Susan Silver

"Im really respectful of creativity. My whole waking day is based on the idea that we are here to create something. What happens with the majority of people is that their legacy is procreation as opposed to creation. It so often becomes a substitute and people are unfulfilled. Since I never had any confidence in my own creative process, I turned my energy into the process of supporting creative people."

"I remember this guy came up to me and said Gee, you sure dont look like a hard rock manager, and I said, I am. And you dont look like an idiot, but you are."

"I loved him and will always love him. He was like a brother to me. He was this little broken but gentle spirit. We did everything we could think of to help him choose life, but sadly the disease won instead."

"I started managing in 83. The U-Men were the first, and then a group called The First Thought. A real pivotal moment for me was when a friend was working with one of the early and very influential bands in Seattle in the early 80s, called The Blackouts. They had moved away and had wanted to come back and put on a couple of shows in the area, and asked me to help them. Putting on these shows and working with the Blackouts, who happened to have a deal with Wax Trax!, was really a big moment for me, personally. I know that experience made a big difference in my wanting to pursue a career in the music business: putting on their shows definitely gave me this kind of confidence that I didnt have before - even though one of the shows was riddled with challenges that should probably have dissuaded me from taking one more step towards the music business."

"Of course, Susan Silver. I love you my sister, I love you."

"Thank you Susan Silver for introducing us [Nirvana] to the music industry properly."

"Susan Silvers daughter, Lily Cornell Silver on her mom, quoted in *"

"Laynes death was such a deep, deep loss. And theres that question of, what do you do with a tragedy in life? Do we stop living? Or do we go on? Looking at the story that that record [Black Gives Way to Blue] tells, and then the beautiful love letter that Jerry [Cantrell] wrote to Layne to close the record [the title track], tells a very complete story. And it has been a really cathartic experience, and extremely healing. Extremely healing."

"We are the hub of the wheel. Our job is to create a wheel around the bands, to make sure they have the best legal advice, live performance advice, video production advice, everything - even collecting the best accounting team. Its putting all those people in place, and once they are in place, then its continuing to build on that foundation so their careers continue to go in a forward direction."

"After Metropolis was forced to close, I was putting shows on wherever I could find a venue, not working in a particular club. And then on bigger shows I was doing production work, whether it was running or catering, working in the production office - different aspects of working for the biggest promoters in town. The shows that I was putting on were, at the time, very underground. Shows like Soul Asylum, Faith No More, Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth. I never worked for any record companies though. The only contact that I had with record companies was in the70s, being an impressionable teenager and all the promotion people from the different record companies happened to live in this neighbourhood that I lived in. It was an easy call for me to say, "I wouldnt want to do that!" [laughing]. You have to remember the 70s were a strange time in history, let alone in music history."

"Chris [Cornell, Soundgardens vocalist] and I got married in 90 and weve been together since 85. We learned, luckily, sort of early on, that we needed to make time for business and that I couldnt bring business home every day, as was my inclination. It was such an exciting time time for me in the late-eighties and early-nineties; they were pretty unbelievable. Just to feel things brewing in the late-eighties without having the goal of were gonna make this into an international superstardom. But just that it was growing and we were all gathering experience and momentum. And those were really exciting times that I wanted to talk about twenty-four hours a day. I needed to learn not to bring business home so I wouldnt strictly represent business every time I walked in the door. [Chris and I] just created boundaries. Our relationship is a little-known secret because its nobodys fuckin business [laughing]!"

"One show at the Ditto, (Cornell), had written all over himself, and was just all over the club. I remember there was a fish involved and a lot writhing around (laughs). Hed get into a trance practically, in those early days. He covered every square inch of some of those places on some nights."