W związku z niedawnym koncertem zespołu Anthrax w Dublinie, Charlie Benante udzielił wywiadu gazecie The Irish Times. Został w nim m.in. zapytany o to, jak zmieniła się branża muzyczna w ciągu 40 lat jego kariery.
In connection with a recent Anthrax concert in Dublin, Ireland, Charlie Benante was interviewed by The Irish Times. In it, he was asked, among other things, how the music industry has changed over the 40 years of his career.
Charlie Benante (photo via tama.com)
The drummer with Anthrax, S.O.D, and the current incarnation of Pantera did not mince his words:
“There is no music industry. That’s what has changed. There is nothing any more. There are people listening to music, but they are not listening to music the way music was once listened to. It’s a different time now. Here’s a strange thing. While I have seen people eating a little bit more healthy here and there, the industry of music was one of things hit the worst and nobody did anything about it. They just let it happen. There was no protection, no nothing. Subconsciously this may be the reason why we don’t make records every three years or whatever because I don’t want to give it away for free. I take music very seriously and what I do and what I write is very personal and, for someone to take it is not right. It is like I pay Amazon $12.99 a month and I can just go on Amazon and I can get whatever I want. It is basically stealing. It is stealing from the artist – the people who run music streaming sites like Spotify. I don’t subscribe to Spotify. I think it is where music goes to die. We have the music on there because we have to play along with the f*****g game, but I’m tired of playing the game. We get taken advantage of the most out of any industry. As artists, we have no health coverage, we have nothing. They f**ked us so bad, I don’t know how we come out of it. You’d probably make more money selling lemonade on the corner.”
When asked about Metallica suing Napster nearly 25 years ago, Benante said:
“They were absolutely right about it. You see where it went. All those people who said, ‘f**k Metallica, they are rich b******s.’ They were protecting their art, their intellectual property so that some a****le does not come along and take your art. They make the money while you just make the art and you just give it away. People don’t know anything about this. Until you have lived the way we live and do what we have done, then you can comment on it.”