Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen came up in the days where musicians could live off the revenue of putting out a popular record. In a recent interview with Modern Drummer (prior to Eddie Van Halen's death), Alex lamented how difficult it is to make money in the industry. Putting it simply, Alex said there's just nothing left in the music business.
“There’s nothing left in the music business,” he said. “It’s a bunch of ones and zeroes. In the old days you’d get a dollar a record, and now you get 50 cents for 275,000 streams. It’s insane. It’s wrong. Now the only thing you have is playing live, which is ironic, because that’s how it all started.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Alex talked about how he felt being in close quarters with his bandmates was helpful to how Van Halen functioned.
“Leonardo da Vinci said, ‘Large rooms distract the mind; small rooms focus the mind’,” he quoted. “When you’re all tight in close quarters, it focuses your energies and you learn how to deal with issues and problems. If you’re in a large space, you never even have to say ‘hello’ to the other guys. What’s that all about?"
“I’d rather have someone wake up in the morning and say, ‘Hey, fuck you!’ as opposed to not saying anything at all. I’m serious. Give me some emotion! That’s what this is about. Music is a celebration of being human. With the drums at the forefront!”
Pick up the latest issue of Modern Drummer here.
