Mastodonin Bill Kelliher albumin julkaisemisesta koronapandemian aikana: ”Ilman keikkoja näkyvissä se on sama kuin tekisit ilmaisen mainoksen joka maksaa puoli miljoonaa dollaria”

Yhdysvaltalaisen metallijätin Mastodonin oli turvauduttava koronapandemian vuoksi työttömyysetuuksiin sillä tiedossa ei ole keikkoja hetkeen aikaan. Yhtye on siirtymässä pian studioon nauhoittamaan tulevaa albumiaan mutta levyn julkaisu ilmeisesti tulee tapahtumaan vasta kun tiedossa on keikkailua albumin myynnin edistämiseksi. Yhtyeen kitaristi Bill Kelliher on tuoreessa Metal Sucksin haastattelussa verrannut levyn julkaisua ilman keikkoja siihen kun kuluttaisit rahaa puoli miljoonaa dollaria ilmaiseen mainokseen, joka ei auttaisi mitään. Hän kertoi bändin suunnitelmista tulevan albumin suhteen seuraavaa:

“A couple years ago I had the chance to get a partner who’s an engineer and actually build a proper studio that we could turn into a business. That place is called West End Sound and that’s inside of Ember City, which is our rehearsal facility that we manage. We have a lot of bands in there that rehearse.

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So I was able to build that out a couple years ago and make it into a place where we could actually record our records. I just felt like, when I bought the rehearsal facility — it wasn’t a rehearsal facility until I built it out — but it was like, why am I paying somebody a thousand bucks a month to rent from them when we could pool our money together and get a loan from the bank and buy a building and turn it into the same thing? And then we’re just paying ourselves. So that’s what we did.

And then I thought the same with a recording studio. Why are we paying a thousand dollars a day out in Hollywood to rent a recording studio to do a record? And then, say you spend half a million dollars on a record, which is, that’s about right. That’s basically your money, its not like the record company pays for it, they front you the money to do it and it’s your job to make the money back by touring and selling records and products, even though they take a certain percentage of that as well.

Say you spend $500,000 on a record, $300,000 goes to a producer and the other $200,000 to hotels and things and renting out a recording studio, engineer, whatever. You make a record, that record goes to Spotify, Apple Music. I have nothing against Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, all that stuff but it’s a joke. People pay $9.99 a month to listen to unlimited amounts of every band, every artist. How does that equate to your half a million dollars you just spent on one record? It’s very unbalanced.

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“If we have our own studio now, we don’t have to pay these exorbitant amounts of money to record there, a thousand bucks a day… gimme a break. ‘Cause you know you’re never going see this money again, you’re throwing your money into an ad, which is your record, so that people come see you play the concert and buy your stuff.

But if there’s no concert you’re just making this free ad that’s costing half a million dollars where people can just basically listen to as much as they want on Spotify and Apple Music and all that stuff. If it keeps going this way, bands are going to disappear because no one can afford to be out there spending that kind of money to make no money.”