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Are we

killing
in the
name of
DOWNLOADING?
Imagine it. It is a beautiful evening in place and at the same time. However Digital Economy Bill this summer they
July, stars are out and the air, still warm we choose to enjoy it, there is no deny- hope to stop illegal file sharing, boost-
from the day’s heat, has that sweet ing the fact that music has a massive ing the economy whilst hitting those
smell of grass, grilled meat and earth. impact on our lives. Whether we are music thieves hard. But, let’s be honest,
You wave a couple of fireflies away as devoted fans and regular concert goers we all download, even rock stars do
you lean back on your quilt, taking a or casual radio listeners and occasional (see page 17), leaving the question
sip of your drink and smiling as you pirates doesn’t really matter. that if the future of the music industry
share your friends’ anticipation. The We are part of a generation living for doesn’t lie within rules and regulations,
concert is just about to begin. music. wherein does it lie? Is there any hope
Further down the field the scene is The question is how long music will for new acts trying to make it in a world
another. Here the smell consists of continue to live for us. For years we dominated by major labels frantically
sweat, mud and illegal substances and have been told how our behaviour is holding onto their last bits of power or it
you find yourself pressed against the killing it, how we are creating a vicious is every for themselves, grabbing what
people around you, there is no chance circle as we manically access this life they want?
of waving any bugs or shouting drunks drug of ours, slowly strangling it as we It is time to find out what the people
away. Still, you smile as you gulp down do so. Downloading, we have been behind the music really think. CLOSE
your luke warm beer, waiting for what told, will be the death of music yet we UP’s Isabella Qvist has spoken to all the
will be the gig of a lifetime. can’t stop doing it. main protagonists in this debate, giving
Music experiences are so different, Why? Because we can’t live without it. you the essential guide to what is a
even when they happen in the same With the government rolling out The classic fight between money and art.

I NG
N
RMusic
A is highly addictive. This summer there is plenty of opportunity to experience it in its truest form - live.
W With festivals fighting for visitors the choice of venue is hard, will it be Download, Bloodstock, Leeds,
Glastonbury, Hellfest or all of them followed by a European tour? The choice is yours. Exposure to live mu-
sic may cause emotional heart attacks, memories for life and it could subject you to a bloody good time.
14
THE EXPERTS EXPLAIN

