Exodus bassist says he’s a “t-shirt salesman”, not a “musician”: “We don’t sell s**t for records. If we don’t go out and sell t-shirts, we don’t make money”
Ask Jack Gibson, longtime bassist of thrash metal titans Exodus, what advice he’d offer to new musicians, and the answer is as surprising as it is sobering.
In a recent chat with Danielle Bloom, Gibson lays bare his frustrations with the current state of the music business, saying [via Blabbermouth]: “I don’t know what to tell young musicians today because I am jaded. And it isn’t that I’m just jaded, it’s that there’s no music business anymore.”
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Unlike in the past where “there was a path” for musicians – e.g. form a band, make music, look for gigs, get noticed by labels – these days “those steps don’t exist at all anymore,” and in place of it is a system Gibson admittedly struggles to comprehend.
“Now the step is make a band – or not even make a band. Let’s just go viral,” he says. “I don’t know how to do that shit. It’s totally a mystery to me. I don’t know how things get popular now, other than just total luck.”
“Young musicians, they ask me that all the time,” says Gibson, “And I kind of feel like a dick when I’m answering, because I’m, like, ‘Guys, I don’t know.’ I don’t know what makes things tick.”
“The bands that are real popular, I don’t know why those bands are popular. And I’m not saying that they’re not good; I just don’t know why those ones are the ones that stand out from the other ones right now. It all kind of sounds the same to me. I guess it’s probably because I’m just old. But I don’t know what direction to give anybody.”
And while music has never been more accessible, making a living from music itself is more difficult than ever. Which is why artists have turned to selling merch as their source of income, says Gibson, who declares himself a “t-shirt salesman” and not a “musician”.
“Once they started giving the music away, there’s no business,” he explains. “We don’t sell shit for records. If we don’t go out and sell t-shirts, we don’t make money. I’m a t-shirt salesman. I’m not a musician. I’m literally a travelling tchotchke seller.”
“We play music to try to get people to the store and sell them our fuckin’ stuff with stuff printed on it. That’s the business. If you can’t fill up a room, 50,000 units moved on the internet, then they don’t wanna talk to you.”
He also echoes worries shared by fellow artists like Rick Beato about the rise of AI and its impact on actual musicians, saying “Any day now, we’re all gonna lose our jobs to these fuckin’ robots. Once the A.I. figures out how to actually make music that people enjoy, they’re not gonna pay us to do shit.”
The post Exodus bassist says he’s a “t-shirt salesman”, not a “musician”: “We don’t sell s**t for records. If we don’t go out and sell t-shirts, we don’t make money” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
