In a new episode of Heavy Consequence’s ‘Two For The Road’ video series, Kerry King talked about some of the problems in the rock industry that most people don’t see.
“One bad thing that people may not know and why ticket prices are so high these days is because when the pandemic came around, all that sh*t exploded. Everything went up [in terms of cost] — buses went up and everything just plateaued,” King revealed. “And then when we started touring again, the buses and everything stayed expensive.”
“So, you can curse promoters and venues all you want, but it costs money to come around, unfortunately. And it’s not as cheap as it was five years ago, by far. So it’s cush, it’s comfortable, we’ll have a good time, but it’s all a means to what the poor fans have to pay at the end of the day,” he added.
The rising costs of shows, equipment, and many other things made keeping the prices reasonable harder for King. And apparently, Slayer-like stage shows are also included in these costs, since fire effects seem to be one of the most expensive things.
“Everything we do in Slayer costs a lot of money and fire being the most expensive, the biggest difference [is] we certainly can’t afford to be rolling with Pyro, although we have Pyro today ironically,” he said during an earlier interview with Heavy. “So yeah, a much bigger show, interchangeable backdrops, and sh*t burning on stage. We got a backdrop or two and like I said, today we have fire, but for the other two, we don’t. We’re just up there raging.”
Still, even with the expenses, King enjoys fire more than any other thing in his shows.
King and his solo band will start their first headlining North American tour in two days. Municipal Waste and Alien Weaponry will provide support. The tour begins on January 15 in San Francisco and will run until the end of February, wrapping up in King’s hometown of Los Angeles.