The digital economy


What?
An up to date record company
‘The record company
is a dinosaur ’
dinosaur, a rebellious law expert
The industry has in his mind been to new online music service, MFlow. His If you are creative and the music you
and a visionary band manager simplistic for two long. business, a kind of iTunes meets social make is good then there will always be
throw some light on Napster, ’We need to get our heads out, rather networking site, is based on recom- space for you.’
The Digital Economy Bill and than think that the world is about the 99 mendations between users. He says We may still be standing still on the
the future of an industry fighting p download. We need to change how the industry still stands a chance. But same spot when it comes to solving an
against a digitalised generation. we do business.’ emphasises it has to change. agreement between file sharers and
Business. Money. Profit. Is that what it “Think consumer, not choice. People multi million cooperative companies but
is all about? Scott defends the industry want music now and so they will down- as we run around listening to Spotify on
he has always loved. load,” he concludes about the error he our iPhones, twittering about the latest
‘It’s still about art and magic! The thinks the industry is making when they number one on the official Download
buzz happens on its own… but how postpone releases, trying to build up the chart, we can know that we have come
Over a decade has passed since the were so busy wallowing in the which do you capture that magic? That’s the hype as they do so. a long way in ten years.
music debate first started. Even though flow from the CD boom that they won’t be great part of the music industry, it just In Sweden, the land that gave us
copyright and access to online content really didn’t think that the Internet put into happens, we just have to find who it is Spotify as well as The Pirate Bay, new
has been debated since the commer- and digital delivery was going to be as actual force In a years time The Digital
happening to.’ ideas keep appearing. Consisting of Economy Bill faces a review
cialisation of the Internet in 1996 it big a factor as it was. It wasn’t really until next year, And happen it does, we know that. many small labels, The Swedish Model
wasn’t until Shawn Fanning in 1999 taken seriously.’ will work on a three We love our idols as much today as we is working towards a new agenda as Ofcom prepares a report
came up with a little something called Someone who has seen the potential strike system where warning letters did when Madonna touched the charts within the industry. Martin Thörnqvist and another vote is held in the
Napster that the suspicion floating that the Internet holds seriously from are sent out before the person accused for the very first time, only now expecta- says it is impossible to say yes or no to House of Parliament, by which
around in record company offices the very start however, is Scott Cohen. faces a complete Internet cut off.
turned into full panic storm. Today manager of The Raveonettes, he Lilian Edwards, Professor of Internet
tions no longer rest on MTV showing file sharing. time Facebook campaigns
us the newest video but on regularly ‘It is something that exists and can’t should be able determine more
During the 80s a whole generation seen as a big of a guru in the digital Law and the country’s leading expert updated Twitter, Facebook and MyS- be removed. Get started and put the
had replaced their vinyl collection with music age. In 1997 he in New York on the Digital Economy Bill is critical pace accounts. energy towards driving the develop-
than Christmas Number Ones.
CDs, giving record labels a very com- founded what became the digital distri- towards a government banning techno- Don Jenkins is director of music of the ment instead of trying to slow it down…
fortable seat to be in, and as the age of bution site ‘The Orchard’. logical advancements.
downloading was waiting around the ‘We would log onto AOL and see ‘It’s about progress. We didn’t pass
corner no one knew how to deal with it. people chatting about Nine Inch Nails laws to make hand weavers illegal,’ she
But the initial shock settled quickly and and then we would send each person says.
when Metallica in 2000 discovered personalised emails saying ‘hey we Whether governmental action will Hello Pete Spider, front
their entire back catalogue as well as a have an artist called Godhead, check scare us into starting to pay for the man of Black Spiders and
yet unreleased single was available via it out and we can send you a CD et blood, sweat, and broken guitar strings
the site all hell broke loose. They filed a cetera.’ We started thinking, if we could an artist has put into their music or
manager of 65daysofstatic.
law suit against the company, soon fol- send information, why not send music whether technology will continue to How do you feel about
lowed by Dr Dre, Madonna and eventu- online?’ outsmart what long has been an indus- downloading?
ally most major record companies who Fourteen years later that storm in the try making serious profit, time will tell.
went together suing Napster on three record company office is a hurricane as Record companies have in Lilian’s mind
points of infringement of copyright. In survived way past their sell by date. I’m all for it. It’s the future. I do
July 2001 Napster shut down but the Online copyright infringement will ‘The record company is a dinosaur, prefer to have physical product in my
world had only seen the beginning of cost the UK music sector an estimated its prime days were in the 80s when hand and love vinyl, but what’s the

£200m
file sharing. Once sharing was caring, everyone replaced their vinyl with use of railing against it?
there was no stopping it. CDs.’
Keith Blackhurst, now Senior Vice in 2009. The record companies, having in-
Free downloads seem to be clutching

7.3 million
President of officialCommunity, was vested millions in their traditional way at straws though, unless you have a
part of the CD boom when he in 1987 of doing things, would not agree. huge marketing plan behind it like
founded DeConstruction Records. The
people engage in unlawful filesharing. old For them to walk away from their Radiohead did with ‘In Rainbows’,
label was initially involved in the early ways is either very brave or, you or Nine Inch Nails did with ‘Ghosts
days of the house scene, later signing wouldn’t say stupid but they are still I-IV’, where they drew people in and
artists such as Kylie Minogue. He re- the music industry is facing a crisis and making money from what they do, Keith
members a time when music sharing via the suggested solutions are many. Blackhurst says. then hit them with a physical release
the Internet was something only ‘some The Government are attempting to Scott Cohen sees a way between the that included extras and lots of art-
smart kids at university’ were fiddling tackle the problem by introducing the two. work. Very clever.
around with. Digital Economy Act 2010. Coming into ‘There isn’t one solution, there are
‘The major record labels at the time effect on June 12 of this year, the bill, solutions, with a plural s,’ he says.
15 16
Dear
ROCK GODS,
wherein lies the future of the
music industry?
We asked Machine Head’s Phil Demmel, The Haunted’s Peter Dolving and
Lamb Of God’s John Campbell - with a combined fifty two years of
experience in the industry, they if anyone would know.

