Time & Perspective Quote by Kenny Hickey

Hickey is arguing from the trenches of the mid-2000s music economy, when “exposure” started migrating from gatekeepers to file-sharing, but nobody knew whether that shift was salvation or slow bleed. The line has the texture of someone doing PR with their hands tied: the band is “at our level,” meaning not broke amateurs, not stadium royalty either, stuck in the tier where visibility is everything and leverage is nothing. Radio “completely turns their back on us” isn’t just a complaint; it’s a diagnosis of an old system built on scarcity. If you’re not on the playlist, you may as well not exist.

Then comes the strategic concession: “at the same time.” Hickey’s intent is pragmatic, not utopian. He’s not romanticizing piracy; he’s trying to convert an economic threat into a promotional tool. MP3s “help promote us somewhat” is deliberately hedged language, the kind you use when you know the label’s watching but the audience is already trading the songs. The subtext: we can’t win on traditional marketing spend, so we need circulation, even if it’s messy. “Spreading the word” frames listening as word-of-mouth social capital rather than a transaction.

Context matters: Hickey, as Type O Negative’s guitarist, speaks from a band with a devoted cult base but limited mainstream radio friendliness. His phrasing reveals a transitional era when artists were forced to treat distribution itself as advertising, and when “promotion” quietly became the listener’s job. The quote works because it captures that uncomfortable compromise: resenting the gatekeepers while half-thanking the leaks.