Anthrax drummer says “Spotify is where music goes to die”, and that Metallica were right about Napster

Anthrax’s drummer Charlie Benante has spoken out against music platforms, arguing that they are where “music goes to die”. Benante, who also plays as part of Pantera’s touring band, feels that musicians get financially taken advantage of the most out of any industry. Though understanding of the fact that times change, Benante wishes the move to digital hadn’t been so drastically different compared to the days of physical mediums only.

Speaking to , he says, “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.



“We get taken advantage of the most out of any industry. As artists, we have no health coverage, we have nothing. They fucked us so bad, I don’t know how we come out of it.

You’d probably make more money selling lemonade on the corner.” Further in the interview, Benante also shares solidarity with Metallica, who famously took peer-to-peer file sharing site Napster to court back in 2000, and faced backlash from music fans who believed them to be greedy. The lawsuit became known as the first highly publicised case of an artist suing a P2P company, just as tides were turning in the industry and music was becoming available online, rather than just on CD.

“They were absolutely right about it,” says Benante. “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,” he states. As for the days when music was solely physical, Benante adds, “Those times were so important.

You open it up and you can smell it. You are listening to it as you are reading the liner notes and everything that band or artist put into that record. It was so valid and it is not valid any more.

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