition. Two, my staff was beginning to want bonuses and increases in salary, and they were beginning offers. And three, we were not getting the same support from our company doing the distribution as we had from A&M Records. So your overhead goes up, the pressure's on you go up, you start signing acts that maybe you would not have signed had you been under less pressure.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Jerry Moss, I wanted to merge with A&M and get shares in A&M. And Jerry Moss had said initially, yes, we'll do that. Then when I went in to finally make the deal, he said, well, we can't give you shares in ANM, but we'll buy IRS. And he quoted a number which was so low that I took offense and stormed out, you know. What I should have done is saying, look, no, we won't do it, but we would like, you know, with Jerry Moss, I had a relationship that was worth something. A&M received the money. A&M paid me. I then paid the act. And each of us made a piece of it along the way. When we went to MCA, our piece was bigger. But it was only bigger if you sold records.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The reality is that sometimes you have a relationship that should be more important than just what percentage you're making or what money you're making. When I move the label to MCA, we had a better deal. We made more money per record, but we didn't have quite the same relationship with that company. In a way, I look, when I look back at it, I said, well, I think we probably should have stayed. I should have figured some way to remain there.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, I think we all recognize that. I mean, I would not be where I am if it wasn't for Stuart, if it wasn't for Sting, if it wasn't for Andy. And they wouldn't be where they are if it wasn't for me. So we have a history that is intertwined.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was very close to Ian and very close to Stuart at the time. My brother Ian unfortunately died. Anak and Stewart, he and I don't talk very much anymore, but the reality was, yeah, we were on to something, we were at the right place at the right time. And we did open doors for a lot of people.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, the police were a phenomena, let's be honest. I mean, I can say, all right, I've sold over 350 million albums of all the acts that I work with. Well, you know, that's probably an underestimation. I have no idea. But it was a lot of records, put it that record.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I looked at the group and I said, Here's my advice. Get out of my office right now. Go straight to Warner Brothers. Sign that deal before they change their mind.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I mean, I remember the REM deal. REM came to us at the end of the contract and said, look, you offer us the best deal. We'll sign with you. We love IRS. But we owe it to ourselves to go to the marketplace to see what the marketplace will offer. And I remember with REM, I had finally got the most money that I could possibly pay. So I went to Jerry Moss and he says, well, I'll contribute $3 million. And I was putting up $3 million. Anyway, say to the group, this is what we'll offer. And it ended up between us and Warner Brothers. And then the manager and the lawyer come to me and they said, well, Miles, we just left the Warner Brothers offices and here's what they said. Whatever Miles offers you, we'll double it.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes and no. The reality is, you know, everybody wants more later on. Do you think Jay Boberg would have accepted $100 a week salary three years in? And after we've had a number one record with the Go-Goes, well, no. And so that's why a lot of labels never make it and why a lot of groups break up. Things are going to be like it was in the early days. Well, it never is, you know.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, as somebody once said to me, if you want loyalty, get a dog. Because there is no such thing as the record business. Because everybody starts whispering in their ear, you could make a lot more money if you were so-and-so. Thankfully, I ended up with a good relationship with a lot of people we signed, but there were some people that I have never had a great relationship with because they just assume that if you're on the business side, you have to be a crook.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No lawyers, no managers, nothing. And I said, well, great. So we go and we meet and we realize really there's very little dispute between us, you know. And I remember writing a check for a million dollars. I said, look, we're happy to give you more money. Just give us a few more records. Of course, needless to say, they broke up on the third record. So those extra records I negotiated, I never got.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when the police really started to happen, well, of course, the lawyer comes to me and says, look, let's go to the record company and let's get more royalty. And all we have to do is give him another record on the deal. So we did that many times with the police. So the go-go's after that record went to number one. Of course, their lawyer calls me up and says, well, we want to break the contract and we want more money and we want this. Well, we ended up in dispute. And finally, Belinda Carlyle calls me up and says, Miles, I don't know what's going on, but will you meet the band, just you and the band?”