Otep frontwoman Otep Shamaya recently informed Noisecreep as to why she plans for the groups latest album “Hydra” to be its last. It would appear that music piracy has played a large role in her decision. Speaking to the site, she offered:
“Music’s been great for me and given me a wonderful life. The climate has changed in music. The way the industry has responded to pirating. The way it has sort of become part of our culture now. People say ‘Pirating is here to stay.’ Sure it is and I understand it. I understand it too when artists decide that they need to do something else. I’ve spent my whole life wanting to be a working artist. I didn’t want it to be a hobby. This is what I wanted to do full time.
People complain some artists leave the genre so they can sell more records. It’s just about surviving. I wanted to become a professional, working, living artist. It’s hard to devote a decade of your life to something. Before Hydra even came out, it was on YouTube because someone who had an advanced copy leaked it because they felt like being an asshole. We crafted in the studio 18 hours a day for 16 weeks only to see it end up on YouTube for free.
We don’t make money off YouTube. People say ‘We come to your shows. We buy your merch.’ I’m very grateful of that. But you’re supporting the tour then. You’re supporting fuel, transportation and food and salaries for the crew. t’s like a traveling circus.
Tickets and all that pay for the tour and manufacturing of the merch. These are real live things. They don’t just materialize themselves into place. It’s a business, you have to run it. If people are constantly stealing from you, there’s no way to compete against pop bands or rap bands or country and western bands. Their fans still buy records.”
“When you are trying to create music, be an artist and live life, it’s difficult when you’ve got so many things against you, including your own supporters. So when I’m fighting against these things and people want me to speak out and endorse me, I have an instinct to do it, to want to fight injustice.
You have this practice of pirating music. And people say ‘Well, isn’t it supposed to be about the music and not the money?’ I’m not asking people to surrender their life savings. I’m just asking to pay for what you want to hear. That’s not for my sake, it’s for the industry itself.
You have producers, technicians, people who have great skill and artistic ability who have devoted themselves to music only to see the industry cannibalize itself. So they have to get jobs doing something else.
And you have fans complaining that large retail chains don’t carry aggressive music. They don’t carry metal, underground music, but they’ll carry Justin Bieber or rap music with ‘dangerous’ lyrics and all those things.
It’s not a cultural thing. It’s about money. These large retail chains don’t care what you say as long as it sells. That’s the bottom line. I understand the economy and people are hurting. We’ve tried very diligently to work with retail chains that do still carry our music to give us low pricing.
It’s hard to see what you love dissolve in front of you. I don’t want to become resentful of something that has been so good to me. And I don’t want to become resentful of something I care so deeply about.”
She went on to tell the site that she may come back to music at a later date; but for now she wants to devote her time and energy to other interests. Despite the implied finality of the above, Otep do plan to tour in support of “Hydra” for at least the immediate future.
