What I would argue in my defence is that shows like Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor have actually got people more interested in music again and are sending more people into record stores.
I don’t want to tell a 15 or 14 year old what they should be doing. I want them to tell me. And that’s what I got when I met Justin Bieber for the first time.
I don’t mind competition at all. I mean, the record business is the most competitive business in the world, probably. So I’m used to that. In a weird way, it kind of makes you work harder.
Anything I shouldn’t laugh at makes me laugh. I mean, I’m bad at that, when somebody is singing something terribly and I’m thinking to myself, ‘If I laugh now, this is the absolute worst thing I could ever do,’ and then I start laughing and I can’t stop.
I have total respect for anyone who discovers a band like Snow Patrol. I would be hopeless at signing a rock band, or anything alternative, cause I don’t know what that audience are into and I don’t particularly like that kind of music.
I love TV. I love being behind the scenes on a TV show but there’s something about, I don’t know there’s something very special when you’ve signed an artist and that first record comes in and it’s a good record. It is an indescribable feeling.
