I've been on a major label for 14 years. I've always wanted as many people as possible to hear my music, and it definitely made sense for the majority of my career to be on a major label, on a distribution level, to be in people's faces and be out there, and have access to major labels' incredible machine, even though they have not understood or haven't been invested in what I was doing.
DJ ShadowI realized that people don't quite understand what I do when I was the new kid on the block and a lot of Hollywood was offering me fairly cheesy projects.
DJ ShadowI would rather have 10 people working on a record that are really committed and believe in it and love it, than 50 people who have no idea who I am or what I'm for.
DJ ShadowAs for my store, most artists' sites send you to a third-party storefront like iTunes, whereas we're disseminating it ourselves. I was always uncomfortable with the thought of sending somebody who came to my site to buy something to some other store. It just occurred to me, "Why can't we do this?"
DJ Shadow