Do you think it was possible to make a living off metal in the early-mid 2000's?

Ki$$ingthe$hadows

New Metal Member
Oct 10, 2017
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I think it's a known fact that it's always been very difficult to make money off of metal music, that is unless you're James Hetfield or Ozzy Osbourne. However, i also think it's fair to say that it's the worst it's ever been now. It's 2017 and metal is basically dead financially, and has been for at least a few years now. Of course there are still some great new bands that are coming out, but it's hard for some of these bands to stay together when they are making literally next to nothing off of tours and album sales. 10-15 years back, things were definitely much different. We had new bands coming out like disturbed, avenged sevenfold, system of a down etc. Though some people might not consider these bands metal, they fit the description. We kind of took mainstream metal for granted while it existed. Because today, it's just nowhere near as relevant. Aside from the mainstream metal bands back then, we still had several groove/death/black metal bands that were not on the radio, but still well known and quite relevant. Bands like Lamb of god, Gojira, Behemoth, Children of Bodom and others were getting far more recognition than any of the extreme metal bands that exist today, even the tightest and most talented artists that have been coming out. Things are definitely different now, which is very unfortunate.

With that being said, how much did those extreme metal bands of the early-mid 2000s really make? Do you think the members of Lamb of God made enough money to live comfortably? I'm not talking mansions and yachts, I'm talking like living in a nice respectable house and having money to take vacations, buy decent cars etc.

What about Children of Bodom? Gojira? Or any other highly recognized extreme metal bands from this era. Let's discuss this.

PS: By NO means am I saying that bands who make less money aren't as good as bands who make a lot of money. Obviously money is not an indicator of an artist's skill. Music should be made to touch people's lives, not to fill your pockets. If money is an artists only motive obviously their work won't have as much meaning or power to it. But we never want to see good bands fail. We don't want them to sell out but at the same time we want them to make enough money of their craft for them to live comfortably while they continue to make music. It sucks that in this day and age, that's not really possible for up and coming metal bands.
 
Maybe the popular metalcore bands would but I think most metal bands will have to have other jobs.
 
Good. People can get back to making great music for its own sake rather than as a means to pay the bills. Metal is alive now more than ever before in my opinion.