Devin Townsend will release his long-awaited new album Empath this Friday, which includes everyone from bands like Decrepit Birth and Beneath The Massacre to Casualties of Cool, Steve Vai and Nickelback. Between the guests and all the time in studios he spent recording, Townsend reveals via Twitter that he racked up about $170,000 in costs from his own bank account making Empath. He also discusses the effects of piracy on an artist and how in the end, not supporting bands does ultimately kill them.
The following was a series of tweets knocked down to a more readable format. Also, please pre-order Empath below.
Hey all. There’s been some mails to me from people who rely on my work to pay the bills about my thoughts of piracy and downloading (1). I feel it’s useless to fight leaks or streaming, in fact: many musicians who have done so appear petty or ungrateful. I feel resigned to it, and have probably said so in the past…
However there’s a bunch of folks who think what I meant by that was ‘I don’t need to sell these things, so go ahead and take it’ and I guess my quotes in the past would imply that. Here’s the thing: I spent 170k of my own money on the album and the label have spent a ton on the peripheral part of it. I would never tell people what to do or not to do, I’m happy to just be allowed to do what I do…
But please know if it loses a ton, it simply won’t be able to continue. The label has gotten mails saying that I don’t care if it gets taken for free, which I guess I may have said in the past, but please know lots of people have invested lots into this and now I feel foolish. Please support physical product if you can, I don’t care that it leaked, but if my prior actions or words justified that, then I have to retract whatever it is I said. I have a big mouth and I just like making tunes basically
Love to you all – Dumbass Townsend
I think my biggest problem is that I hate money, and I hate monetization of art. Yet the two have to coexist so I often have to do that stuff. I hope this makes an ounce of sense. I don’t give a shit, but I seriously need to give a shit. I’m sure yelling ‘DOWNLOAD ALL MY SHIT’ from stage a dozen times didn’t help at all, but whatareyagonnado… :)
For those confused: I re-signed my entire back catalog after it came up for renewal last year for 150k, then proceeded to spend 170 on my stupid record because I am a financial genius. :))
