Corey Taylor on Music Streaming Pitfalls: ‘There’s a Reason’ Tool Waited So Long
Slipknot singer Corey Taylor spoke out about the perils surrounding music streaming for artists in a recent interview with Rock Feed. Highlighting the royalty pay disparity in radio play versus on-demand media, he indicated "there's a reason" Tool waited until this month to allow their music to be consumed via streaming outlets.
"We don't have a problem with streaming," the musician clarified of Slipknot's outlook. "We don't have a problem with people listening to our music. What we have a problem with is these streaming services basically treating it like we owe them." Watch the complete interview down toward the bottom of the page.
Asked what artists could do to spur more appropriate streaming payouts for music creators, the Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman covered some basics of the ongoing art-against-commerce conflict.
"I'll tell you what they can do," Taylor replied. "They can start by all of them banding together and pushing the streaming services to stop appealing the legislation that's already been put in place to pay us better, you know? There's a reason that Tool waited as long as they did to put the stuff up on streaming services. Because they knew they weren't gonna be compensated for something that they worked their asses off for."
Other big names in rock have previously stood up to streaming giants. In May, KISS' Paul Stanley called streaming "unfair to the musicians." Last year, Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher foreshadowed a disappearing artist class driven by streamings' biased payment premise. However, speaking to Rock Feed last week, Taylor also tacitly admitted that most groups aren't in the enviable position of a legacy outfit such as Tool.
The Slipknot singer continued, "To me, it smells of two things with Tool. A, it's perfect timing because they have a new album coming out; and B, they probably worked out a deal with their label to make sure that they got a piece of the money that the label's automatically going to get because of the money that's being generated from streaming."
Getting down to brass tacks, the musician outlined the main difference in how artists are paid when their song plays on the radio, versus the residuals they receive when that same song is streamed.
"That's what people don't understand," Taylor added. "The difference between streaming and radio is you make money off radio because of the publishing that's involved. With streaming, there really is no publishing that is promised. That money goes directly to … the label. So the label is making huge amounts of money. And they are not contractually bound to pay us for that."
Slipknot's sixth album We Are Not Your Kind came out earlier this month. The band are currently rocking the States on the Knotfest Roadshow before they head Down Under with Metallica. Get tickets here.
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