Charlie Benante shares his point of view about Spotify and music streaming

Charlie Benante, the drummer for Anthrax and Pantera, isn’t particularly fond of Spotify. Benante claimed that Spotify is where “music goes to die” in an interview with The Irish Times, and that the only reason he posts anything there is because he essentially has to.

There is no music industry. That’s what has changed. There is nothing any more. There are people listening to music, but they are not listening to music the way music was once listened to. It’s a different time now. Here’s a strange thing. While I have seen people eating a little bit more healthy here and there, the industry of music was one of things hit the worst and nobody did anything about it. They just let it happen. There was no protection, no nothing. Subconsciously this may be the reason why we don’t make records every three years or whatever because I don’t want to give it away for free. I take music very seriously and what I do and what I write is very personal and, for someone to take it is not right. It is like I pay Amazon $12.99 a month and I can just go on Amazon and I can get whatever I want. It is basically stealing. It is stealing from the artist — the people who run music streaming sites like Spotify. I don’t subscribe to Spotify. I think it is where music goes to die. We have the music on there because we have to play along with the fucking game, but I’m tired of playing the game.

Musicians like Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold have all publicly criticized Spotify, so hate speech against the service is nothing new. Benante also adopted the increasingly common position that Lars Ulrich, the drummer for Metallica, was correct to sue Napster in 2000 for music piracy.

They were absolutely right about it. You see where it went. All those people who said, ‘Fuck Metallica. They are rich bastards’. They were protecting their art, their intellectual property so that some asshole does not come along and take your art. They make the money while you just make the art and you just give it away. People don’t know anything about this. Until you have lived the way we live and do what we have done, then you can comment on it.