I can still make a living with touring. And maybe you buy a t-shirt. And I would rather 10 million people get my record and listen to it for free than 500,000 that I coerced to pay $15 for it, you know?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
You know, if a band on a label sold a few hundred thousand copies of their record these days, they wouldn't make any money. But if a band can pump out 10 million copies of a record for free, and 50,000 of those fans come to the band's website to watch pay-per-view videos or buy a t-shirt, that's roughly $10 million in revenue per year.
If you don't tour, you cannot expect to sell a huge numbers of your albums either. It was both a business - and an economical decision and we wanted to play anyway. We just wanted to get out for the tour when it was safe enough for us.
I wish records got made faster and looser with less thought in them, but since touring is so much more profitable than records, you spend so much time on the road that it's hard to work on them. And the records get further and further apart.
It's pretty cool that people will pay for something even though they don't have to. It's totally different now to back in the day. Now you're paying for a record because you believe in the band. In the future that will be the only time people will pay for albums, because there's some kind of connection.
I'd rather make music than tour.
I know for a fact that if I could do only music, I'd be out of my mind, insane. I'd be stressed-out; there's so much work. I mean, you work constantly; there are no breaks, really. If you're not promoting a record, you're making one. If you're not making one, you're touring. If you're not touring, you're doing photo shoots and prep work.
Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left.
If I stopped touring tomorrow, it wouldn't change my life.
Honestly, a lot of people thought that I was on top of the world selling so many millions of records, and that this is the life that everybody would want, but I never got to enjoy any of my success.
I'm lucky that I enjoy touring as much as I do. I'm not going to make a living just making records.