In a new interview, bandmembers from the Black Keys have offered a fresh insight into the modern day music industry, and it is not too positive.
Speaking to The Independent newspaper, drummer Patrick Carney spoke about his band's situation, as well as offering a fairly bleak view of the business climate.
"The game has changed over here in the United States," stated Carney. "We just don’t connect the dots".
Carney claimed that successful live promotion firms have financial links with major names in the music industry, leading to conflicts of interest, leaving artists at a disadvantage.
"You see, like, ‘Jay-Z started a management company with Live Nation’, [but] no one really understands what that actually means," he says. "So the people that you’re supposed to be working with to negotiate with your promoter are in the pocket of the promoter. So how the fuck are you supposed to work? It’s everywhere… it’s insidious. It’s f***** up", he said.
He also said that artists ultimately take on all the risks and the majority of the expenses when they go on tour.
"Each time you’re playing a show," he said, "someone’s slapping these service fees on, they’re taking 25 per cent of your merch off the top, it’s a fucking racket, man. You would think over the course of 65, 75 years of rock’n’roll, someone would have stepped in and be like, ‘Fuck all this shit. This is insane,’ and I think most managers would, but they’ve all been compromised".
He also aimed a dig at streaming services.
"There’s a lot of money in music," he added, "it’s creating billionaires. It’s just, we’ve been saying since 2010, that this shit just doesn’t pay fairly. It’s insane".
In May last year, The Black Keys were forced to call off their North American Tour, which led to fans speculating it was down to low ticket sales. More on this from Nova here.