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They are, yeah, sure. But there's just as many times, this is the groups because they're usually very young and they don't really appreciate the fact that, you know, it takes a lot of money to make something successful The first thing that happens when you get a number one record is you renegotiate your record deal.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember writing a check for a million dollars at one point for them. Of course, the first thing that happens, you know, people always talk about record companies and they always make them out to be evil people and all that, you know, which in some cases it's true.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They remain the only female rock band to ever have a number one record on the billboard charts. There have been plenty of singles that were number one, but never an album. They were a lot more important than people giving credit for because they really did open up the world to girls being able to play as musicians and they got to be huge.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We and Isinus Everybody said no. So they came back to me and they said, okay, we'll sign with IRS records. But they were not thrilled initially with IRS records, and nor should they have been, because we really had never had a hit. But the reality was once the Gogos went to number one, the world woke up, and we started having competition. But by then, we had already developed a reputation, and so we managed to continue to sign a lot of bands. But it got harder and harder as time went on”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because they were all females. So I went to the whiskey a Gogo and I saw the band play and they were fantastic and I looked around. There was not one single A&R person from another record company in the room. And I looked at it and I thought, five girls, how bad could it be? What a great hook. And I went backstage and I said, well, I'd like you to be with IRS Records. Well, they thought, well, IRS Records, it isn't a real record company. I mean, yeah, they've got INM distribution, but we really want to be with a big company. So they said to me, well, okay, well, think about it. And then they went around to all the other labels and they said, IRS has made us an offer.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think the go-go story would answer your question The gos wanted to be on a big record company, but nobody would sign them because they were all girls. And they say, like they did a documentary for Showtime a couple years ago, when they actually say, they said we were rejected by everybody.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, our main headquarters ended up being Los Angeles because what I realized is that I'm going to be flitting all over the place with the police or squeeze or whatever. I needed some team here to work the label. So I had to make one of my first employees was a guy named Jay Boberg. I couldn't pay him a normal salary. So I said, I'll tell you what, I'm going to pay you 100 bucks a week, which was a joke. But I'll give you 5% of the record company each year you stay with the company for the first five years. So Jay ended up with 25% of the label. And I made him vice president of the label. So for him, here's this kid still in college, and he's vice president of IRS records. The fact that he makes $100 a week, who cares? He's probably living with his parents, you know.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So nowadays, you know, people say, oh, well, you don't make any money selling records. Well, selling CDs, no, you don't sell a lot of records. But Spotify now, because there's billions of people who have signed on to it, that 0001 cent times X billion actually is real money. So you can make money now with being on some of these platforms. But yes, the Grateful Dead sell more t-shirts than they do records. Kiss make a lot of money for merchandise. So depending on the artist and what their infrastructure is, you can make a lot of money from all sorts of different areas of the entertainment or music business”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know to take a record to market in America, you need somebody to go to radio stations. You need somebody to go to the record stores. You need an organization. America is a big country. So you could be huge in New York, but nobody has ever heard of you in Los Angeles. So I knew I needed, number one, I needed credibility, number two I needed some sort of team that could take a record to marketplace. And I needed enough of a prestige that I could go to certain acts and say, look, we're distributed by A&M records. And if you give me your record, I can give you major distribution in America. And that's what they all wanted.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I owned the records, but I gave them the permanent distribution rights. And as it turned out, I probably had to do that to get Jerry Moss to say yes. So I made him a deal he couldn't refuse. And guess what? He didn't refuse. And I think that was one of the secrets for me. I mean, I say there were two things. Make yes and easy answer. And secondly, make something affordable. Because if it's cost too much money, you can't do it. So the punk thing was affordable. IRS Records was affordable.