Rachael Yamagata Didn’t Take RCA’s Move To Drop Her Personally

Rachael Yamagata spoke with ShockHound in a Q&A, where the singer songwriter talked about how she learned her previous label, RCA, broke the news she’d be dropped. “Well, it’s not like it happened as a surprise,” the 31-year-old responded. “I’m pretty intuitive about people’s reactions. And this record isn’t an easy sell, per se, if you compare it to the last record. And this record was presented to RCA. But the idea of it, the final songs and the concept of splitting it were all presented to them. And it wasn’t some sort of nasty stereotypical split or label-land disaster where artist and label hate each other. They let me keep the masters, and that’s a testament to the working relationship I had there — there was a healthy respect from both sides for many, many years, which allowed it to be possible to get my record back. So it was a business decision and I didn’t take it personally. I mean, it affected my life and because it’s my work, I took it personally. And I would be angry, if I didn’t always believe that there was some higher reason for it to all happen. And was it two years of absolutely frustrating circumstances? Absolutely. But now I have the guy who’s been with me there for eight years as my manager, which is amazing. And I have this great artistic label that tried to sign me years ago, even though I wasn’t necessarily gonna sign with another major label this time around. It was a big decision.”

Shockhound.com has since shut down and the entire story has been removed.