Author Marisa Williams conducted an interview with SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph, backstage at the Mayhem Festival at the DTE Energy Music Theatre in Michigan.
Speaking about how the music industry has changed since he first started playing drums professionally: “Well, firstly, when I started recording and touring, there was no Internet. Cell phones did notexist, pagers did not exist. So pretty much the only way you ever got in touch with anybody was by a landline. Over the years, music videos became popular, you had MTV, MTV changed, grunge came and went, rap has evolved, heavy metal has been here the whole time. Also, the advent of the Internet. Now that’s changed the music industry completely, because people are able to appropriate, download or get music for free, music from their favorite bands, which affects the income of everything. It’s changed the dynamic and the economics of the music industry and how it’s approached. And, you know, like, YouTube, people get discovered on YouTube. Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube…’
“People have immediate access to anything they want, they also have a very strong opinion now. When you say something in the press… For instance, Blabbermouth, or some of these web sites, they’ll take something you say out of context and make it controversial, take a portion of your interview, and then you see all these comments. So people actually have power now that they didn’t have, say, in 1990, that they can, with their opinions. They can voice their opinions. Some people are very educated in their opinions, some people are pretty brutal in their opinions… but that’s their opinion. So it definitely changes, It’s an interesting dynamic. I think your skin has to be thicker nowadays.
Watch entire interview below:
