During a recent appearance on The Break Down With Nath & Johnny, Bill Kelliher talked about how rock bands struggle financially.
After discussing how the pandemic caused logistical and economic issues for the bands, the musician commented on the post-pandemic process, saying, “Things are bouncing back, but there was definitely irreparable damage done to the whole industry.”
“People are just finding different ways to make money. Like hustling. Sell stuff, sign stuff, play guitar on stage, sell it. Those are things musicians are doing now. And a lot of people don’t understand that are out in the audience,” Kelliher continued.
He added, “They go to the merch stand and they’re, like, ‘Oh, their f*cking t-shirts are $60. They’re just raking us over the coals.’ Let me explain the details. Venues, they take 20 to 30% sometimes, most of the time, of your merch money, when they have nothing to do with merch money. And they shouldn’t.”
“If you play with a bigger band like Slayer, Metallica, Iron Maiden you have to price match with their shirts,” Bill further explained. “So there’s a lot of things that are hidden from the general public.”
A lot of musicians have shared their financial struggles these days. Ghost’s Tobias Forge opened up about the cost of their shows earlier this year, “We opened Pandora’s Box. We were adding all these other elements to the show that a lot of people – myself included – thought, ‘That would be cool to do all the time.’”
The frontman stated, “Which is kind of complicated, because with something like the dancers, you’re essentially adding another team of performers. It’s another set of people who need to train and be in shape and travel and be fed.”
“There are still budgetary issues, absolutely. Every cool idea you can ever come up with is really expensive. It always costs money, and money is what controls everything. You have to pick and choose,” Forge also said.
Mastodon will be heading to Australia later this year and have festival shows scheduled next year in the Dominican Republic, Romania, and the UK.