Bryan Adams comments on the royalty statement of the album “Cuts Like A Knife”

The source of the following text is a letter to the record executive Bob Lefsetz:
Hi Bob,

Thanks for the generous tribute, very kind.
I wrote ‘Straight From The Heart” and “I’m Ready” in 1978 when I was 18, (“I’m Ready” was written with Jim Vallance)
I spent hours on a piano that i’d bought from savings my parents had put aside for my education, just trying to figure out chords and arpeggios. It was good fun and the result was a few decent songs which I still play today.
Back then I was looking for a foot in the door, and I knew that songs were the only way in, Jim would lend me bus fare so we could meet up and write.
The result eventually was I signed an extraordinarily poor deal on the premise that I would get myself heard and our songs would get released.
Years later, after the platinum success of “Cuts Like A Knife” which you revere in your email, my royalty statement was next to zero.
This was due to my paying back the record company for the three records I’d made in three years on a very low royalty, plus paying for some tour support which Bruce Allen my manager had arranged they contribute to.
Being skint and undeterred is one of the beauties of youth, I was doing what I wanted and I could see the possibilities out there if we kept at it. I had resigned myself to the fact that If we were able to write a few more decent songs, we’d work the business out later and luckily…the songs kept coming.

Your friend,
bryan

Source: Bob Lefsetz