Rob Halford kommentoi raskaan musiikin nykypäivää ja tulevaisuutta

Judas Priestin laulaja Rob Halford on kommentoinut raskaan musiikin tilannetta taannoisessa 1290 KOIL -radiokanavan tekemässä haastattelussa. Halford kertoi, että hänen mielestään nykypäivänä on paljon taidokkaita bändejä ja tulevaisuus näyttää valoisalta, vaikka Spotifyn kaltaisten suoratoistopalveluiden maksamat korvaukset uusille yhtyeille ovatkin naurettavan pieniä. Hän ei usko rock n’ rollin kuolleen, vaikka KISSin Gene Simmons niin väittääkin. Mietiskelyn kohteena oli myös se, että tuleeko enää olemaan Ozzy Osbournen ja Axl Rosen kaltaisia suurnimiä sekä monien musiikkiin liittyvien asioiden muuttuminen internetin myötä.

”Well, there’s incredible talent out there right now, with Avenged Sevenfold, Five Finger Death Punch, In This Moment, Royal Blood… There’s a ton of bands… Rival Sons… I can keep going and going.”

”I’ll tell you what’s changed, and you’re probably aware of this as well, guys. Since the invention of this thing called the Internet, everything has shifted. The way we absorb music now, the way we go to shows and everything, the way we connect.

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”We were pondering about this the other day in the van driving back from a gig. You know, will there be another great, big rock-star giant like Ozzy Osbourne? Will there be another great, big rock-star giant like Axl Rose, for example. Does that really matter? I don’t know. But it’s shifted, it’s changed. The good news is there’s an extraordinary display of talent coming from all different quarters in all different genres of rock and roll. So the future looks bright.”

My mate Gene Simmons said ’rock and roll is dead’ a few months ago, which caused a bit of a ruckus. I don’t believe it’s dead. I think it’s thriving, I think it’s great, and I think the future’s bright. Not only the bands that are coming up now, but the bands that are starting where we started forty years ago, making noise in the garage or whatever. It’s great.

”Well, I could talk to you guys for hours on this subject, but, briefly, we’re all in this turmoil right now, with the way that the big boys, like Spotify, for example, are streaming music. And when you cut down the revenue, the actual amount of revenue that goes to the artist is absolutely ridiculous. It’s nowhere near what a record royalty is from a label like we have, for example. We’ve been with our beautiful Sony family forever. We get what we feel is a fair rate for our music that we make. Where I kind of wonder is how the new bands get started, because, yeah, I mean, we’ve got a back catalog. We’ve done, like, forty or fifty million records. Those were the days when people went to the record stores — to Tower Records or wherever. You hung out, you bought the vinyl. It was a whole different thing. Now it’s all on your phone; it’s all on your smartphone.”

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”Hey, we’ve all gotta step forward, we’ve gotta live and adapt and make sure that we stay connected. So the business has changed dramatically since the invention of the Internet. Fortunately, the music is strong throughout the whole business of rock and roll. And we just have to, kind of, smooth out the bumps here just to make sure that everybody’s fairly compensated, I believe.”

”I’ve always felt that everybody has the capacity to be a good person. We’re all born good people. It’s how we change and develop, the choices that we make that determine how we turn out. So, what I’m trying to say is, with the advent of the Internet, with the advent of social media, the way that we’re all instantly connected 24 hours a day, that’s gotta be good for the soul and it’s gotta be good for the human race.”