The singer/guitarist of Mastodon, Bill Kelliherin a recent interview with The Break Down With Nath & Johnny talked about the situation of live music after COVID, a difficult situation that still has consequences today:
During COVID no one was touring and many places closed and many people changed careers, for example technicians who worked for bands found other types of jobs. Everyone looked for a way to make ends meet. And it was a fucking disaster. So there was a cascading effect due to the law of supply and demand. For example, gasoline, when the price of gasoline goes up… Everything is based on transportation, especially our band. We turned down a couple of tours in Europe just because we would have broken even at most. And there are several reasons for that, because on the one hand right now we have the biggest production we’ve ever had in our career, which is fantastic. But trying to bring it to Europe is much more difficult. First, gasoline is much more expensive [rispetto agli Stati Uniti]. The trucks, the lorries, are smaller, so we should have a few more trucks, double the ones we have here. And drivers are hard to find. With Brexit… We usually rent from the UK and many times we were able to find vehicles, but we didn’t have drivers, or vice versa – there were drivers available, but no vehicles. Because everyone’s back on tour trying to make up for the money they lost during COVID, and that’s still happening now. Even though the last American tour we did with the Lamb of God it was a great success, it was fantastic, the best ever for us. But we can’t have the huge production we have in the United States, go to Europe and not do the same thing there. If you go there with just a tarp hanging, you can make a little money, but if you bring the lasers, the video wall, all your crew and technicians, the fire and everything else, you can’t do it. And the public will ask themselves: “What the fuck, why don’t you have the production you had in America here too?”. And they won’t understand what I just told you… We can’t go to Europe for a month and not earn anything, just to play. Everyone else gets paid, but the band members are the last to see the money.
I think it was two years ago, in August, we went to Japan which is a place we almost never go due to costs and the economy. And in Japan the cities are a bit far from each other and it’s difficult to manage logistically, even if you are among the best audiences. Every time we go there, they are so thorough. If you borrow or rent amplifiers, if you rent equipment, they’re great. They pay attention to detail and are simply amazing. We went down there and only played one festival. I asked myself, “Why can’t we do three or four concerts while we’re here?” We can’t. Talking to people, they told me: “Japan has only started allowing people to gather in groups now.” This was two and a half years ago, or so.
Things are recovering, but the damage has certainly been irreparable to the entire industry. People are finding different ways to make money somehow. I am like that. I’ve always been one to make do, even before Mastodon. I never had a college education. I’ve never taken guitar lessons. I’m just a fucking street kid. And so I ask myself, how can we make money? We sell stuff, we autograph stuff, we play guitar on stage and sell it. These are things musicians do now. And a lot of people don’t understand that when they’re in the audience. They go to the merch stand and say, “Oh, their fucking T-shirts cost sixty dollars. They’re just taking the piss out of us.” Let me explain the details. Venues take 20 to 30% sometimes – most of the time – of the merch money, when they have nothing to do with the merch. And they shouldn’t. If you play with a bigger band like Slayer, Metallica, Iron Maidenyou have to match the price of their shirts. So there are a lot of things that are hidden from the general public.
Speaking of the percentages on merch that some promoters ask artists, Kelliher he said:
It’s pretty standard. We fought for years. In the contracts, we deleted that part as if to say, “No, we won’t give any percentage. Why should we do this?”. We have a merch company. We have a merch guy who comes on tour with us. This is one more person. He flies where we fly, we pay for his ticket, he stays in a hotel, he is one more person who receives a daily allowance. That day you go to the club and the club says: “No, we have our own people [che vendono il merchandising]”. And we’re like, “Hey, we have our own credit card machine.” And they: “No. You have to use ours and we will make you pay to use it.” So they fuck you wherever they can.
