Former Heloween guitarist Roland Grapow talked to Rock Mania about how music was in the 1980’s. Take a look:
“It’s a big difference. I remember when I joined Helloween, it was the end of the ’80s. That was the perfect time of sales, selling albums. A lot of people came to the shows. Everything changed drastically. Music business is really not so easy anymore.
I think only the big bands doing good business,like Metallica, the Helloween reunion, Iron Maiden, KISS, Scorpions, they all are doing great business, but many of the normal-level bands… it’s hard to say. They struggle. They struggle a lot. I think for young bands, it’s not easy anymore because everybody’s downloading and this kind of business. But you see a lot of young bands have the dream to make it. Some are doing it.
They’re not young anymore, but look at Sabaton or Amon Amarth, all these bands doing amazing business. They can survive. They have a lot of people coming to shows, like Nightwish. They’re not young, but they’re really big. There’s a lot of bands doing big business and many bands doing [not as well]. It’s hard for them to survive.
In the ’80s, every band was kind of good in the moment of sales. There was a lot of people who could live from the sales of the albums and merchandise and touring. Nowadays, there’s the big ones, like ten percent. The rest is like ‘Wow, this is not so easy.’”
