M. Shadows: Spotify is run by “career people”: “I’m sure they love music, but they don’t give a damn about bringing up new artists” Unlike traditional record label structures, which see the scouting and development of talent as a long-term endeavour, today’s music executives are less concerned with bringing up new artists and more interested in those who already have “heat”, according to Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows.
He says an increasing number of music industry professionals are “career people” who “see music as a career” and as a numbers game.

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In a new interview with Ryan J Downey of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), Shadows – real name Matt Sanders – explains that while once upon a time there were “old-school” record labels with A&R professionals interested in nurturing new artists, the industry has become “so numbers-driven”.
“As soon as you have these companies that go from private companies to public companies, and there’s shareholder meetings and things need to hit bottom lines and there’s money involved, you start getting ‘career’ people involved, because they see music as a career,” he explains.
“The same way you could go work at Facebook, Instagram or Warner Bros. – it doesn’t make a difference to you… You got out of college and you’re getting a career job. It doesn’t mean you’re a music lover.”
He goes on: “Same with Spotify… you go in there and these are career people. I’m sure they love music, but they don’t give a damn about bringing up a new artist or song structure, chords or all the things that artists love to do. They love to see if it’s got heat or not. And then they throw gasoline on the heat. Which is fine, but it really convolutes what the whole thing should be.
“It should be an expression, and you should be hoping for expressions from really creative people that make you think in a different way. And that’s what music and art [have] always done for me.”
But he says while music should chiefly be about making an impact on listeners through art, numeric figures for success remain at the forefront of many people’s minds.
“The longer you stay in this industry, the more you see that people are more concerned with the other thing: ‘What are my numbers? Is this gonna work?’ And then it’s all, like, well what’s working, let’s all do it.
“And you see that with the social media platforms, you see it with the labels, you see it with the way people write songs, songs are getting shorter. ‘Everyone’s songs are getting shorter, That’s a coincidence!’ No, it’s because people have shorter attention spans so they’re all trying to fit within a box. To me that’s not art. It’s chasing. It’s commerce.”

Last year, M. Shadows made clear his scepticism of modern-day record labels in a digital landscape where artists have more control than ever before.
“When Avenged Sevenfold were on Warner Bros., they were trying to figure out how to create a viral TikTok moment,” he recalled. “What? I’m a fucking 42-year-old man, I’m not trying to figure out how to do a viral TikTok moment. I’m sorry. You’re going to take 24 cents on our dollar and that’s all you can do, come up with a fucking fake viral TikTok moment?”
Avenged Sevenfold have a series of live dates planned in North and South America for the remainder of the year.
Visit avengedsevenfold.com/tour for more info.
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