TED NUGENT Laments Reduced 'Compensation In The Music-Selling Industry'

In a recent interview with Joe Pags of the "Unshaken And Unafraid" podcast, legendary rocker Ted Nugent spoke about how the music industry has evolved to a place where nobody buys records anymore but can listen to everything, paying for access instead of possession. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think [Nugent's classic song] 'Stranglehold' is approaching a billion what they call streams. And my [song] 'Fred Bear' is approaching a billion streams, 'cause people love powerful, emotional, dynamic, fun music. But in the old days, I could get a couple of bucks per album sold. I think if you have a billion streams, you might get $29.95."

Nugent went on to say that he was " blind to the compensatory considerations" when he first became a professional musician six decades ago. "I wasn't aware of getting paid," he explained. "I just wanted to make music until I started realizing that instead of 10 people came to the gig at a buck a head, there was 200 people. Well, that's my money. They came to see [me]. They didn't come to see the walls.

"If you're gonna put a band together and get an amplifier and get guitar strings and get a van and get a trailer and pay for the gas and change the oil and get new tires, you gotta get paid to keep the boat afloat," Ted added. "That payment has dramatically been reduced, and I know guys that bust their ass that are incredible virtuosos, and they can barely pay the fee to keep that boat afloat because the compensation in the music-selling industry — the records, the CDs, whatever the... I don't even know what they are now; you can't keep up. Now we're selling a lot of my original vinyls. There's a new system called NugeVault, NugeVault.com, where we're getting all this archives, all these old recordings and outtakes and extra songs from the recording sessions of my 40 million albums sold, and people are buying these. So I'm still lucky that people dig into what makes Ted Nugent tick... It's called NugeVault.com, and it's a huge success because people wanna know what makes this maniac tick. And as soon as you figure it out, call me, would you?"

Nugent's self-titled debut album in 1975 was certified double platinum in the United States, while "Free-for-All", "Cat Scratch Fever", "Weekend Warriors" and "State Of Shock" all reached the Top 30 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Nugent has reportedly sold over 40 million albums and was named Detroit's greatest guitar player of all time by readers of MLive.

The conservative rocker, who been eligible for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as a solo artist since 2000, has enjoyed a remarkably successful and eventful musical career over the past five decades, but his music is increasingly overshadowed by his political outbursts.

Nugent's latest album, "Detroit Muscle", was released in April 2022 via Pavement Music. The follow-up to 2018's "The Music Made Me Do It" was recorded with Ted's then-touring band, which included bassist Greg Smith and drummer Jason Hartless.

Nugent has said a number of times that that his political views — which the rocker himself has proudly called "radical" — are one of the main reasons he hasn't been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Nugent has long been outspoken about his conservative beliefs, and he has repeatedly slammed GREEN DAY and RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello for their progressive politics.