Exodus Bassist Jack Gibson is Pessimistic About the Music Industry: “I’m a T-shirt Salesman. I’m Not a Musician.”

A lot of things have changed in the music industry since Exodus started out as a band in 1979, or even since bassist Jack Gibson joined the band in 1997. Back then, the music industry was driven by sales of records. Today, most music is available on streaming services like Spotify and the business model has largely shifted to moving traffic on streaming with physical releases relegated to a secondary market. Concert ticket and merch revenue is more important than ever now that physical albums aren’t as big of a part of the market. So Gibson has a bit of a good reason to say he doesn’t know what to say to young musicians coming up in the modern music market since he came up in a very different environment.

In a recent interview with The Danielle Bloom Podcast (which was transcribed by Blabbermouth), Gibson was asked about the advice he would give to young musicians starting out as well as what advice he would give to jaded older musicians. This apparently opened a whole can of worms, because Gibson went off on one of the most pessimistic (if largely accurate) rants about the current state of the music industry that you’ll ever hear:

“When I was young, there was a path, there were steps to take. 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 anymore. Now the step is make a band — or not even make a band. Let’s just go viral. I don’t know to do that. Don’t ask me how to fucking do that. I’m in my fifties. I don’t know how to do that shit. It’s totally a mystery to me. I don’t know how things get popular now, other than just total luck. So I don’t know.

“Here in Nashville [where I live now], young musicians, they ask me that all the time. I kind of feel like a dick when I’m answering, because I’m, like, ‘Guys, I don’t know.’ I don’t know what makes things tick. The bands that are real popular, I don’t know why those bands are popular. And I’m not saying that they’re not good; I just don’t know why those ones are the ones that stand out from the other ones right now. It all kind of sounds the same to me. I guess it’s probably because I’m just old. But I don’t know what direction to give anybody.”

That’s fair to say that Gibson doesn’t understand how things become popular today. He has experience in making things that became popular (at least to a certain type of person) in a very different era. As the interviewer pointed out that yes, this is a different world, Gibson agreed and continued:

“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. I’m literally a traveling tchotchke seller. That’s what we do. We play music to try to get people to the store and sell them our fuckin’ stuff with stuff printed on it. That’s the business. If you can’t fill up a room, 50,000 units moved on the Internet, then they don’t wanna talk to you. And any day now, we’re all gonna lose our jobs to these fuckin’ robots. Once the A.I. figures out how to actually make music that people enjoy, they’re not gonna pay us to do shit.”

That’s a pretty angry, pessimistic, and frankly hilariously jaded take on the music industry, or at least the heavy metal music industry. In terms of the business, that’s pretty accurate. Hawking merch becomes more and more important, and that’s understandably distasteful to someone who wants to be focused on making music. As the interviewer suggested that people will always want humans to perform live music, Gibson responded:

“Well, that’s true. But at this point in time, most of the music business isn’t that; most of it is licensing and commercial jingles and music editing and music recording. All that’s gonna just disappear. There’s gonna be 50 people out there who make music that people are interested in that can’t be reproduced. And then the rest of it… Like, who’s gonna pay somebody to write music for a movie? Or pay an orchestra, pay 60 people to come in and perform it 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. Things are changing so fast that I don’t really know what to say.”

Well, that’s certainly a dark, Black Mirror-esque view of a terrifying future. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but whichever one I’m going to do, I’ll be drinking at the same time.

If you want to catch traveling t-shirt salesman Jack Gibson and his band Exodus on tour, here’s their dates for the rest of the year:

7/26 – Chaniá, Greece – Chania Rock Festival 2024
7/27 – Tolmin, Slovenia – Tolminator 2024
7/29 – Munich, Germany – Free & Easy Festival 2024
7/30 – Hannover, Germany – Musikzentrum Hannover
7/31 – Hamburg, Germany – Knust
8/1 – Dortmund, Germany – Junkyard
8/2 – Cham, Germany – L.A. Live Style Cafe
8/3 – Bratislava I, Slovakia – Majestic Music Club
8/4 – Braşov, Romania – Rockstadt Extreme Fest 2024
8/6 – Budapest, Hungary – Barba Negra
8/7 – Jaroměř, Czech Republic – Brutal Assault 2024
8/8 – Warsaw, Poland – Progresja
8/9 – Kotka, Finland – Dark River Festival 2024
8/10 – Büdesheim, Germany – Krawall’O Rock 2024
8/11-  Kortrijk, Belgium – Alcatraz Festival 2024
8/12 – London, United Kingdom – O2 Academy Islington
8/13 – Leiden, Netherlands – Nobel
8/14 – Leipzig/engelsdorf, Germany – Hellraiser-Leipzig
8/15 – Dinkelsbühl, Germany – Summer Breeze Open Air 2024
8/16 – Vallamand, Switzerland – Rock The Lakes 2024
8/17 – Carhaix-plouguer, France – Motocultor Festival 2024
8/19 – Provincia Di Brescia, Italy – Festa di Radio Onda d’Urto 2024

11/02 Tampa, FL – The Orpheum
11/04 Orlando, FL – House of Blues
11/05 Pensacola, FL – Vinyl Music Hall
11/06 Atlanta, GA – Heaven – Masquerade
11/08 Dallas, TX – Granada
11/09 Austin, TX – Empire
11/11 Denver, CO – Ogden
11/13 Des Moines, IA – Wooly’s
11/14 Joliet, IL – The Forge
11/15 Columbus, OH – King of Clubs
11/16 Baltimore, MD – Soundstage
11/17 Bethlehem, PA – Wind Creek Event Center
11/18 Montreal, QC – Beanfield Theatre
11/19 Toronto, ON – Phoenix Concert Theatre
11/21 Worcester, MA – Palladium Upstairs
11/22 Brooklyn, NY – Warsaw
11/23 Pittsburgh, PA – Preserving
11/24 Detroit, MI – Majestic Theatre
11/26 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater
11/27 Winnipeg, MB – Exchange Event Centre
11/29 Calgary, AB – Palace Theatre
11/30 Edmonton, AB – Union Hall
12/2 Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw Theatre
12/3 Seattle, WA – El Corazon
12/4 Portland, OR – Hawthorne
12/6 Berkeley, CA – UC Theatre
12/7 Los Angeles, CA – The Regent