During a recent chat on the latest episode of the Locales Only podcast, Avenged Sevenfold’s frontman M. Shadows said he supports Spotify, even if it’s tough on artists.
Spofity’s relationship with artists is a bit complicated. But the singer spoke in favor of the platform as he said:
“Spotify has a great system for the user. They pay $9.99 a month or $14.99, whatever it is at this point, and they get all the music that’s ever been created for virtually nothing. Now, on the other end, the artist has nowhere else to have their music listened to. You’re not gonna go on a road trip and go to every individual artist’s website to pull up their latest record and stream it from there. It’s just not gonna happen. It’s kind of like when you put a AAA movie out, but it’s not on Netflix, and it’s not in the theaters. Who actually goes and sees it?”
M. Shadows Says Spotify Is Not Convenient For Artists
He continued, sharing how Spotify doesn’t help artists connect with their fans or make extra money:
“The way consumerism is in America, we want ease of use. So they have ease of use for the consumer, but what they don’t do is — I don’t know the last time I saw someone wear a Spotify shirt around. I’ve seen Metallica shirts and Avenged Sevenfold shirts and Taylor Swift shirts, but what they don’t do is they don’t tell you who’s listening to your music. They don’t let you reach out to them. They don’t let you perhaps upsell them things…”
The Frontman Adds Record Labels To The Process
The rocker also talked about the role of record labels:
“And they’ve basically sold the company in return for catalog to the labels. And so now you have all these old record label deals that most people are locked into, getting a royalty on that percentage that Spotify pays you. So, say, Spotify, for purposes of easy discussion, 0.003 cents a play. Most bands are getting about 24 cents on the dollar. So it’s not Spotify, really, the payment; it’s more of the labels and having bad deals.”
Dee Snider also criticized Spotify for paying musicians low last December and slammed its CEO, Daniel Ek, on the Jeremy White Show. Snider mentioned that Ek should be held accountable for his actions towards artists.
You can check out the vocalist’s entire chat below.