Tom Odell was made to feel "insufficient" by a major record label.
The 'Another Love' hitmaker was first signed by Columbia in 2012, and he left after fulfilling his contract last year, with his final major label album, 'Monsters', released in July 2021.
And the 31-year-old singer has admitted he spent years feeling "unsuccessful".
Speaking to Britain's Metro newspaper's Guilty Pleasures column, he said: "For so many years, I never felt successful. One of the things that, particularly with being signed to a major is … they have a really quite impressive knack [of] making artists feel like they are insufficient in some way.
"The common phrase is, 'You’re not making enough money, you’re not selling enough records, you can always be bigger.'"
Tom independently released his LP 'Best Day of My Life' last month, and he admits success to him is having special encounters with his fans, not selling out arenas and hitting streaming numbers.
He said: "You spend enough time round those sorts of people, and it begins to distort the reasons you got into it in the first place. Actually, I think what’s common among all artists is, often, we have quite humble ambitions. For me, success is, I felt more of it in the last couple of years than I ever have before.
"It’s the moments on stage when people sing your lyrics back to you, it may just be one person you see in the crowd. It draws this connection between a stranger and in the most magical way. That makes it so worthwhile.
"All of the stats and size of venues, all of that … has gone up and down. I can compare myself to someone and feel totally unsuccessful and a failure, and what’s absurd is, someone can equally do the same thing to me. It’s a pointless task."
