As the release date of his new solo album is approaching, Toto’s Steve Lukather took some time to chat with Inside MusiCast and revealed that thanks to the advantageous deal they made with Spotify, the band earns high revenue from streaming.
The guitarist said the following:
“Spotify, I love. People hate Spotify, but I love Spotify. You know what? Because we negotiated a great new deal in terms of percentage eight or nine years ago. I first went to the management part, and we were trying to get our first album back to revision of everything from 1977. It was the 35-year-old or whatever.”
Elaborating more on their financial successes, he continued:
“A known major label is ever gonna give the rights back to a classic rock band still paying them, still making them Money. I talked to [David] Paich to make sure he gets the streaming royalties up. So I spoke to him about percentages that nobody gets anymore.
Because they didn’t know what it was. He looked and saw we had billions of streams. We are more successful quietly than people realize. And because we made the right deal, financially, we are getting a much percentage than a regular record.”
Contrary to what he said now, Lukather had criticized Spotify and the other streaming platforms in 2013 as a response to columnist Bob Lefsetz’s words supporting the platform. The musician expressed frustration about the lack of transparency in terms of how much artists actually earned from streaming services, saying:
“I just want to know something. All this pontificating about how Spotify and the like are the ‘answer’ and how ‘the artists get paid’ etc. How much? Really? Who keeps tabs and accounting? Maybe I just don’t know. I don’t see any money and have a lot of stuff out there over 35 years of making records.
Have you done the breakdown of what an artist gets per tune on iTunes? Pitiful. Now if you are with a label, it’s even worse cause they take a huge share of that. The breakdown, after all, is said and done for most; it’s pennies.”
You can listen to his recent interview below.
