Suicide Silence frontman Eddie Hermida and guitarist Mark Heylmun have some pretty strong opinions about people who make music to make money. The due told Metal Hammer that basically if you're not writing good music if people aren't buying your record, and that you shouldn't really expect to make money because people are just constantly stealing your shit.
“If people want to listen to the stuff you put out, YouTube does a really good job of keeping counts.
“And if you get enough people to watch your stuff, YouTube might want to give you some cash, but that's not why you make it to begin with. And if you are making music for that reason, then you're a fucking idiot.
“Making an industry out of it is the most ass backwards thing that could ever happen to humanity."
And guitarist Mark Heylmun takes aim at musicians complaining about the lack of money through streams. He says: “What are you so mad about? Write a better record and maybe people will buy it.
“Listen to it on YouTube if you can’t afford it and if you can afford it, go support it.”
Hermida adds: “Let those idiots who are trying to fucking squeeze every penny out of an art die.
“There are people who are willing to give their money to an artist who is kicking his own ass out there. The fact is there's too many people out there trying to stick their hands in our pockets, and that's where the industry is failing. And it's going to fail, because greed is never going to win."
I definitely agree about the part where he's saying there are a lot of hands in a lot of pockets and ultimately you're not going to make a whole lot in the industry, but the whole "better music = more sales" thing might be a little off the mark. There are some simply astonishing records floating around out there that I guarantee a lot of people haven't heard… so it's not so much a matter of talent as it being promoted properly and gaining the right hype.
But yeah- making money in music is a bitch. A big name dude like Devin Townsend is making about $60,000 and he's basically a rock star in metal.
