EXODUS Guitarist Says Illegal Music Downloading Is Killing The Industry

EXODUS guitarist Gary Holt is quick to acknowledge that the music industry is a changing place and the ground that the band is standing on these days is shaky, with the Internet's facilitation of illegal downloading sapping the album's potential for moneymaking. And while METALLICA takes much of the heat for its past anti-pirating actions, Holt says that downloading doesn't just hurt the big guys.

"It hurts everybody," he tells Vue Weekly. "Our bass player Jack has an analogy that I think hits it up perfect. If two or three out of every 10 cars built in Detroit were stolen there would be immediate action. But musicians, we're looked at as not needy, as pampered, spoiled brats, and so they allow it to happen. It's killing the industry. We depend entirely on merchandise and tour revenues. It's just changing the game and pretty soon there will be no record industry.

"And a lot of people think I just sound like another whiny band, but it's like, dude, I'm far from rich," he adds with a laugh. "Anybody who thinks I'm complaining about needing a tune-up for my Ferrari is entirely wrong. My van with 205,000 miles on it died right before this tour, so I don't even have a car."

But while there's a downside to the Internet, Holt also appreciates it for what it offers to the band's hardcore fans. When EXODUS first started out, the band recorded a three song-demo tape back in 1982 when METALLICA's Kirk Hammett was still with the group. While physical copies of that cassette have faded from sight, a little digging on the Internet still turns up download links to the songs, offering up an archive of the band's past. Holt's very much in favour of that aspect of today's technology.

"Stuff like that, that's cool," he tells Vue Weekly. "It's something we've never released; we have no intention of it. That's a whole different circumstance than people downloading your actual record. It's an old demo — it was always for free in the first place. We never sold it and if someone wants to listen to some ancient EXODUS, knock yourselves out.

"When it comes to live bootlegs or rarities and stuff like that I'm all for people going and doing all the trading that they want," he continues. "People ask me how I compare tape trading to downloading — some people have actually said, 'Oh, it's kind of the same thing, isn't it?' And I said, 'No, it's not.' A tape trader loved the band. He had to physically copy that tape. He had to go down to the post office, address it, send it to his pen-pal friend across the world at his own expense and time, so he put love and effort into that. Now you just click a mouse and, 'Ah, I don't like this album, I'll delete it.' Those guys were helping the band by spreading the word. Downloaders, they're just taking it."

Read the entire article from Vue Weekly.