Bad Wolves -basisti Kyle Konkiel: ”Mitä enemmän meitä vihataan sitä enemmän meitä myös rakastetaan”
Yhdysvaltalainen metalliyhtye Bad Wolves sinkosi raketin lailla metallimaailman tietoisuuteen julkaisemallaan coverilla Cranberriesin ”Zombie”-kappaleesta. Luonnollisesti bändin nopeasti saama huomio pitkin maailmaa otti myös päähän osaa metallimusiikin ystävistä, ja bändi saikin nopeasti myös paljon vihaajia musiikilleen. Nyt yhtyeen basisti Kyle Konkiel on miettinyt bändin jakautunutta fanikuntaa BREWtally Speaking Podcastin haastattelussa toteamalla, että mitä enemmän heitä vihataan sitä enemmän heitä myös rakastetaan. Kyle otti vastauksessaan vertauskuvaksi kanadalaisen rockin suuruuden, Nickelbackin, joka on myynyt maailmanlaajuisesti yli 70 miljoonaa albumia, vaikka bändi on aina ollut yksi ehkäpä vihatuimmista yhtyeistä rockin saralla, mutta myös ilmeisen rakastettu levymyynnistä päätellen. Kyle kertoi bändin suosiosta seuraavaa:
“Well, first of all, the one thing that I take away from listening to Joe Rogan for as long as I have is: don’t read the comments, because when I do, I do get upset and I have responded to people.
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That they might not understand, and maybe they’re attacking us, like with the covers, I get people are upset because we haven’t made them available publicly.
We haven’t made them available publicly, only on the Patreon, [and they are like] like ‘well I can’t afford $10 a month’, and that’s fine. I understand that you can’t afford $10 a month, and then they’ll be like ‘you’re just another fucking cover band’, or ‘you’ve made your career fucking stealing other people’s music’ and I’m like, first of all, bud.
My response is always. We have two albums, one of those songs on those two albums, is a cover. The rest of that material is all 100% original. We have, we have five going on six number one rock hits, and four of those, four going on five of those, is original material.
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So, you might not like how we’re doing our business. But, I mean, for the price of a pack of smokes a month, cigarettes, $10 a month. Yeah, for the… for the price of a pack of smokes a month—which is far less than any admission ticket, like if you were going to concerts every single month. For $10, a month, you get anywhere from two to four exclusive songs, which they could be b-sides, rarities, covers.
They’ve been covers lately because we’re working on our third record, and it’s just, unfortunately, doing covers, the way that we do is a lot easier than coming up with new specific material just for the Patreon. But we also have like I said b-sides and rarities.
You know me, Doc and Chris are on there, you know I’m on there on Monday. Chris is on there on Wednesday, Doc‘s on there on Thursday doing, you know, live Q&A’s. We’re jamming, we’re on there for like, you know, sometimes I’m on there for two, two hours man, two and a half hours.
So like we have our own like Bad Wolves Patreon fan page that was created by some of the Patreon fans, and it’s like a little group, like family. So it’s not only are you getting exclusive merch, songs, experiences, Q&A’s, but it’s like you’re kind of like, becoming part of the this secondary family cuz I mean, dude.
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A lot of these people have gone through problems, like you know, hardships during COVID and stuff like that. And honestly I have never seen a larger support system for other people. It’s always positive, like, you know, I’ve seen like, ‘Oh, you know, my brother committed suicide’ and all these comments, where they’re just like ‘hey text me, call me’ like ‘I got you’. It’s becoming kind of like I said, a family.
And regardless if you appreciate the way that we do our business. Unfortunately we can’t… There’s a lot of red tape when you release covers, and honestly, with with releasing them publicly like that, it wouldn’t bring in the amount of income for the band itself. That’s not even like for us individually as band members, like we got to a certain point to where the machine needs to stay well oiled.
We don’t want to disappear into obscurity, we still have budgets regardless, we still have people that work for us, regardless if we’re touring or not. So we need to make sure that, yeah, we as a band do get a little bit of cash in our pocket, but it’s not as much as people would definitely think. And it’s definitely not as much as what we would be making if we were able to tour and sell our merch, like dude it’s not even half.
So, I mean it’s not like we’re sitting here being greedy bitches. ‘Give me your money.’ You know, I mean we’re just trying to keep afloat, but also have a platform where we can engage more personally with our fans, and I get it. Some people do feel excluded because they can’t afford it. And, like, it doesn’t make you any less of a fan if you can’t afford 10 bucks a month. And it’s like you don’t have to buy like six months at a time, like you can buy a month.
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Like, yo, you can go get a Big Mac meal for the same you can get one month of Bad Wolves Patreon, check it out, see if you like it, and if it’s not something you’re into, you know, I’m only going to say this I don’t know how many people are watching this right now but people are like bitching like oh I can’t, I can’t download the songs when like you do know how to capture audio from a computer right?
Like you want these songs, it ain’t that hard to figure out, pay your $10 and yo there’s like fucking 20 songs up there right now. So, you know, people are gonna hate, and honestly, when it comes to the shit with like the Nickelback and Five Finger Death Punch… like I’m really good friends with Mike Kroeger, the bass player for Nickelback, you know we check in, call each other all the time.
I lived with him for a week when I was going through a really bad breakup last year. And I mean I look at dudes like Mike and dudes like Zoltan [Bathory, Five Finger Death Punch guitarist] and you know Chris [Kael, Five Finger Death Punch bassist] and you know what if they’re gonna compare us to Five Finger Death Punch, bring on the hate.
Because I have really not seen more successful, happy, generous and just all around, like, defeating odds of being in a heavier band and being able to not only make a living off of it, make a good living off of it.
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So, honestly, you know, the one thing that I have taken from talking to Zoltan about how he deals with the hate he’s like ‘I laugh, because for every one person that hates us there’s 10,000 more that love us.’
So the more we’re hated, the more we’re loved. And I mean dude those guys… Nickelback have sold like fuckin 70 million records.
You know, motherfuckers is lying, you know, like Mike Kroeger lives in Bela Lugosi‘s old mansion in the Hollywood Hills. Do you think he’s fucking crying because someone says that they don’t like Nickelback? No, he ain’t.”