Phil Demmel, guitar, the same goddamn thing so shut up!’. popularity or whatever. It’s by people
playing all the time so people come out
Machine Head Is touring necessary in a different to see us. We’re a great live band, and
that’s what it comes down to. You can
You know its just following the tech- way now? play all you want but if you’re not good
nology man, I mean I can’t say that oh I think it’s absolutely necessary, yeah, then people aren’t going to come back.
it sucks because I used to do it when I especially for a band like us. I mean we
was a kid. I was syncing up my dubbing have to tour, that’s how people know us,
station with my cassettes or taping peo- that’s how we’ve have maintained our
‘Trying to stop downloading is like telling people who are thirsty that they can’t go drink in this river.’ ple’s hours, I was doing the same thing.
- John Campbell It’s always been a part of what’s going
on, its just that it’s so easy now and it’s
just a flick of a button and so I mean
you don’t even have to know somebody
John Campbell, bass, to make music, not to sell it. That’s cool. No. I’m sure that we would be in a much who has the record, you just go on-
line so it’s just the nature of the beast.
Lamb Of God different position, if there wasn’t down-
Has this made you tour more? loading our income would probably
I can say exactly where it’s going to go. Bands never make money from selling be increased. But then again we never Where do you think its all going?
Downloading can’t be stopped. It’s like records, that’s never been the case. It would have been caught on and found I don’t know, I don’t know. I mean
telling people who are thirsty that they doesn’t directly affect bands trough that, without the Internet. Because way back in the whole internet thing in general can
can’t go drink in this river, then all they’re it indirectly affects bands through the fact the day there was a website called mp3. be very evil if you use it for wrong. I
going to do is dip their cup in and start that the record company is trying to make com, back when the Internet was still very mean it’s like a super power, do you
drinking. I think the record industry was back the money that they have spent on much in its infancy and we just jammed use your super power for good or for
a big bloated beast that held all the ad- the band through promotion and just put stuff up on there. People dug what evil, it’s about how people use it and
vantages in that world and made people paying for having the record recorded. we had and we got the attention of some hopefully the greater good. Its really go-
pay for it and then they got caught with guys over at a record company and ing to hurt album sales and it has and
more or less the rest is what ya’all know. that’s just the way of that is that every-
their pants down with this new technol- The fact that people download thing’s going to be mp3s and just the
ogy. Thankfully I’m not a record com- your music doesn’t change what
pany and I’m in a band whose job it is way it is. You’re not going to be able
you do? to gain success through album sales.

