Jack Gibson, bassist for long-running thrash metal band Exodus, who alongside Metallica are credited with the inception of the Bay Area thrash metal scene, doesn’t seem that enthusiastic about the future of the music business. In fact, his conception of the music business is that “there is no music business anymore.”
When asked on the latest episode of the Danielle Bloom podcast what advice he’d give to young musicians, a disheartened Gibson shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I don’t know what to tell young musicians today because I am jaded. And it isn’t that I’m just jaded, it’s that there’s no music business any more.”
“When I was young, there was a path, there were steps to take,” Gibson continued. “You got your band together, you put your music together, you started looking for shows, and if you could draw people to your shows, then the next step was that label people would be interested.
“Then you had to get your promotional pack together to give to the labels that were interested. And then you tried to get signed and then you tried to make records and sell records And those steps don’t exist at all any more.”
“Now the step is make a band, or not even make a band. Let’s just go viral. I don’t know how to do that. Don’t ask me how to f**king do that. I’m in my fifties. I don’t know how to do that shit. It’s totally a mystery to me,” he said, sounding utterly baffled.
When Bloom contended that the music business has changed and that it isn’t like it was 40 or 50 years ago, Gibson retorted, “There’s no business. Once they started giving the music away, there’s no business. We don’t sell shit for records. If we don’t go out and sell T-shirts, we don’t make money. I’m a T-shirt salesman. I’m not a musician.”
Gibson added that he thinks Artificial Intelligence, specifically AI’s ability to create music that people won’t be able to differentiate from man-made music in the future, will further exacerbate the downfall of the music industry.
“And any day now, we’re all gonna lose our jobs to these f**kin’ robots,” Gibson continued. “Once the AI figures out how to actually make music that people enjoy, they’re not gonna pay us to do shit.”
Gibson explained, “Like, who’s gonna pay somebody to write music for a movie? When one guy can just go [punch a few commands into a computer] and it comes out. And we’re not gonna know the fucking difference.”
Do you agree with how Exodus’ Jack Gibson says there is no ‘music business’ anymore? Do you think that Gibson hasn’t adapted to the changing times in terms of marketing one’s music or that he raises good points? Let us know in the comments.
