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And Finally
Flagging record industry forcing Metallica to tour
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 30 May 2012
You see, Lars Ulrich told you this would happen, take one stupid internet and a bunch of pesky file-sharers, and now we have a never-ending Metallica tour.
Kirk Hammett, guitarist with the metal band, has told Rolling Stone that he and his bandmates would quite like to take a rest from touring, but with record sales income so mediocre these days those poor stadium filling rockers need to keep playing live shows just to keep them in plectrums. Of course if you’re a cynic you might wonder why a band who tours at the level of Metallica aren’t making enough cash from their live work to fund the occasional year off. And if you’re a cruel cynic, you might add that Metallica might see bigger pay outs from their records if they didn’t spend their studio time making shit art projects with Lou Reed, but whatever.
Says Hammett: “The cycles of taking two years off don’t exist anymore. We were able to do that because we had record royalties coming in consistently. Now you put out an album, and you have a windfall maybe once or twice but not the way it used to be – a cheque every three months. We’ve been a live band, we’ve had to get out there and play, play, play… nowadays that was the area we wanted to kind of lay back on a little bit, and kind of enjoy our families and things. But, you know, it is what it is, and we can’t change that”.