Peter Dolving, vocals, Do you still buy


The Haunted It is the age of downloading. checkout but that’s ok. It’s a question CDs?
Has it affected CD sales? of ambition and goals. Our goal is to Sometimes, yeah. But
The Internet is an amazing construc- No doubt. You notice it especially when be allowed to create art, which we are. I’m on the road a lot so
tion. The concept which appeared with you place massive festivals like when we Do you still buy CDs? its easier for me to just
the Internet nerds of the 90s, that infor- played Wakken in Germany and there Yes and no. Most of the time I can’t go to iTunes and grab
mation should be free, that is deep and were 60 000 people and every damn afford to and I download like a crazy it or take my buddy’s
important. Information should be free, person sang along to the songs. If all person and I feel no shame or guilt and rip it, you know! I
wants to be free. It’s democracy in a those people who come to our gigs would over that because over the years I have do that, I do that. Eve-
whole new way, on a much deeper level have bought our records then we would spent so much money on thousands rybody in my band
than we are used to. I think it’s a human have been as big as some of the greatest of records which I have later sold and does that and every-
need. We can’t fly because we haven’t band in the 90s. But it’s nothing to be bit- lost. I download what I previously used body I know does that
learnt to do it yet but I think freedom is ter over. It would have been really practi- to own and if I find something re- so if anybody’s going
a profound need. Freedom to be who cal to have more money but we’re ok the ally, really good then I come across to stand up there and
we are and freedom to make our own way it is now, earning probably the same them in a record shop then I’ll buy it. be all preachy then
choices, I think we have a need for that. as someone who works in a supermarket Dolving it’s like ‘you’re doing
16 18
THE NEXT GENERATION from the band touring with Gojira independent labels especially, we’re the CD. Saying that I think with the fall
last year says and agrees that what never going to see any money from of the CD vinyl is on the rise again and
amongst hardcore music fans used to selling albums. Just because of the kind I think people who really give a shit will

‘CALL ME SELLOUT,
be classed as selling out is today a of music we play there is such a limited always buy stuff on LP.’
necessity. Telling people what the band market for it and I think a lot people Despite being part of a band constant-
is doing, be it what they are eating, would go and download it anyway. But ly pushing boundaries, James remains
humming or wearing is what is ex- because of that I would sooner a kid unsure of where we could see ourselves

I’m proud
pected from an ever demanding Internet downloaded our CD and came to the in the future.
based generation. Constant twittering, show and bought a t-shirt, because that ‘It’s a hard to call where the future lies
Facebook status updating and MySpace is money we can see.’ because ten years ago people would
friend adding is all part of a never end- Is money everything? For Rolo Tomassi have said vinyl was a dead format and