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You have the label for free, but you have to put out the records. And Jerry Moss would have sort of thought, well, this Miles guy seems to be onto something. He's going to pay for the record. So, yeah, okay, we'll give you a label. An IRS record was formed in the”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, IRS records probably would not have existed had it not been for the police. And when the police became really big, I all of a sudden gained a certain credibility as well because I had sort of masterminded in their view this opening of the police to come and break America. And it was the first punk rock band that really sold some records and was really happening. But I then had these bands back in England that were saying, well, you know, what about me? So I decided I would go to Jerry Moss and do the same thing I did with the police in the beginning. I went to Jerry and I said, look, I've got a lot of bands that I've already recorded in England. I'm prepared to put my own money in. So I'm not going to ask you for a penny. But I want to have a record company that A&M will distribute and you can decide how many records you press, whether you're going to market it or not. It's totally up to you.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he loved Roxanne. And he went back to Boston, and he started banging that single. So all of a sudden, we ended up with a heavy airplay in one of America's big cities. And that got the attention of Jerry Moss, the M of A&M Records, who didn't know from Adam who the police were. But he could see in billboard it said the number one import record in the United States is the police, and it had A&M next to it. So I get a phone call from Jerry Moss saying, I'm looking at Billboard, and it says the biggest import record is the police. Is that my record in America? I said, yes, it is. And he said, well, we better do something. Because I said, yeah, you better. He says, well, get the band over here and we'll start working the record. And that started the place off.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very few people showed up. And the most significant club, which was in northern New York, four people showed up. But one of the four people was a DJ.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said, Look, it's going to be really tough. There's no record released here. AM hasn't put out the record. I said, yes, but can you do it? He said, okay, I'll try. And sure enough, we got a five-week tour of America. Playing every dive you can think of.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We would get our high royalty, which would mean we'd make money. So now the police were on A and M records, which was a prestigious label. And the only caveat was that they would put the single out in America, which they ended up not doing, by the way. So they put the record out, doesn't really do a lot in England, but the police could say we're on A&M records. I then called up my brother Ian, who had taken a job with an agency in Macon, Georgia, and I said, look, can you book me a tour in America?”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, let me play the record because I knew that if I had gone in there and asked for money and put risk in the game, the guy would think, well, you know, it's going to take my budget. Suppose it fails. What do I say to my boss? So I had to eliminate all of the negatives that could possibly be there. And I think that's probably the first time he ever listened to the music without thinking, ooh, what's this going to cost me? What if it fails? So he just listened to the music. And you know what? The music was good.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I knew AM wanted to be into the punk world. They knew something was going on, but they didn't want to deal with crazy people. So I went to A&M. I knew that I wouldn't be seen by the top guy, but I went to the what they call the artist and repertoire guy. The guy that signs the artists, you know. So I went to him and I said, Look, I have nothing to recommend this group. I've got no press. I've got no tour. They've got no fans. I've got nothing except I've got a great record. And here's the deal I'm going to make with you. It's free You've got it. Just pay me the highest royalty AM pays if it sells. If it doesn't sell, no skin off your nose, no skin off my nose. The record's yours.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, finally the engineer just said, well, it's a good song, and he stuck it on. And they had mixed sort of reggae with the sort of punk energy. And Roxanne was just this unique combination of stuff, you know. So at the end of the song I looked at the guys and I said, gentlemen, that song is going to change our lives. You've written a classic. They all looked at me like I had two heads. They said, what? You like that? Well, of course, then Sting has some more up his sleeve. That's when can't stand losing you and some of these other songs begin to percolate. And I said, look, I think this song is so good. It's bigger than I can do myself. So I'm going to go to A&M Records. And I'm going to try to make a deal to put you on A&M, a real major label, respected record company. Because I just don't have the wherewithal to do it justice.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And towards the end of it, I went in. They played all the songs and I was not particularly impressed. And I finally said, okay, well, what else you got? And they said, well, there's one other song, but you'll hate it because it's a ballad. So the idea that Roxanne, which was a sweet love song to a prostitute, you know, was really not what they figured I would be looking for. Anyway, I said, well, look, I'm here. I've come all the way to Leatherhead. It's an hour drop. Play the damn song, you know.”
2022-12-26 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT