How nervous are the people who work [in the music industry] right now?
They’re cats on hot tin roofs. I mean, everybody’s extremely nervous. I’ve had managers saying to me that they feel like they can’t get their records set up adequately because while these people are doing as good a job as they can, the people at the labels are going, “Am I even going to be here when this record comes out?” You know? They’re so concerned. What is it, analysis paralysis? That they’re just so worried about everything that they’re hearing and they’re trying to read the tea leaves and they’re trying to figure out if the company will be there for them tomorrow, will they have a place tomorrow, that they’re scared to make a move. In some ways, you just want to keep your head down, you know, so the bean counters won’t notice you as they’re walking through deciding who has to get cut. And that’s not how you put out records. You have to be willing to go out on a limb. You have to at least try something different like the OutKast album. You have to be willing to shake things up.