to be onE’
ing information flow splashing out onto the answer is clear. the future was with CDs and it’s now
fans, friends and followers. ‘Not that that is the most important an old format coming back up so it’s
Around the world we hunger for the thing but them coming to buy a T-shirt impossible to say but fortunately for us
insight into the lives of our heroes. means we can go on tour the next time live music is something that can never
Whilst some indulge in gossip about because we have made enough money be replaced.’
reality shows and boob jobs, us music to venture out to Europe and go visit True that. Twitter, Coca Cola and
geeks have made the Internet our own, America and Australia as well.’ Universal Records signing contracts sure
hitting ourselves up with that long five Having made and sold CDs himself, help bands reach financial success on a
minute awaited fix of tour news and be it on a very small scale, James is short scale but the question is whether
music videos.
When we in the deepest dark- What we sometimes forget is that only ‘Not that money is the most important
est dip of financial crisis happily
bling our lives with iPods and
a few years ago some bands were still
reluctant to use social networking. Dean
thing, but them coming to buy a T-shirt
video phones but refuse to pay Rowbotham, today guitar technician means we can go on tour next time .’
for the music on them, other for Bring Me The Horizon was trying to
make it with his band The Mirimar Dis-
means are needed. aster in 2006 when we spoke to him. generally sceptical towards the idea of that is what it is all about. We are all at
Lady Gaga fills her hair with ‘MySpace kind of pushes you forward them. risk of drowning in Facebook feeds and
Coca Cola cans, Mick Jagger but it pulls you back two steps at the ‘I think the CD as a format is dying, so Phil Demmel, guitarist of Machine
has sold Louis Vuitton bags and same time. For me it is a great way of there is very little reason for people to Head hits the golden rule to fame on
Rock Star Energy Drink tour the getting fans and people networking buy CDs unless they are really into sup- the head.
world promoting their products and promoters and all that but because porting labels and stuff and in that re- ‘Go out to as many shows you know,
everyone has it, it has almost gotten to spect downloads are a lot more popular do the MySpace thing, do all the social
with the help of In Flames, Kills- a point now where it’s really hard to now. I have spoken to a lot of people networking things and get seen but
witch Engage and Everytime I personalise something. You’ve got to who say they are a lot happier to just it’s going to come down to your being
Die. To quote Missy, there aint be part of it because if you’re not then buy stuff off iTunes rather than buying good or not.’
no shame in going commercial you’re an idiot and we wouldn’t have
no more. Or is there? CLOSE UP had 90% of the tours we have been on.’
Available on MySpace, Twitter, Big
has spoken to a Swedish success Cartel, Facebook, tumblr, iTunes, Spo-
saga as well as up and coming tify and PureVolume, Sheffield mathcore
UK rockers The Eyes Of A Traitor rockers Rolo Tomassi tour a lot, resulting
and Rolo Tomassi. in a different kind of hype than the one
Dead By April have reached in Sweden.
Despite Rolo Tomassi also featuring
One band in particular has been Jimmie Strimmel more and more in mainstream media,
given the ‘sell out’ stamp in Sweden. they are still an underground band
Covered in tattoos and piercings, signed to an indie label. Band founder
Gothenburg band Dead By April play a James Spence produced the group’s
catchy mix of metal and pop, dominat- Markt’ store openings, never turning playing a more commercially accepta-
down grandma’s lottery programmes, ble type of music however does. Playing first CDs under his own his own label
ing charts and radio air time after fea- MayDay.
turing in the vignette to the Scandina- has made the term ‘sell out’ circulate death metal will never enable you to the
around the group. Something which same kind of budget, something which ‘That as a label was nothing more
vian version of “I’m a Celebrity Get Me than me making CDs in my bedroom to
Out Of Here”. Having played together Jimmie has no problem with. I find really sad because it means there
’I don’t understand the criticism as I’ve is so much good music out there never have something to sell at gigs, I made
for only three years, today a simple like fifty CDs and just wanted to put a
Google search gives Dead By April always thought being a sell out was reaching the greater population.’
the ultimate goal. What bands don’t Their commercial success may be name on it. At the time I was just mak-
164 million hits. Their success story was ing the most basic things on the tightest
fast forwarded when Universal Records want to sell records? You don’t sign to debated, still Dead By April started out
a label, go on tours and work your ass the way every other band today does. budget and in retrospective it probably
signed them in 2008 and they have seems a lot better than it was at the
filled arenas ever since. Singer Jimmie off to not get anything out of it. What’s Via MySpace.
so wrong with being a sell out? Call me ‘MySpace has definitely done a lot for time.’
Strimmel still feels shocked. Speaking for a female fronted band
‘I never in my wildest fantasies could sell out, I’m proud to be one.’ us, that’s where it all started. We put
Dead By April never went for long two songs out, they created a hype and sounding like a chaotic volcano erup-
have dreamt of reaching this hype so tion on speed, a band that was started
soon.’ without a record deal but Jimmie, the then we worked around the clock add-
boy with the tattooed boy band look ing friends, trying to win fans over.’ for the mere purpose of touring, James
And a hype is all that it is, the groups knows what Jimmie knew too. Commer-
many critics claim. The fact that Dead who has played with death metal band Technical metalcore band The Eyes Of
Nightrage before, knows how to keep A Traitor from Hertfordshire, UK, agree cialised and major record label spon-
By April is a band with a rock look, sored music makes more money.
claiming to represent the metal music his feet on the ground. on the winning formula.
‘I don’t think being signed to a mas- ‘The Internet and MySpace has been ‘We tour more out of choice more Eva Spence sings for Rolo Tomassi
genre and still playing shows at ‘Media than anything and I think for bands on
sive record label makes a difference, key for our success.’ Steve Withworth
18 19

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