In a new interview with Sonic Perspectives contributor Jonathan Smith, CRADLE OF FILTH frontman Dani Filth once again spoke about the decline of the music industry as consumers value access over ownership and experiences over assets. He said:”I owe it to my brethren in metal and music not to have a fucking Spotify account because they don’t pay people. And it’s not just them — it’s just platforms in general. And I appreciate the fact that from that people could discover you from another band and whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever; I’ve heard it a million times. But I’m old school. I want CDs, I want vinyl, I want my bands to be paid because if they’re not paid, they’re not bands anymore. And I know so many people from big bands that since the pandemic have gone, ‘You know what? I’m taking a proper job. So you’ll see me less often. We’ll still be doing albums, but probably once every five years,’ because music — it just seems like daylight robbery.”

Dani continued: “If you owned a delicatessen or a fucking supermarket even, people aren’t allowed to just come in and help themselves to free produce, which is what people think they’re entitled to do with music because it’s a periphery thing and it’s in the air. You can’t physically touch music. But how do you expect bands to survive without that? Okay, yeah, sure, music’s getting bigger and bigger. But that’s because Taylor Swifts of the world and the Ed Sheerans, whom we’ve just done a song with, are everywhere. If you work in a delicatessen or you work at a building site and you’ve got the radio on, chances are you can hear one of those two or Beyoncé or whatever, or Megan Thee Stallion within fucking five minutes of putting it on. And it’s kind of a mind control because you adjusted to that. You remember those songs ’cause that’s all you hear.”

Filth noted that producers of audiovisual content like TV shows and movies have also been hit hard by online piracy. “Obviously, they really try to combat piracy with movies, and there’s more money involved in movies — obviously,” he said. “But in England, we used to have these, not up to very recently, this whole advert they had before the movie starts where ‘video piracy is killing the movie industry’, and they even go to the point where they’d have this slamming prison doors, in IMAX quality sound, THX. ‘You’re going to prison if you watch a bootleg movie.’ But not the same for… I know back in the day they had a message on the back of albums saying that ‘home taping is killing music,’ but nowadays it’s like a fucking free for all.”

Dani went on to say that heavy metal fans buy physical product in greater numbers than is the case with fans of other genres of music.

“I think the metal scene is probably one of the most loyal and also one of the most agitated scenes,” he explained. “Everybody hates, ‘Oh, that band?’ ‘I love ARCH ENEMY. Do you? What about IN FLAMES? Oh, no. They’re fucking shit.’ The metal scene is so carnivorous and so cannibalistic, yet probably the most loyal. And, yeah, people, they wear their hearts on the sleeves and wear the bands on their battle jackets. And they’ll go and buy the blood-splattered vinyl or they’ll buy the special edition, if there was one.”